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by pornel 1397 days ago
Looking at pricing of MMS, roaming charges, and lack of security in interchange that allows spam and fake caller IDs, these laws are insufficient. A technical solution that makes operators "dumb pipes" solves it better. It's a Net Neutrality issue, because it allows operators to charge for bytes of RCS messages differently than bytes of Signal messages or Matrix messages or any other packet.

Ideally messaging shouldn't be controlled by either BigTech or BigTelecom, but RCS being a Google-telecom cooperation fails on both counts at the same time.
1 comments
webmobdev 1397 days ago
> It's a Net Neutrality issue, because it allows operators to charge for bytes of RCS messages differently than bytes of Signal messages or Matrix messages or any other packet.

That's a disingenuous argument as voice and data (sms, video calls, mms etc.) on any telecom network has never been considered a part of the internet. Even though RCS uses parts of internet technologies (only because 4g / 5g are IP based and have replaced switch based technology), it's still a stretch to call it part of the "internet" as it is part of the telecom infrastructure and can connect to other telecom networks without necessarily needing the "internet" to do so.

And this legally mandated "inter-connectivity" remains the key point and advantage of telecom networks. The internet is also supposed to be like that, and many early internet technology were built with this feature of distributed inter-connectivity too. But WhatsApp, iMessage, Signal, Skype etc. are all disconnected islands that are actually an aberration of this core value of the internet, and devalues the internet as a whole.

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pornel 1397 days ago
The distinction of what belongs to telecoms and what belongs to the Internet is only due to how the technologies have evolved. It's a legacy quirk of the "it's always been like that" type. I'm all for reducing telecoms entirely to "dumb pipe" ISPs and moving everything to IP, calls too. Mandated inter-connectivity only exists to fix a problem that telecoms have created by having access to unencrypted insecure special-purpose comms traffic and being able to abuse this privilege. This should have been encrypted IP data they can't touch or discriminate.

Phone numbers are an outdated idea, and shouldn't exist any more (and Signal is terrible for using them). You should have more privacy and have more control over your identity than what the legacy telecom setup allows. For example in most countries in Europe you can't get a phone number without a government ID tying it to your legal identity, and telecoms may be obliged to log your call metadata. Would you prefer e-mail as an open IP protocol, or a setup of traditional licensed postal operators that require government's permission to make an e-mail account for you?

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webmobdev 1395 days ago
> The distinction of what belongs to telecoms and what belongs to the Internet is only due to how the technologies have evolved.

True. But it is also a fact that telecom networks inside a country offer better privacy and better protect democratic rights (in a democratic country) than some foreign powered network like the internet - if Google or Facebook misuse my data, I have less recourse to complain about them with the law than against a telecom company who have to follow stricter laws and regulations.

> You should have more privacy and have more control over your identity than what the legacy telecom setup allows.

This is again a disingenuous argument when it is a fact that telecom companies in democratic countries better protect your privacy because they are legally mandated to. In a democratic setup, the government requiring identity documents or logging 6 months of CDR are completely acceptable (and necessary) compromises as your rights are safeguarded in a democracy. Foreign BigTechs have no such obligations to us and even misuse the trust some people place in them to be truly abusive in violating a users data by invasively collecting vast amounts of data that they feel they are free to exploit in any manner. (E.g. WhatsApp's New Privacy Policy Shares Sensitive Data With Facebook, Forces Users Into Agreement By Providing Mirage Of Choice: Delhi HC - https://www.livelaw.in/news-updates/delhi-high-court-whatsap... ).

Offering "free" services to hijack communication in a country is both anti-democratic and anti-competitive that needs to be curbed strongly by all democratic nations.

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