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Archive for March, 2009
EU seals mobile roaming deal ahead of summer period
Prices of mobile phone calls made between EU countries will be further lowered as of July this year, according to an agreement sealed yesterday (24 March) over the EU’s so-called ‘roaming regulation’. As part of the deal, however, telecoms companies will still be able to subject users to an initial charging period of 30 seconds, which should enable operators to maintain some revenue.
According to the text
of the final agreement, mobile phone calls passed from one EU country to another will be capped at €43 cents per minute from July 2009, down from the current limit of €46 cents. This cap should be further decreased to €39 cents from July 2010, and to €35 cents from July 2011. All prices exclude VAT.
The compromise stems from an initial European Commission proposal to limit roaming calls to €34 cents per minute by 2012. During the first votein Parliament at the beginning of March, MEPs proposed a cap of €40 cents per minute, to be applied from July 2010 to mid-2012.
Mobile users will also benefit from lower charges for phone calls received while abroad. These fees will be capped from the current €22 cents per minute to €11 cents per minute from July 2011 (VAT excluded). Moreover, a new cap has been introduced for roamed text messages, which should cost a maximum of €11 cents (VAT excluded) from July 2009.
Operators are of course allowed to offer much lower prices than the maximum charges identified by the EU, although this was seldom the case under the first roaming regulation.
No more bill shocks
More good news for consumers came with an agreement on a new system to prevent so-called ‘bill shocks’ for data roaming, which frequently hit mobile Internet users when abroad. The new regulation sets a €50 limit for data roaming per month (excluding VAT). Once a customer reaches 80% of this amount, the mobile operator will send a warning message, giving details of a procedure to continue data roaming. Should the user fail to respond, the operator must automatically cut the service once the cap is reached.
Negotiators rejected suggestions from the Parliament to consider a specific volume of data as a limit for data roaming, which MEPs proposed capping at 20 megabytes per month. “This would have discouraged companies from offering lower tariffs for mobile Web traffic,” a Commission official explained.
Compromise on billing system
The Parliament also had to give up its proposal to apply per-second tariffs as of the first second of a roamed phone conversation. Currently, most operators impose per-minute tariffs for roamed calls, a practice which ends up billing customers for 24% more time than they actually spend on the phone, according to the European telecom regulators group (ERG). “It’s like taking the train from Brussels to Paris and being charged to go to Rome,” explained Consumer Commissioner Meglena Kuneva.
The compromise will allow operators to impose an initial charging period of 30 seconds, after which the per-second system will be applied. This means that if an operator wants to exploit this advantage, a roamed phone call lasting 15, three or 27 seconds will always be charged as though it had lasted 30 seconds.
Does the airspace belong to everyone?
Since a week, we are out of internet at the office in Sliema. As we are using the wireless internet provided by Vanilla, we climbed on our roof to check the connection of our antenna just to realize that as a new building has been finished in Tower Road/Bisazza street, we have lost our connection to the emitting antenna. I wonder if there is some sort of regulation, it is not correct that with the erection of buildings, one looses the wireless services one used to enjoy in the past…
Google under EU scrutiny for YouTube privacy policy
The European Commission is investigating the privacy policy applied by YouTube to the channel dedicated to European Union activities, EU Tube.
“We are checking with Google what they do with the information they obtain from users accessing EU content through YouTube services,” Joseph Hennon, the Commission’s spokesperson on communication policy, told EurActiv, making clear that the problem might also arise for YouTube videos embedded in the websites of the EU institutions, in addition to EU Tube .
Brussels refused to rule out drastic action. “The outcome of our talks might be a new arrangement with Google, or the appearance of a prominent privacy statement in all EU videos,” said Hennon. Asked whether the Commission could leave YouTube, the spokesman replied: “It is theoretically possible. We are certainly considering other channels, such as Daily Motion ,” the French alternative to YouTube, which is much less popular.
The EU executive has so far ruled out a presence in other widely used web services, such as Second Life or MySpace. Nevertheless, three commissioners have Facebook pages (Meglena Kuneva , Louis Michel and Margot Wallström ), while Brussels is “examining an official presence on Twitter,” Hennon said.
The main issue with YouTube stems from the divergent policies of Google and the EU institutions regarding the use of Web cookies, pieces of data stored on the computers of users when they access a website or an Internet service.
The EU’s official website uses so-called session cookies, which only remember users’ choices for the period that they are connected to the website. “As soon as they leave ‘Europa’, the cookies are deleted,” explained Hennon.
Google, and thus YouTube, have a completely different approach to cookies. The US company holds cookies related to its users for months and uses them to track Internet surfers, identifying their interests as potential consumers. This information is then sold to advertisers to provide tailored advertising, as acknowledged in the YouTube privacy notice .
According to official figures, around 14 million videos have been downloaded from the EU Tube channel since it was activated 18 months ago. Google carries in its databases the surfing histories of all EU Tube users, drawing up personal profiles for those who are registered in YouTube and electronic profiles for the others.
The Europa website has an average of 500,000 visitors per day, who might also be identified by Google once they watch a YouTube video on the EU’s official portal.
The issue has also caused concern in the United States, where the new Obama administration recently stopped using embedded YouTube videos on the official White House website. But they denied having done so for privacy reasons.
Peter Fleischer, Google’s privacy counsel, told EurActiv: “YouTube has strong, robust privacy policies protecting users. We are confident that the Commission will be satisfied with them.”
A throwback to the 70s and 80s
The employment of Dr Ing. Patrick Attard has been terminated after he commented on The Times online with reference to a Gozo News item. Attard was critical of the manner in which
the Church in Gozo is effecting Nadur farmers through contamination of a water source which is vital for their livelihood.
The Malta Resources Authority has terminated the employment of Attard on the pretext on an inexistent breach of professional secrecy. Attard has himself declared that his service to the MRA was in no way connected to water matters. It follows clearly that the dismissal of Patrick Attard is an attack on the right of freedom of expression : a throwback to the dark 70s and 80s when human rights in Malta were more observed in the breach.
We appeal to the Malta Resources Authority to undo the damage done immediately by reinstating Patrick Attard. An employee cannot be dismissed without prior warning and without being given the chance to defend himself. This goes against basic ethics.
The commissioner of Data Protection is asked to investigate the matter to find out how the information about the electronic activities of Patrick Attard have been transmitted to third parties without his consent.
Smartcity at the IT fair at MFCC Ta’ Qali
I wonder what happened to the stand of Smartcity at the fair this Friday…
AD ON DISTINCTION BETWEEN PLASTIC BAGS AND BIODEGRADABLE BAGS
Alternattiva Demokratika- The Green Party disagrees with Government in treating biodegradable bags at par with non-biodegradable ones.
Arnold Cassola, Alternattiva Demokratika Chairperson, stated: “Whilst we agree that plastic bags are charged an ecotax, the proceeds of which should be used for the betterment of the environment in Malta, we disagree that the said tax should also be charged on biodegradable bags, since these bags are of no harm to the environment, being produced from harmless and naturally biodegradable vegetable sources”.
Carmel Cacopardo, Alternattiva Demokratika Spokesperson on Sustainable
Development and Local Government , added: “Not only should biodegradable bags not be taxed, but their re-use as carrier bags for household waste should be strongly encouraged”. Cacopardo added: “We are noting a considerable increase in plastics in the waste stream which is originating from supermarket packaging. Instead of taxing biodegradable bags government should address this packaging problem through the eco-contribution mechanism, thereby reducing a substantial amount of non-biodegradable plastics which according to government’s plans will now end in the Delimara incinerator.”
Ralph Cassar
PRO
