Next Tuesday, May 5th, the European Parliament will vote on a Telecommunications Package of measures which will affect the national laws of all EU countries. Effectively the European Parliament is about to give up the rights of European Citizens to open access to the Internet to protect the interests of entertainment and communications multinationals. Amongst other things internet searches may be tailored (even more than they currently are) to suit our ‘consumer needs’ and internet service providers throughout the EU will be able to decide what services are available through their internet subscription packages. This latter point will effectively amount to deals being cut with the big players and their apps (i.e. Windows Messenger, AOL, Skype, iTunes etc.) while the smaller independent peer-to-peer apps go under as their users get denied access.

A civil campaign by organizations of the whole European Community has been launched to prevent the privatization of the Internet and to defend the democratic right to access information and digital tools. To add your voice of protest you can electronically send a letter to members of the European Parliament using the form below (provided by hacktivistas.net):

For more information about the Telecommunications Package see here:
http://www.blackouteurope.eu/

To track the European Parliament Vote see here:
http://www.laquadrature.net/wiki/Telecoms_package_directives_1st_reading_by_country

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