[Wikimedia-l] is wikipedia zero illegal because it violates net neutrality?

[George William Herbert]

On Aug 26, 2013, at 10:42 AM, JP Béland <lebo.beland at gmail.com> wrote:

> 2013/8/26, Martijn Hoekstra <martijnhoekstra at gmail.com>:
>> On Aug 26, 2013 6:30 PM, "JP Béland" <lebo.beland at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>> "And if it is illegal or borderline according to, say,
>>> netherlands, swiss, or german law, is it appropriate to do it in
>>> countries where the law is less developed? "
>>> 
>>> As said Kevin, it is impossible to respect the law of all countries in
>>> every country (Wikipedia already fails at that in its current state by
>>> the way, with or without Wikipedia Zero). So no we cannot "just
>>> abstain from any
>>> activity which might be perceived as illegal somewhere". After that,
>>> are you suggesting we should apply the laws of some "developed"
>>> countries to all countries and just ignore the others, this is way
>>> more morally wrong in my opinion.
>>> 
>>> That being said, the law on net neutrality you cited applies to ISP,
>>> which Wikipedia Zero or the WMF isn't, so it doesn't apply to it.
>>> 
>>> But of course, we as a community and the WMF should still keep high
>>> ethical and moral standards.
>>> 
>>> JP Beland
>>> aka Amqui
>> 
>> I do think there is some merit in the net neutrality argument, at least
>> sufficiently so to be open to discussion on whether or not offering
>> Wikipedia Zero is a good thing. It comes down to the question if we believe
>> that having a walled garden variety of internet consisting only of
>> Wikipedia for free, and with that undermining the market position for a
>> paid, open internet is a net positive. I'm inclined to say it is, but the
>> opposite position, though counter-intuitive, is pretty defensible.
>> 
>> -Martijn
> 
> "Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in
> the sum of all knowledge. That's our commitment."
> (http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Vision)
> 
> I agree with you that it is good to discuss about it. The real
> question we have to ask is what between Wikipedia Zero giving free
> access to Wikipedia or avoiding that for net neutrality and not
> undermining the market position for a paid open internet is getting us
> closer to our vision.
> 
> JP Béland
> aka Amqui


I believe a nonstandard interpretation of net neutrality is being used here.

It's intended - as originally posed - to prevent a service provider from advantaging their own bundled services and disadvantage independent services via tariff structure.

What competitors for Wikipedia exist?

And to the extent there are such, are we associated with this provider in some way that causes us to be their service in some preferred way to their or our benefit?  What benefit do we get?


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