Even though the ACTA text is now finalized, getting details from national governments about what exactly happened during the negotiations is proving extremely difficult, with information still trickling out slowly.

The European Commission has said it was surprised by the scale of opposition to a global anti-counterfeit treaty, having underestimated the power of social media to mobilise protesters. [...]

“What is the power of the people? We saw it recently here in January and February when we suddenly realised that, in spite of the freezing temperatures, we had thousands of people in different squares in Europe protesting against Acta." [...]

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) is a long-time opponent of the secretly negotiated Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). Today he introduced an amendment to a Senate "jobs bill" that would force ACTA to come before Congress for approval. A second amendment would make the US Trade Representative, which negotiates US trade deals, drop the veil of secrecy around its copyright and patent negotiations. [...]

Mobile telecom companies regularly block voice over IP (VoIP) and prevent services such as Skype from functioning on their networks, the group that represents EU telecom regulators (BEREC) says in the preliminary findings of a much-awaited report on internet neutrality. [...]

The main concerns - which BEREC did not spell out but which are underlined by some sector analysts - are that telecom companies may hamper competition on online platforms, blocking services which could rival their offers.

During a panel discussion held for US publishers this week, RIAA chairman Cary Sherman said his association and a number of ISPs—including AT&T, Cablevision, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and Verizon—will begin policing traffic to crack down on piracy starting this summer. [...]

The system involves major labels monitoring BitTorrent and other peer-to-peer networks for copyright infringement, and then reporting that infringement to ISPs, who will monitor their networks for the transgressors. [...]

Now that the EU's ratification of ACTA has departed from the original script of everyone just waving it through, the European Commission is clearly trying to come up with Plan B. Some insights into its thinking can be gained from the minutes (pdf) of a recent Commission meeting, pointed out to us by André Rebentisch. [...]

Most internet traffic on smartphones is carried by Wi-Fi, suggesting mobile networks could be sidelined

From Norwich to New York, hotspots are pulsing on every street. A messy urban patchwork of Wi-Fi signals is being gradually woven into a blanket of coverage which may soon be equal to the signals pumped out by mobile phone masts.

Leading Internet freedom group La Quadrature du Net has reiterated its demands for an EU web neutrality law following last week’s disclosure that European Internet operators regularly use traffic management techniques to block access to certain online services.

BEREC, the body of national telecoms regulators across the EU, last week (6 March) submitted its first report on Internet traffic management practices to the European Commission.[...]

BEREC releases initial findings from telco report; meanwhile, Internet freedom group repeats call for EU-wide net neutrality law. [...]

Internet service providers (ISPs) and mobile operators regularly use traffic management policies such as blocking or throttling to restrict access to certain services, according to a new report by the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC).

The European ISP watchdog announced the findings after a three-month investigation in conjunction with the European Commission (EC) that involved discussions with some 400 operators on how they handle large demands placed on their networks.

Pakistan is advertising for companies to install an Internet filtering system that could block up to 50 million web addresses, alarming free speech activists who fear current censorship could become much more widespread.

Internet access for Pakistan’s some 20 million web users is less restricted than in many countries in Asia and the Arab world, though some pornographic sites and those seen as insulting to Islam are blocked. [...]

Here's a clip of a Danish TV show discussing ACTA, which Denmark has fiercely advocated in favor of. It starts with the head of a rightsholder society and the Danish trade minister quoting dodgy statistics about the extent and cost of piracy, and then demonstrates that these statistics are patently false, and finally, brings out those responsible for quoting them and gets them to admit their errors. Priceless. [...]

http://boingboing.net/2012/03/08/danish-trade-minister-and-acta.html

Barcelona, Spain: a city so important to mobile, the GSM Association has crowned it "Mobile World Capital," home of the annual Mobile World Congress trade show, through 2018.[...]

"...YouTube is consuming a massive amount of resources on our network. Somebody's got to pay for that," said Airtel's Sunil Bharti Mittal, suggesting that the service pay an "interconnect charge" for the right to deliver its content to operators' subscribers.[...]