1.
www.internetsociety.org
Policies impacting the Internet in Europe -
An ISOC European Regional Bureau perspective
on some key issues
Frédéric Donck, Director, European Regional Bureau
Central Asia Internet Symposium, Kyrgyz Republic, Bishkek (Dec. 10, 2014)
Perspectives for Internet Development in the
Kyrgyz Republic

2.
The Internet Society
*Some* Key Issues in Europe
1. Network Neutrality
2. Solutions to illegal on-line activities
3. Privacy and RTBF (« Right to be forgotten »)
12/18/142

3.
The Internet Society
NETWORK NEUTRALITY
12/18/143

4.
The Internet Society
3.« Network Neutrality »: the origin of the debate
•Increasing demand for Internet connections with greater
bandwidth = More pressure on network capacity, hence
greater deployment and use of congestion management and
traffic shaping
•At core of the debate: is traffic management (i.e. ability to
treat packets differently) a threat to the open architecture of
the Internet?
•Network Neutrality: broad term - no clear definition (free
expression, user choice, traffic management, pricing,
discrimination, etc.)
12/18/144

5.
The Internet Society
Desired Outcome: Open Internet
•Users expect an Internet in which traffic is conveyed in a
manner that is agnostic to source, content and destination.
•Internet service is: connection of an Internet endpoint
or network to the rest of the Internet with non-
discriminatory, best-effort routing of data packets as
part of the Internet.
– Non-discriminatory by definition
– Networks should simply move the bits along the wire
– Can include application-agnostic congestion management, for
example, or traffic management to maintain network resilience
12/18/145

6.
The Internet Society
Comparison?
Imagine your electricity provider could charge you more for
the electricity you use to light, heat and power ICT devices in
your home office.
– they can’t do that
– if new technology made that possible, would we welcome it?
This has nothing to do with ‘reasonable network
management’ and everything to do with trying to segment
the market for commercial advantage.
It is an abuse of the network operator’s role.

7.
The Internet Society
Key challenges: Traffic Management
• Traffic management is a normal part of every day network
operation and network management- It is needed to ensure
that all subscribers are able to obtain adequate service, esp.
at peak time (congestion is a ‘natural’ consequence of the
Internet’s design)…but
•Should remain protocol or application neutral
•Should not be used as a tool for anticompetitive behaviour
•Should be transparent
•…and should not be considered as a panacea (adding
capacity to networks is alos critical to alleviating congestion!)
12/18/147

8.
The Internet Society
Key Challenges for Policymakers and
Regulators
•Effective competition…(but it might not be enough)
•Enable the users to make an informed choice
•Clear information on limitations and traffic
management practices that the subscriber is subject
to,
•Reasonable network management, neither anti-
competitive nor prejudicial
•Share common terminology of Internet service
•…and Internet service monitoring
12/18/148

9.
The Internet Society
Finding solutions to
illegal On-line activities
12/18/149

10.
The Internet Society
Finding solutions to Illegal On-line activities
•Policymakers, legislators, and regulators around the globe
want to protect specific users, as children, or combat illegal
online activities such as infringement of intellectual
property rights and cybercriminal activities.
•Critical & legitimate issues to address but we believe that
they must be in ways that do not undermine the global
architecture of the Internet or curtail internationally
recognized human rights.
•The real solution is international cooperation
12/18/1410

11.
The Internet Society
Filtering/DNS blocking is not a solution and why
it is both inefficient and damaging
 Easily circumventented
 Doesn’t solve the problem
 Incompatible with DNSSEC and impedes DNSSEC
deployment
 Causes collateral damage
 Encourages fragmentation
 …And raises Human rights issues
12/18/1411

12.
The Internet Society
PRIVACY
(« AND THE RIGHT TO BE
FORGOTTEN »)
12/18/1412

13.
The Internet Society
Privacy (and the « Right to Be Forgotten »)
“The right to be forgotten” allows a person to ask web companies to
delete personal information on their servers.
The right to be forgotten is part of a 2012 EC proposal to revise EU
privacy law. It was adopted by the European Parliament and is now
under review by members States in the European Council.
ECJ case: Mario Costeja Gonzalez (May 2014):
1.EU data protection rules apply to search engines (“Google is controller of
personal data”)
2.Offer users the right to prevent Google from linking to information that is
“unaccurate, inadequate, irrelevant or excessive”
3.Give Users the right to (ask to) remove personal data from search
engines where the individual right to privacy overrides the public interest
12/18/14

14.
The Internet Society
RIGHT TO BE FORGOTTEN: CONCLUSION
•There is no right to be forgotten: there should be a right to
privacy that is effectively enforced
•Deleted content/deleted links still reside somewhere
•Distinguish between the many cases: is it a transaction
between individuals/individuals with a company or sharing
personal data publicly (in which case it becomes part of the
public domain= outside the control of the online application
or service provider)
•Sometimes does interest in publicly disclosing information
override an individual’s right of privacy?
•Balance between fundamental rights: Internet (re)opens
new conversations on well-known issues…
12/18/1414

15.
The Internet Society
CONCLUSION
12/18/1415

16.
The Internet Society
1. Importance in shifting to a new paradigm
when addressing Internet development,
evolution and issues: from Aristotle to the
Empirical Multistakeholderism model (IGF as
a model)
2. Difficult challenges to reconciling trade-off
issues… and what if we could minimize trade-
off, for example obtain both security and
privacy?)
12/18/1416