[ninguem2]

I think the criticism that they don't normally respond to petitions is valid so I don't really want to point this out but they did respond to the petition to allow cellphone unlocking and that has affected change. Of course, the petition wasn't the only cause of the change.

[cheald]

That's actually really interesting. The cynic in me wants to say "well, it was happening anyhow, so they capitalized on it", but I wonder how much of an impact that petition actually had.

[bjelkeman-again]

It is the type of thing a politician gets irritated too by and it isn't really controversial from the voters point of view, so it gets done.

In the EU the politicians at EU level pushed through max roaming charges for SMS messages, whilst leaving data roaming rates ludicrously high. My take on it was that the politicians weren't using data so they only dealt with what was painful for them on an individual level.

[McDoku]

Mountains of data analysis and it probably influences the polling. I mean it also likely gets read and discussed.

Whether it is a political realistic or not is another matter entirely.