First you slide language into a report saying that all players should fund internet infrastructure - then you try to get parliament to adopt language in a competition report saying they support access fees, without any hearings. Luckily some last minute lobbying derailed that.

https://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/blog/2023/06/when-media-gets-i...

The European Commission has been engaging in tons of bad-faith trickery around this, including ignoring BEREC (the EU's top telecom regulators), trying to slam it through without a consulation, downplaying all the negative comments in the consultation they were forced into having, and who knows what is next? Shoving it into a must pass bill?

Thierry Breton is a dangerous tech dinosaur who thinks that the future of Europe dominating tech is in Europe's ISPs. He thinks ISPs are the thing - when everyone knows that who you pay to get online is immaterial - it's what you do online that matters. He's deadset on figuring out how to make every big tech service in the world, from Google to AWS to Akamai to Cloudflare, pay EU ISPs.

Having a former telecom CEO at the head of the EU will be disastrous for the EU, and could be disastrous for the world generally.

For the slide in thing, look at the European Declaration on Digital Rights and Principles for the Digital Decade https://ec.europa.eu/newsroom/dae/redirection/document/94370

Chapter 2: c

We commit to: "developing adequate frameworks so that all market actors benefiting from the digital transformation assume their social responsibilities and make a fair and proportionate contribution to the costs of public goods, services and infrastructures, for the benefit of all people living in the EU."

Take that anodyne statement and then try to make it into online services paying ISPs in law. Call it fair share and point to this statement saying that everyone agreed to it.

Then try to shove that into a paragraph of a competition policy report to get legislators on the record supporting network fees without debate and hope no one notices. Claim victory even when the gambit fails because of a very clever amendment.

https://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/blog/2023/06/when-media-gets-i...

ISPs, their lobbyists, and their lawyers play the long game.

The way you get all other legislation that doesn't get public spotlight: through lobbying, commission, and then present it as fait accompli to the Parliament amidst a hundred or so other laws.

The ISPs are lobbying for this for years. They see that 90% of traffic is a handful of services like Netflix and co. and they feel entitled to charge those something.

You only need to convince a handful of bureaucrats of that idea.

You need to convince a decent chunk of Parliament, not just a handful.

No, only the pols in charge.

Well you need to convince someone in the Commission to raise the proposal (the easy part), and then you need to convince a majority of parties 300-350 people to vote in favour of the proposal in Parliament, and do the same in the council (member countries national leaders).

Came pretty close, actually: https://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/blog/2023/06/when-media-gets-i...