How can we manage this internet thing? The Euro gov needs YOU The European Commission is asking for help in drawing up laws to govern the internet. On Thursday it launched yet more public consultations designed to inform bureaucrats attempting to help create the digital single market. The two new consultations are so broad as to be almost unmanageable: one on “geo-blocking” and the other …
Bullshit. It's about time globalization started benefiting the people instead of only corporations.
There are no good reasons for charging different rates for something based on where someone resides. Period.
There may be good reasons for not offering services at all based on geographic location. The only two good reasons I can think of for not offering services based on location are:
1) "It is a government service that, by definition, is only available to residents of a given location (as opposed to those services which are available to citizens, and thus should be accessible from anywhere).
2) "Selling this product or service is illegal in the target location". This can include conforming with export laws as well as conforming with local sale laws.
"I want to make more money" is absolutely not a good reason for geo-blocking. If you consider that to be a valid reason, I hope you evaporate with expediency.
Either globalization levels the playing field for consumers as well as producers or we should not have it. Period.
It’s almost as though the Commission doesn’t really know what it wants to do without being told.
Now that is unfair. It knows exactly what it wants. It has a budget that it wants to spend, it has reports that it wants to write, and it has MEPs that it wants to guide. It also has staff that want to get more power, salary and promotions.
So you'd prefer they just went ahead and did whatever they liked
They were supposedly appointed by MEPs who were supposedly democraticaly elected by the people so, at least in theory, they should already know what they have to do by virtue of having been appointed to do it. Why else are they there?
In reality, of course, they were appointed because somebody thought that "someone ought to do something", and they're now trying to justify their existence by running round asking people "what am I supposed to be doing?". And it's costing us a fortune for them to do it.
TCP/IP is designed to share information, not to suppress it.
That's not to say that there will never be a world network that can't be managed by governments, but the TCP/IP world isn't it. Consider that "Five Eyes" tries to monitor it, but obviously can't manage it, despite decades of trying.
"There are no laws"
Really? Like no Data Protection laws? Ever?
No libel laws, no fraud laws, no money laundering laws. This is a great idea.
Children who scream "no laws" realise this is a bad idea when their balls drop. I am guessing that in your case the body has aged differently to the brain?
Don't worry. By the time the EU bureaucrats finish their song and dance, Netflix will be able to provide the whole world (not just Europe) with the same content at the same time. This is a business problem, so let business solve it.
The real holdup here is Hollywood accepting that the distribution business has fundamentally changed and not in their favor. Hollywood can adapt, but the European film business is too dependent on the current distribution model for financing. When the EU bureaucrats realize that, they will amusingly do a 180 and start defending geoblocking.
After you spend ages filling in the Geo-Blocking questionnaire and press Submit you get:
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