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

[George Herbert]

It was not rhetorical, but you missed the point.

Net neutrality is an issue because service providers (can / may / often do)
become a local monopoly of sorts.  Monopilies are not necessarily bad (how
many water and natural gas line providers can you choose from?  how many
road networks?) but are generally felt to be bad if they enable the
monopolist to leverage themselves into other markets.

With regards to network neutrality, the problem is if the provider uses
their network monopoly to encourage the customers to use their (or their
preferred, with some sort of mutual advantage) search engine, email
service, etc., or discourage use of an alternative streaming media service,
and issues of the like.

Again: with Wikipedia, we do not have particular mutually beneficial
relationships which this would be encouraging, and the service provider
isn't really in a position to damage a Wikipedia competitor by doing this,
as far as I can see.

One can argue that even a free (to use, contribute, participate),
functionally monopolized, public service organization could benefit somehow
and the ISP could benefit somehow, and that the strict terms of the
particular law in question might come into play.

However, from a moral stance, the underlying goal of network neutrality
seems unharmed by this, in any realistic or reasonable manner.  Your
interpretation seems excessively legalistic rather than factually or
morally based; while it may be that we should avoid even trivial legalistic
issues, we do not as a project make special efforts to comply with 180+
countries laws (other than copyright issues, and "free" definitions for
Commons, that I can see).

If you can explain a manner in which the underlying monopoly / advantage
issue IS a problem here, please point it out.  If there is one that I do
not see then that forms a valid reason to reconsider.



On Mon, Aug 26, 2013 at 11:04 AM, Martijn Hoekstra <
martijnhoekstra at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Aug 26, 2013 7:53 PM, "George William Herbert" <
> george.herbert at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > 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?
>
> We get a wider readership, at least in the short term. Why else would we be
> doing this? Or was the question rhetorical, as the answer was rather
> obvious to me. If it was, I don't understand the point you were trying to
> make with it.
>
> >
> >
> > Sent from Kangphone
> > _______________________________________________
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-- 
-george william herbert
george.herbert at gmail.com