Make the Internet Neutral Again (33c3)

33C3 preroll music

Herald: “On the internet
you decide what you do, right?”

This is a question that I found on
your website RespectMyNet.eu.

And well, I don’t know what you
think, it sounds quite plausible.

But the answer that they give is:
“Maybe not!” So, who that is,

who actually decides what
you do on the internet and

what consequences that has,
and what you can do against that –

these two men will tell you now.
They are Thomas Lohninger

who fought against data retention
in Austria – and successfully –

and he has been very active
in that politics ever since.

He is here with Christopher Talib,
Campaign Manager for LaQuadratureDeNet,

the French NGO fighting
for civil rights. Welcome!

Together they say: Make
the Internet neutral again!

Please give them
a warm applause!

applause

Thomas Lohninger: Thanks, everyone!
Is the microphone working? Yeah, great.

So, first I have to say
something for that title,

if the slides could come up?…

Okay, we don’t have slides so far.
Christopher Talib: Yes we do!

Lohninger: So. “Make the internet neutral
again”. When we decided to have this title

for our talk this was of course
before Donald Trump became elected.

Most of our talk will be about how to
enforce net neutrality, how to really

keep the internet free and open. But
of course we also have to talk about

what will happen in the US. We both worked
on the savetheinternet.eu campaign.

This common effort of various NGOs
around Europe started three years ago

when the Commission proposed a very
disastrous law on net neutrality

that would basically abandon the
principle. And we followed this law

throughout the legislative process on
all stages, and then even through,

with the regulatory implementation.
And this…

you can all see on savetheinternet.eu
there’s now an archive page. Because…

let’s talk a little bit more about this
campaign. What is unique here is

that we really open-sourced every line of
code that we wrote for this campaign.

Including the tools that we used
for contacting your representatives,

the Members of the European Parliament
as well as the regulatory agencies.

And here you see the traffic graph because
we also have visitor statistics from Piwik

throughout these three years. And there
you can see that we had huge success

from various players around Europe.
From the Netherlands, from… a huge

shoutout to the Reddit community, they
were awesome! And also change.org,

netzpolitik.org, and Alexander
Lehmann helped us a lot.

As well as Firefox which ran a snippet
for savetheinternet in the last parts

of the campaign. And in the final stages
of this fight for net neutrality in Europe

we really brought the protests to the
streets. There were demonstrations

in Barcelona, Riga, Bonn, Brussels
and Vienna. And this was really

a group effort. At the end this coalition
grew more and more, and we had 23 NGOs

from 14 countries that joined us
in this. And, ultimatively, we

achieved almost half a million submissions
to BEREC, the “Body of European Regulators

for Electronic Communications”. And this
is really a historic number. Because

all previous consultations of the regulators
in Europe had a maximum of around

100 comments. So, no, in all that process
they had so much public interest

and engagement. And this really changed
the landscape within the regulators

because suddenly they were observed by the
public, and before that they were basically

hiding behind some processes, and
not really having to engage with

their own constituency. If you look at
the submissions by country you can see

that Germany has the largest share.
This is of course because the debate

here in Germany is a little bit
more nuanced and widespread

than in other countries. But still we also
had the UK and France, and Spain and Italy

that contributed a lot through this
campaign. But I also, being an Austrian,

want to point out that a few small
countries disproportionately contributed

with submissions. Austria, Sweden, Denmark
and Belgium really kicked ass, and that’s

probably because they had very good NGOs
that, although most of them only run

with volunteers could really mobilize in
their local language to get the word out,

and get people engaged for net neutrality.
So. We now have this law.

And we also have the regulatory
implementation. So what does it

actually say? What type of net neutrality
do we have now in Europe

for half a Billion people?
It is no longer possible to just

block or censor content based on
commercial reasons. So you can

no longer prohibit users the use of
VOIP, or messaging, or file sharing

in the Terms of Services. There can still
be blocking for legal reasons. If you have

a law, if you have a Court order. But an
ISP can not arbitrarily start blocking

parts of the internet. This is clearly
prohibited. We have a new right.

We have a ‘device freedom’ now. That means
that you can connect any type of device

to your internet connection. And your ISP
can no longer charge you e.g. for using

your phones internet on your laptop,
tethering. That’s really cleared (?) and

absolutely clear. Also on “specialized
services”, I’m particularly happy

that we reached this result because this
was maybe 60% of the whole debate

in the European Parliament and throughout
the legislative process: what should we do

with “specialized services”? And
originally, they were intended to be

the loophole for net neutrality, to
circumvent the whole net neutrality

by just making some service
a specialized service. But now we really

limited this danger to something that is
handleable, and now a specialized service

can only be something which could
technically not work over the open internet.

And you can see this clear here, I mean,
that’s a picture from the video

that Facebook shows you when you have
your birthday. And I found this so telling,

because this power plug with a Facebook
sign is exactly what a specialized service

in the bad reading would be. It is
no longer a universal connection

that allows you to use every device
with this network. Instead, it’s just

for one service. And if we go down that
road we lose the universal character

of the internet which allows us to do
everything with it. Every invention,

every idea on equal footing.
With this model it is one Facebook plug,

one Google plug and so forth. Another
important issue that is still ongoing,

and not as clear as the previous ones is
Zero-Rating. Zero-Rating is the practice

of exempting certain services from
your data cap. So you have your 2 GB

but Whatsapp does not count towards
those 2 GB. The new rules say

this has to be handled on a case-by-case
basis. So it’s quite dubious to see

how this will play out. We have a few
rulings now, from Austria, Sweden

and one from Hungary.
But this is really an ongoing process.

What is clear is that you can not technically
discriminate stuff with Zero-Rating.

So you cannot, say, after you used up
your data cap and the rest of the internet

is blocked, you can still use the zero-rated
application. This is clearly prohibited.

But about the Zero-Rating itself
– it’s an ongoing process.

Traffic Management – the last issue –
is the day-by-day operations of a network.

So what do you do when you have a
congestion, when there is too much traffic

and the pipe is not big enough, how do you
handle these? And we have a principle

that says Traffic Management has to be
application-agnostic, so everything

has to be treated the same,
but you can have exceptions,

for class-based traffic management, based
on Quality-of-Service characteristics.

But the burden of proof here lies with
the ISPs. If the ISP wants to manage

their traffic they have to really have
a justification why this is necessary

and in line with the new law. And
we will closely monitor how ISPs

make this transparent and how NRAs
will handle this. We’re not really happy

about the result on this one,
but it’s still a workable text.

And now I’m gonna
hand over to my colleague.

Christopher: Thank you Thomas.
You hear me well? Okay.

Basically, RespectMyNet is
a grassroot tool we use for campaigning

for net neutrality. It was built to try
to see what kind of infraction

and violation you could see on net
neutrality. It’s an old tool, it has already

a few years. We rebooted it
for the last campaign for the BEREC

that Thomas told you about. And, basically,
what it does… what we will use it now

is to try to see how ISPs and operators
are going to implement net neutrality

regulation in Europe. So, you know
what we have it’s a law, we have,

as Thomas could say, different concepts
that allows good things and also

bad things. However, the question is that,
to know how those things are going to be

implemented. So what it is now: We’d
like to crowdsource the search

for net neutrality violation.
Basically, this tool allows you to input

and to see if there are net neutrality
violations, or in your country,

or by your operator.

It could have crowdsourced documents
of all types of net neutrality violation

in Europe. And also it could be… we have
a “Me, too!” button that allows you to say

if you experienced this as well. And
so you don’t feel alone in front of your

internet connection, having problems
and wondering if this is your connection,

or if this is a contract-based or general
complication from the operator.

You could see that if other
people already have it.

But crowdsourcing most of the net
neutrality violations is not enough.

What we’ll do if all those violations,
when you just say: “Ah, they’re doing

bad stuff, well.” As you say in
French: “That makes a good leg.”

But yeah, that joke, that cannot
be translated, really. laughs

Basically, we will be using that to fix
those violations. And to arouse people

to actually see… that’s… pinpointing
and to notice all types of violations

that allows you to fix them. When
the BEREC will review the regulation

on net neutrality, and he will do that,
periodically. We can go and arrive

with huge documents, saying, there are
problems here.. here.. here and there.

So, I’m already skipping in front, of my
clicking ‘Next Slide’. And it’s a huge

documentation, and in our activist world
of internet where everything is very,

very quick, and we are very quick on
new information, it's hugely important

to have good documentation and to
remember what happened before, and

so it does not happen again. Especially on
net neutrality, as this campaign has been

ongoing for several years now.
The second thing that’s interesting

for that type of tools is to allow telecom
regulators to be accountable. So e.g.

French National Regulation Agency really
likes this tool because they can see

what private companies are doing more or
less behind their back. To give an example:

Belgium Telecom operators, e.g. Belgacom
or Proximus waited for the publication

of the net neutrality regulation. And when
they saw that Zero-Rating was more-or-less

accepted but only will be blocked
on a case-by-case decision

they published and they issued a lot of new
contracts on subscription with Zero-Rating.

So e.g. you have that one also in Germany,
if I recall well, that you can use

your data caps on your mobile device
until a certain amount. But when you

reach that amount everything is down-speed
except Whatsapp. And that’s seen

as a net neutrality violation. And
that’s a really good example of

what Zero-Rating is. And that actually
should be illegal. And that’s why we have

RespectMyNet. It’s fairly easy to use and
very low cost of time because when you see

what issues you have on your computer
and you can check it out if you have

a violation. Usually you can see that
already in your contract. And that’s why

we created a fairly easy form.

As you could understand this is a very
complicated issue and that involves

a lot of different elements, especially
when there are elements from law,

there are elements from telecom regulation…
But we try to make it as simple as possible.

And so you can see the different points
on country, type of operator, the contract

you have, is it a fixed or mobile line you
have, and also the type of discrimination

you can see. Here you have just Zero-Rating
because that would be the biggest type

of discrimination we will experience in
the next years. However, you still have

throttling, class-based,
contract-based etc.

When you input that kind of
discrimination on RespectMyNet.eu,

behind the scene on the backstage we have
a team that will review cases, and to see

if there is enough information to use that
as a good case. E.g. if you just tell us:

“My internet is slow”, that is not enough.
That’s why we try to make enough questions,

enough place for you to describe, to give
as much information as you could

to develop that. And that have to return
on the web page. And after that

we gathered all that information which is
no personal identification information,

that were just identification on the type
of cases. RespectMyNet.eu is a tool that

has been ongoing development because
we’re trying to use it for something

that it has not been programmed for. And
now we’re using it (?) to be fixed. E.g.

to have a fixed type of sign flag,

let’s say, on that it is searching
a violation. We are going to develop

linguistic admin groups because e.g.
I don’t speak German, and when you have

an input from a German speaking
it’s difficult to understand what it is.

Especially when it’s linked to the contract.
And we’re trying to develop visualization

of cases, so if you are a graphic designer
or data visualizator, Affissionador (?) you’re

welcome to help us. Basically,
RespectMyNet, as everything most of us do

it’s free like in Free Speech and
like in free beer. It’s easy to use,

it’s crowd-sourced database. So if you
like databases come play with us

and really get involved with that because
there is a tremendous amount of work

on a subject that does not involve
terrorism which lately very scares.

We have everything of the information on
our Git lab. You have the address here

at git.laquadrature.net. You’ll have,
anyway, that on the front page

and you have information on our wiki,
it’s wiki.laquadrature.net. Now, we’ll

speak now on the future thing,
and I’ll let… this thing.. to Thomas.

Thomas: Thank you Chris. So, how can we
use this tool? How can we use RespectMyNet

because we now enter a stage
on net neutrality as well as with

the new general data protection regulation
in Europe where we have quite good laws

but now we have to deliver them to the
people. Because it’s now of much value

if you have privacy in principle but your
data actually is in the hands of someone else.

And the same with net neutrality:
it doesn’t matter if you are not allowed

to block services when, in fact, your
internet is restricted by your ISP.

And what we will do, particularly as
epicenter.works is our organization

we have the high priority to really work
on delivering net neutrality to the people.

There is this concept of strategic litigation
which is well in place in the U.S.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)
as well as the Electronic Frontier Foundation

pick their cases really litigate for
fundamental rights in a strategic way.

And we want to apply these concepts now to
net neutrality. And we’ve already done that

in one case. We looked at the violation of
an Austrian mobile operator, 3/Hutchinson

and dated exactly this type of Zero-Rating
that I explained earlier as clearly prohibited

where you have this one graph [curve],
which is the violet one, which is

the public broadcaster in Austria,
and when you reach the data cap,

the 2130 seconds, it goes down to
a flat line. But free mobile TV service,

their in-house television service,
continues to run without interference.

So that’s a classical technical
discrimination between applications

which is clearly prohibited. We submitted
a case, it was successful, they cancelled

this type of violation for all new
contracts and they changed the landscape

of all their contracts. Because they could
no longer give their own services

a competitive advantage, they
quadrupled up to 17 times the amount

of volume that you can buy with this operator.
And this is not a singular phenomenon.

We have similar cases in the Netherlands
as well as with Slovenia. Once an ISP

is no longer allowed to give preferential
treatment to their own service

they start giving more volume to all
their subscribers which is, of course,

a really good thing. But, as I said,
Zero-Rating is one of the biggest problems

that we have and if you want to put it in
numbers: ca. 40% of all internet providers

in Europe currently zero-rate at least
one application. So this is really

an endemic problem that you can find
in almost every network and country,

and so we really have to do something
about it. Because there are drastic scenarios

that are in front of us. Mark Suckerberg
announced two times already that he wants

to bring his walled garden, called ‘Free
Basic’, previously ‘internet.org’,

also to Europe. He recently also announced
that he wants to bring Free Basic

to the U.S. and in the U.S. we
have quite a hard time ahead.

Donald Trump is not really a fan of net
neutrality, from the few comments that

we could analyze so far. And if you look
at the three people that he appointed

to his Transition Team for the regulator,
the FCC in the U.S., there is

a quite horrible outlook. Jeffrey Eisenach
as well as Mark Jamison and Roslyn Layton

are hardcore telecom lobbyists. And you
can really get a picture of what’s coming

in the U.S. if you look at the paper
“Beyond net neutrality” from Mark Jamison

and Roslyn Layton from June of this year.
What they propose here is to basically

replace all net neutrality rules with
a multi stakeholder concept.

But they have a very unique interpretation
of what ‘multi stakeholder’ means.

They only limit this multi stakeholder
group to the 20 biggest industry players.

They explicitly say: “No civil society, no
consumer protection, no scientists”.

So it’s basically the industry making their
own rules. They also propose new barriers

for every type of ex-ante regulation
of the FCC. So that’s basically

putting net neutrality in the bin
in the U.S. which would also risk

their competitive advantage that the U.S.
has right now as the power house

of all startup innovation. If this really
comes through then only the startups

that partner up with existing monopolies
have a chance to compete.

In Europe we also have a quite
worrying proposal. Part of the legacy

of Guenther Oettinger. He proposed in
September of this year a new regulation

for BEREC. Who here knows what BEREC is?
Hands up!

Oh! Actually quite a few, that’s good.
BEREC is the umbrella above the European

regulators for the internet. And it’s an
agency that has done quite a good job

on various occasions. They are voice of
reason, they have quite a good model

to really incorporate different views and
what the Commission is proposing

with this new law is basically replacing
this agency, making it into an independent

legal personality, and having that complete
control on all levels from the Commission.

So in this law you can find the Commission
writing itself into this independent agency

on many, many occasions. And
the most obscure outcome of this is

the Executive Director as well as the
quite powerful Board of Appeals

they will be chosen by regulators, but only
from a list precompiled by the European

Commission. And that’s quite
a communistic tradition of democracy.

And we have to follow this dossier
closely. It is now entering

the legislative process in the EU and if
this would go through as it was proposed

this would basically mean that the agencies
in task of enforcing net neutrality

are under complete power grab of the
European Commission which has proven,

times and times again, that it is
mostly interested in industry policy

but not really in the citizen’s interest.

For all of that we need you to put
the violations that you come across

in your daily internet experience into
RespectMyNet.eu as well as write to

[e-mail] because we
are also very interested in learning

about the violations that are out there.
And about really finding partners

in various countries before we can submit
cases to the regulators in that country

and really keep the internet free
and open. You can put it like that:

with this new net neutrality law we
now have a tool box to really keep

the internet open. And with RespectMyNet
we have a crowd-sourced todo list

of all the violations that we have to get
rid of. Thanks for your attention!

And as a last word: we were previously THIS
organization, now we are THIS organization,

we changed our name. Thanks!

applause

Herald: I think we have time for a few
more questions. So please step up

to the microphones if you have
one and I’ll call your number.

Nobody so far, is there
a question from the internet?

Also not. So you answered all open
questions exhaustively. That is great.

Christopher: No, there’s a question there…
Herald: There is a question?

Oh, up there! Well then, number 5.
Please, go ahead!

Question: Hi, my question as an IT guy is:

do you think about automating the
process to file these complaints?

So, I’m thinking about people who run
out [of] their quota per month and,

say, can easily start an app which checks
about 50 different services to see

which service is performing good,
and which not, and automatically

do a complaint on your side?
Something like that?

Christopher: If I understand well your question
that if we are planning to automate

the system of inputting subscriptions…
input in[to] RespectMyNet?

Question: Yeah!

Christopher: The thing is that that would only
cover a certain type of violation.

It won’t e.g. – don’t think in what
I understood – it won’t be able to cover

e.g. contract-based violations.

But that could be an idea, why not.

Thomas: Maybe, if you go to RespectMyNet.eu
you’ll find a list of the measurement tools

that are out there right now. The software
that you can use on your own computer

to test if your internet connection is
open and neutral. But most of the software

is abandonware. Sadly, it has not been
updated in quite a few years. And then

we need more developers to actively engage
in those software tools. And I hope now

that more people will do that because
the threat in the U.S. is quite real and

we need better software. Automated testing
happens as part of some Bittorrent clients

e.g. which upload their data to
Measurementlab. And there are

some programs like that but
none really on a wide scale.

Herald: Okay. So, the next one is the
person on microphone no. 3, please.

Question: Yes, I have a question regarding
the regulation to reform BEREC.

Are you planning to fight this regulation,
and if so, and if not, are there

any ways to fight it for the rest of us?

Thomas: Thanks for being eager! Yes,
we are now… this is just the beginning

of this dossier. So it has been
proposed September 14, 2016.

And now the Parliament and the Council
are just slowly starting to work on it and

it’s part of a much bigger package of
legislation called the Telecom Code.

And we are in ongoing conversations
with the legislators and the various

political parties to see what is the best
strategy. And if we think that there is

a reason to really have a campaign then
we will have one. But right now it is

too early to say.
Question: Thanks!

Herald: Okay, thank you very much! And
the next person on microphone no.3!

Question: Thank you very much for
an excellent talk. For Savetheinternet

there was a lot of national NGOs active.
And with this proposed power grab of BEREC

how can we at a national level help
support the telcom.. tel-regulators nationally

to save the net neutrality?

Thomas: The best thing to do right now
would be to speak with your telecom

infrastructure ministry, whoever is
responsible of this in the European Council

because they are the ones that are now
forming their opinion. And I know from

quite a few countries where this is really
an open situation, so they are welcoming

input from citizens. And they, of course,
speak with the Members of the European

Parliament from your country. They are
the ones ultimatively voting on this.

I’m not aware if we already have
a Rapporteur on that but there will be one

soon, and…
Christopher: On the Telecom package?

Thomas: Yeah!
Christopher: Del Castillo.

Thomas: Del… Oh my god. laughs
The worst Rapporteur that we could

possibly have. It’s the same that
we had for the net neutrality law.

But speak with your local ministry and
your Members of the European Parliament.

That’s the right answer for that. And
I hope that also a few countries and

as well as the regulators will see this
power grab as what it is. Because the

Commission is not really in the position
to insert itself on all levels of government.

That’s just the wrong approach.

Herald: Okay, there’s time for one last
question. Please, a short one! No.4.

Question: Thank you very much for the
talk. I was wondering, do you think

it’s possible to actually convince telecom
companies to be on our side, so to say,

and to get rid of all of those Zero-Rating
things, and convince them that

net neutrality can be a good argument for
customers. Or do you think the only way

is through litigations
and going to courts?

Christopher: I think, both.
The problem with telecom operators is

that you go against their business model.
Zero-Rating can increase their sales,

they’re increasing their quinta (?) percentage etc.
and net neutrality can not, or at least

not in the way they see it. There is
two things: on one hand you have

customer protection, on the other hand you
have private profits. So I think we’ll be

very welcoming any type of arguments, of
advocacy that could link both, and saying

that we’re making a better world, but
also we’re contributing to capitalism.

So, that’s a tricky one. But,
you know, we can discuss it.

Thomas: But it’s doable. I mean there
are a few ISPs that are fierce (?)

pro-net neutrality advocates. Because
they’ve realized that net neutrality

is good for their business model. Because
this open platform creates the demand

for the only product they really have,
which is internet access.

About… it is really a question of their
understanding of their own business model.

And for the most part, they would
either cannibalize the revenues

of other companies that run on their
network, instead of just being mere pipe.

But please try to convince them.
We do as well.

Question: I will.
Christopher: If you want to discuss more,

we’ll be around the tea house of
LaQuadrature upstairs, so

you’re welcome there.

Herald: Thank you very much,
Christopher and Thomas.

applause

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