Thankfully others, such as the European Parliament, have different ideas on the matter. With perfect timing, on Tuesday the EP passed two resolutions – one on the ‘digital single market’ and the other on a ‘digital freedom strategy in EU foreign policy’ – that both backed net neutrality. The first of those two even called for new European legislation to protect the concept.

But that’s the European Parliament, which had already voted in favour of net neutrality just over a year ago. For those unfamiliar with the EU legislative process, the EP does not propose legislation: that’s the role of the unelected European Commission.

Reality bites

So where’s the Commission at on this subject?

The last thing we heard there came after a report by a group of European telecoms regulators, BEREC, which said in May that many fixed and mobile carriers are throttling P2P services, blocking VoIP and otherwise fiddling with customers’ services in ways that would be forbidden under net neutrality.

That elicited a somewhat woolly response from digital agenda commissioner Neelie Kroes, who said she favoured transparency about the limitations put on internet services, rather than any firm new laws. Or, as she put it, “consumers… need to know if they are getting champagne or lesser sparkling wine”.

I asked Kroes’s office if there was any response to the new European Parliament resolutions, but sadly there is not. However, if we’re in the mood for reading between the lines, there may be something to pull out of Kroes’s blog post today on the WCIT conference.

Kroes used the post to reiterate the EU’s opposition to the ‘takeover’ plans, but she also seemed to suggest something further. My emphasis:

“While we do not believe that Internet governance should be under the ambit of the ITRs [the rules being revised at the conference], this does not mean the EU wants to ‘set in stone’ all current governance practices. New trends in traffic volumes and new demand for assured quality of delivery, may lead to new solutions, but I am confident that our current European and international frameworks allow more nimble and appropriate commercial reactions than any international treaty. We also want to support developing countries to build capacity and infrastructures for the Internet.”

So, she doesn’t seem to think there’s a need to change EU law on net neutrality (sorry, Parliament), but she also doesn’t want an internationally binding treaty that prohibits the practice (sorry, ETNO).

Choice of words

With a European stance like that, I think it unlikely that ETNO will succeed in getting net neutrality banned. That said, I would dearly like to see the term – not the principle – done away with.

The term acts as a kind of straw man. Very few so-called net neutrality proponents actually want strict network neutrality. By any reasonable analysis of how things work, strict net neutrality is unworkable. All bits are not equal – it makes complete sense to prioritize VoIP traffic over email, for example, in order for it to flow in near-real-time.

What ‘net neutrality’ advocates actually want is a properly free online market, where telcos can’t block rival services such as VoIP just because they take away revenue, and where startups are not suppressed by having to pay telcos to have their traffic reach their customers. Perhaps ‘service neutrality’ might be a more accurate term, although it’s certainly less snappy. Suggestions would be welcome.

I’ll leave this with the wording in those resolutions approved by the European Parliament today:

81. Calls on the Commission to propose legislation to ensure net neutrality;

82. Points out that more competition and transparency with regard to traffic management and quality of service, as well as ease of switching, are among the minimum necessary conditions to ensure net neutrality; reiterates its support for an open internet where content and individual commercial services cannot be blocked; recalls the recent findings of the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC), and considers that additional measures are needed to ensure net neutrality;

83. Re-emphasises the potential challenges arising from departures from network neutrality, such as anti-competitive behaviour, blockage of innovation, restriction of freedom of expression, lack of consumer awareness and infringement of privacy, as well as the fact that lack of net neutrality hurts businesses, consumers and society as a whole.

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There were two CRT cartels at play: one for computer monitors (Samsung, Philips, LG and Chunghwa) and the other for TVs (same companies again, plus Panasonic, Toshiba, Technicolor and MTPD, which is now a Toshiba subsidiary). Chunghwa gets off as it blew the whistle on the cartels, while Samsung, Philips and Technicolor get reduced fines because they cooperated in the investigation – the others all get full-fat fines.

According to competition commissioner Joaquín Almunia, these were among the most organized cartels his antitrust department has ever seen:

“These cartels for cathode ray tubes are ‘textbook cartels’: they feature all the worst kinds of anticompetitive behaviour that are strictly forbidden to companies doing business in Europe. Cathode ray tubes were a very important component in the making of television and computer screens. They accounted for 50 to 70 percent of the price of a screen. This gives an indication of the serious harm this illegal behaviour has caused both to television and computer screen producers in the [European Economic Area], and ultimately the harm it caused to the European consumers over the years.”

The cartelists apparently called their price-fixing pow-wows “green meetings”, because the participants would go play golf afterwards. Documents uncovered during the investigation contained gems such as these:

• “Producers need to avoid price competition through controlling their production capacity”.
• “Please dispose the following document after reading it”.
• “Everybody is requested to keep it as secret as it would be serious damage if it is open to customers or European Commission”.

Textbook indeed.

After taking the cooperation reductions into account, the fine breakdown looks like this:

• Philips – €240.2m
• LG – €179.1m
• Philips and LG (jointly) – €322.9m
• Panasonic – €157.5m
• Panasonic, Toshiba and MTPD (jointly) – €86.7m
• Samsung – €81.4m
• Technicolor – €38.6m
• Toshiba – €28m
• Panasonic and MTPD (jointly) – €7.9m

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Following the EC’s ruling, the US Federal Trade Commission took  voted 5-0 to close its inquiry in the proposal, judging that there were no competition issues.

But the EC said the deal “would have increased Universal’s size in a way that would likely have enabled it to impose higher prices and more onerous licensing terms on digital music providers” and “this could have negatively affected the possibilities for innovative providers to expand or launch new music offerings”.

To overcome the concern, Universal has agreed not to include “most-favoured nation” clauses in its contracts with digital services — stipulations under which it could have demanded it strike equally favourable deals with such services as other labels have.

And it has agreed to divest Parlophone, Sanctuary, several national EMI imprints and many others that are home to Blur, Gorillaz, Pink Floyd, Kylie Minogue and other well-known acts. Full list here.

Explaining the commitments imposed on Universal, the EC said that, even though a large music service like Apple’s, which dominates digital sales, might have been able to front up to price hikes from a newly-enlarged Universal, ”there are many other smaller, particularly innovative, music distribution players, such as streaming platforms or mobile operators that offer music together with telephony subscriptions (which) would be particularly vulnerable to a price increase or other types of worsening of licensing terms by Universal“.

Merlin, the so-called “fifth major” group representing indie labels, re-iterated its ongoing opposition to the deal following approval, saying Universal would enhance its market-leading position.

“We now have to face the possibility that the digital market could be dictated and controlled by two super majors (Universal and Sony), which would not be a healthy outcome,” CEO Charles Caldas said (via MusicAlly).

“That said, the concessions Universal has had to make to get this deal through are significant, and must make this a very different deal to the one Universal originally envisioned.”

Some of Merlin’s largest members could be candidates to buy divested Universal imprints.

In contrast to the EC, the FTC said it “did not find sufficient evidence of head-to-head competition to conclude that the combination of Universal and EMI would substantially lessen competition”.

The FTC said Universal’s repertoire was mostly of new artists while EMI’s was older, adding that little competition exists between Universal and EMI in interactive streaming services because such services would require both contracts, and those of all major labels, to be comprehensive.

However, the FTC’s decision noted that the remedies Universal will have to enact to satisfy the EC will also have the effect of mitigation against concentration of ownership in the US.

The EC cleared Sony/Mubadala’s proposed acquisition of EMI’s music publishing business in April.

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The bloc’s digital agenda commissioner on Monday published a number of ideas under which existing license holders would have to share some of their spectrum…

“Innovators could … apply for access,” according to Neelie Kroes’ communication (release). “Incumbent spectrum holders could use their resources more efficiently by sharing them on a contractual basis.”

She wants national communication regulators to draw up an inventory of “beneficial sharing opportunities” (BSOs) in spectrum bands.

The idea appears to center on encouraging license holders to sub-let their spectrum – a practise which operators in some, though not all, countries already undertake. Kroes is keen for a continent-wide approach, and says the idea is “based on the need to provide economic incentives for innovators and incumbents alike”.

“The growing demand for wireless connectivity is coming up against limits in the available radio spectrum to meet it,” Kroes says. “There is, for example, no vacant spectrum left and the cost of re-allocating spectrum to new uses is high, in particular if current users have to switch off.

“Through advances in technology, shared spectrum access makes additional resources available without compromising the incumbent license holder’s rights to use the frequencies. To maximise the benefits of such approaches to share spectrum, regulatory barriers need to be removed and incentives provided at EU level.”

In countries including the UK, dis-used spectrum used by switched-off analogue TV will be auctioned to mobile carriers for 4G use in 2013. But we have also seen national regulator Ofcom intervene to grant Everything Everywhere and Three spectrum usable for 4G early, in advance of the auction.

Kroes says the EC’s approach will differ from America’s – which is trying, separately, to free up unused spectrum “white” spaces between TV frequencies and other spectrum bands – in that it will take a holistic view of all possible bands.

The idea is, as yet, nascent – and could alarm operators who are preparing to shell out billions on 4G licenses they had assumed they would have all to themselves.

The goal could resemble the “functional separation” arrangement in land line telecommunications, in which large European telcos like BT had to split their infrastructure and consumer businesses – the former of which are now compelled to provide access to their lines to rivals on a wholesale basis.

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Today, finally, it looks like the story might have come to an end: Microsoft’s appeal to have that fine overturned was rejected. The amount was discounted a little by a European judge, to €860 million, but still the company said it was “disappointed” by the decision and left the door open to a further appeal.

The European Commission was obviously pleased with the decision. Here’s E.U. Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia:

“Today’s judgment fully vindicates the enforcement action that the Commission took to ensure Microsoft’s compliance with its obligations… The judgment confirms that the imposition of such penalty payments remains an important tool at the Commission’s disposal.

There you go: a clear victory for the European regulators.

Or is it?

Here are three graphs that suggest to me that not only is it easy for Microsoft to suck up even huge fines like this — but by dragging the process out it has made it significantly less painful.

The first is Microsoft’s share price over the period since 2008, when the €899 million fine was levied. The fine doesn’t seem to have made much difference to its fortunes.

The second is Microsoft’s earnings between 2008 and 2011. On the left is €899 million for comparison. You can see it’s small fry compared to the overall picture.

And the third is the value of the Euro against the U.S. Dollar over the same period. The fluctuating exchange rate means that in 2008, it was worth $1.35 billion but today it’s $1.12 billion: Microsoft has effectively saved $230 million just by waiting — let alone the 4 percent discount included by the judge, which dropped it even further (to $1.07 billion).

Obviously, take this with a pinch of salt: you can make data say a lot of things. But it’s worth thinking about: while the European Commission may think that “the imposition of such penalty payments remains an important tool at the Commission’s disposal” it looks a lot to me like they are, in fact, pretty ineffective.

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In January, Kroes, who is also Europe’s information society commissioner, assembled local public agencies and private companies in a €10 million European Cloud Partnership to lay groundwork for moving government agencies’ IT systems to the cloud.

At Cable Congress in Brussels on Thursday, Kroes said boldly: “It’s where the future will be.”

Now, independent EU debate organiser Forum Europe has convened policymakers and executives from companies including Dell, VMWare and Intel (NSDQ: INTC) at The 2012 European Cloud Computing Conference to develop the continent’s cloud strategy on March 21.

I am dreaming that every person will have their own shelf in the cloud one day soon #cloudcomputing #CEBIT

— Neelie Kroes (@NeelieKroesEU) March 6, 2012

Of course, private-sector internet companies are already rolling out services that host data in remote, “cloud”-based data centres. Why is the European Commission intervening, and what does it think is to gain?

For one, the cloud dovetails neatly with a parallel Kroes is pushing – harmonising Europe’s many and varied telecoms and copyright licensing rules to let online services more easily license content to rent and sell across member states’ national borders.

“The cloud is the perfect way to introduce legal content offers online,” said Kroes, who thinks small- and medium-sized enterprises stand to benefit most because cloud services can be cheaper than alternatives: “Our flagging economies need us to make the best of it – we need to act to ensure speedy uptake.

“With many other technologies, we’ve seen problems getting in the way – fragmentation, lock-in, and public sector ineffectiveness. The cloud computing strategy I’m currently preparing will anticipate those problems so we can prevent them. Where these barriers exist, I am determined to overcome them.”

Kroes sought to re-assure private cloud suppliers and Big Government opponents: “The Cloud Partnership, and indeed our overall cloud computing strategy, is not about building a European super-cloud.”

We’ll be addressing some of these themes at GigaOm’s Structure:Europe conference, October 16-17, in Amsterdam. Registration is opening soon.

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A study it commissioned from Ecorys, published on Tuesday, says the gain would come to content and telco operators from telecom rules that were revised last year plus new provisions.

“This ‘digital bonus’ for EU growth would result from more competition, increased economies of scale for telecom operators, and the chance for every European to access all online content and services throughout the EU, such as music, movies and video games,” according to the EC.

“For example, new and more efficient economic activity could arise from the ability to subscribe to TV from your home country when living abroad, the possibility of receiving healthcare monitoring from your local physician while on holiday, or a business using a single cloud computing provider for offices in many EU countries.

“The drivers of growth will be online services such as movies and games (which will evolve from High Definition to technologies such as 3D, e-Health or e-Learning). These services require guaranteed quality of service. This requires pan-European standards, since what might work in one member state may not be possible in another.”

In addition to last year’s wide-ranging new telecoms rules, the primary pillar of the commission’s Digital Agenda is creating a “single digital market” to boost entertainment download and streaming services across borders, including by simplifying content licensing and harmonising online payments access.

Online content services are only too keen for the EC to simplify the process by which they can gain licenses to sell or rent digital content. The EC is due to propose legislation this Q1 to simplify cross-border licensing.

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The price tag of the Motorola deal raised eyebrows when Google announced it last August, but the search giant likely felt it had no choice after a consortium of rivals snapped up the patent portfolio of the bankrupt telecom company Nortel.

With the Motorola acquisition, Google gained 17,000 patents and 7,500 pending applications. It has been using some of them to harass Apple in Germany.

Although the deal had been expected to receive European regulatory approval, there have been doubts in recent weeks amidst allegations that Google was using so-called FRAND patents in an anti-competitive manner (FRAND patents involve industry-wide technical standards and are supposed to be licensed on “fair and reasonable” terms.)

In its ruling, announced early this afternoon, the EC stated it would monitor the smartphone industry to ensure participants complied with anti-trust rules.

The Justice Department followed with a separate approval ruling late in the afternoon. The ruling also said it would it monitor Google and its competitors to ensure they didn’t abuse standard-related patents.

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The plants will remain operational now for “smartphone product customization.” The news comes amidst unconfirmed reports that the company is planning to curtail its Symbian lineup after the release of the next model.

Nokia (NYSE: NOK) says that the transfer will result in the loss of 4,000 jobs in total, and the reductions will take place through the end of 2012.

Nokia does not outline how much the move to Asia will mean in terms of money saved, but this is a decision that has been some time in the making: these were plants that were spared in the last round of cuts under CEO Stephen Elop.

Since then, Nokia has reported yet more declines in its smartphone shipments, mainly around its legacy Symbian platform. The company is now gradually moving to making more of its smartphone portfolio based on Microsoft’s Windows Phone platform.

Now, Nokia says that the move is being made to put the manufacturing bases closer to where the different components are being made for those smartphones. That is a move we have seen from many other companies — and was the subject of a series of stories recently concerning Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) in China and the role of Foxconn in that business.

The move to make these plants focused on customization, meanwhile, points to some focus that Nokia does seem to maintain on its software and services for its devices — a crucial part of the company’s differentiation as it moves more and more to a platform being used by its competitors as well. Others that make Windows Phone devices include Samsung and HTC.

The news comes amidst other reports about Nokia that claim the company is planning to curtail its Symbian lineup after the next model comes out.

Symbian is gradually being phased out for Microsoft’s Windows Phone platform, but Nokia had originally said it would support the OS until 2016, and that could still be the case even if it stopped making devices based on it. Nokia transferred the operation of Symbian to Accenture last year.

A spokesperson from Nokia told paidContent that the article was “speculative at best” and would not comment on device rumor or speculation:

“As we have previously said Symbian continues to be an important part of our portfolio and going forward it will play a more focused role as we accelerate our transition to Windows Phone,” he said. “We remain fully committed to the platform through 2016, which means on-going software support as we go forward.”

The company is currently rolling out an update to Symbian, Belle, and the devices remain popular in the Middle East, Russia and India, even as they have lost out to Android-based devices, Apple’s iPhone and even RIM (NSDQ: RIMM) in other markets.

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“Given the wide range of services you offer, and popularity of these services, changes in your privacy policy may affect many citizens in most or all of the EU member states.

“We wish to check the possible consequences for the protection of the personal data of these citizens in a coordinated procedure. We have therefore asked the French data protection authority, the CNIL, to take the lead. The CNIL has kindly accepted this task and will be your point of contact for the data protection authorities in the EU.

“In light of the above, we call for a pause in the interests of ensuring that there can be no misunderstanding about Google’s commitments to information rights of their users and EU citizens, until we have completed our analysis.”

Good that Europe’s data protection authorities are ensuring @Google ‘s new privacy policy complies with EU law bit.ly/xiz8U6 #EUDataP

— Viviane Reding (@VivianeRedingEU) February 3, 2012

The Article 29 group advises the executive European Commission on data protection and privacy matters and comprises representatives of member states’ national data protection bodies.

In January, Google said it would unify privacy policies from over 70 of its products, a move which mirrors its unification of user services with Google+ and its personalised search launch. It explained: “Regulators globally have been calling for shorter, simpler privacy policies.”

The Article 29 group has previously forced Google to reduce its data retention time, unsuccessfully asked Google to warn the public before it starts photographing for Street View, issued tough new location sharing guidelines and adjudged a Facebook privacy policy revision “unacceptable“

The European Commision’s justice department sought to raise public awareness of use of their data by designating January 28 European Data Protection Day.

Separately, the EC’s antitrust department is currently assessing competition complaints against Google.

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