A recognition of the right to access the internet seems to be gathering momentum in European countries, with the European Parliament announcing it will give consumers more rights.
Specifically, they would get new rights to switch cell phone or fixed line operators within one working day and to challenge disconnections, even if they are illegally sharing copyright-protected movies or music.
But the EU hasn’t gone as far as the Finns or the Spanish. As the article says:
Internet users still won’t have an automatic right to Internet access — as some EU lawmakers had originally intended. The European Parliament dropped that guarantee because of concerns it could hinder French and British efforts to cut off Internet access to persistent file sharers.
Nice to see consumer rights being put out there.
I really don’t get the disconnect provisions. Next thing you know, someone who commits slander over the phone will lose their telephone service. Someone who kites a checque won’t be able to apply for a mortgage or any other bank service.
While we’re at it, those computers were powered by electricity; why not cut that off too? Those electrons should not have been used in that way.
Where do you stop?
A recognition of the right to access the internet
Put like that, it sounds suspiciously like ‘free internet for all’. yech
check/cheque
LOL
What a joke!,rights?,give us one and take a dozen?.People are truly asleep and brainwashed by media propoganda.Copenhagen is a fraud to install a global government and world taxes based on the now exposed lie of AGW.The news ignores CLIMATEGATE as if it didn’t happen and so do our polititions.The Australians have woken up in the nick of time but we are still asleep.Carbon is essential to all life on earth,it is not a pollutant!!.
@StephenR “Put like that, it sounds suspiciously like ‘free internet for all’. yech”
Having a right to something doesn’t mean getting it for free but rather that you have the option. If you check out the ‘Spanish’ link above Clare says “Should those rights include broadband access? Of a certain quality? Of course we’d have to pay, just as we do for those other services, but its the right to have them available that is the issue.”
[...] Clare Curran blogs on the European Parliament giving phone and Internet users more rights. Back home we wait to see if the Government will proceed with a law that allows termination of Internet access for copyright infringement. [...]
@Rob “Copenhagen is a fraud to install a global government and world taxes …”
Will it be run by the Jews and the Freemasons? Are they run by the Reptoids? What a silly accusation.
Climategate was a misunderstanding by climate change deniers about the nature of statistics – furthermore it has nothing to do with internet.
I myself welcome the idea that internet access in an inalienable right and it should be free.
What about all the leaked emails?
The leaked emails are full of statistical jargon (I don’t think it’s actually proper jargon at all, but it’s commonly used lingo) that sound bad when picked out of context by people who don’t understand about tools for interpreting data.
Yeah well I’ve gone from a climate change believer to an angry fence sitter.
@Spud Don’t you think the timing of the “leaked emails” tells you something about the intention of the climate change deniers to cast doubt and obsfuscate?(sp)
Either we’re going to do something about the state of our planet or we’re not. Get off the fence spud, it’s an uncomfortable place to be. Go join the deniers and see how it feels.
Oh and this thread has been diverted. So if you want to talk mroe about climate change go and do it on a climate change post. Grant has just posted on John Key finally deciding to go to Copenhagen (derrrhhh did he not realise how important it was)
http://blog.labour.org.nz/index.php/2009/12/03/key-to-go-to-copenhagen/
This post was about the rights to quality internet access and the moves around the world to recognise this. So can we talk about that?
I refuse to get off the fence. I don’t care about the timing of the emails, the emails are real. I’m not a denier so it wouldn’t be honest of me to say that I don’t believe in climate change, but I can no longer say that I definitely believe in it now either. So I’m going to join the branch of the unsure people.
I do believe in taking care of the environment for the sake of having a clean planet with plenty of resources that hasn’t changed.
25 years from now will there be local ISPs or will we find a way to use the Earth’s magnetic field to serve as our wireless network medium?
Check out wireless electricity:
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/TECH/09/02/wireless.electricity/index.html
Tesla was onto this over 100 years ago.
I find it interesting that the European Government is considering internet access to be a right. I am not saying it is, or isn’t, to be honest, I don’t really have an opinion as of yet on that particular matter.
However, I believe the principal that they are exercising in this is a very good one, one that our country should potentially adopt.. although I am stuggling to think of a case where they havn’t.
The principal I am referring to is the principal of rights= function, by the way I have just made that term up in an attempt to describe my thoughts. Basically they are saying we believe this is a right… so we will exercise that right by providing our citizens with it.
@Andrew – it looks pretty exciting, but I’m concerned that there may be some unforeseen health consequences of this.