Re: [LINK] When the Internet gets in the way of life

[David]

On Wednesday, 14 August 2019 09:33:34 AEST Tom Worthington wrote:

>> Maybe there should be a free low speed plan available ...
> 
> Subsidizing Internet access would reduce the welfare budget available for 
> other purposes, and so would not be "free".

Subsidised access at a "basic" bandwidth (TBA) for a carefully-defined class of 
disadvantaged users (TBA) would not impact on the budget if ~all~ service 
providers were required to fund it from profits before tax, etc.  
Alternatively, basic Internet assess should be free, with users paying for 
additional added value. 

Developing inequality is inherent in largely unregulated capitalism which has 
little or no social responsibility.  The U.S. is well ahead of Australia & 
Europe in this regard as some documentaries have shown (e.g. the employed who 
can only afford to  live in their cars).  It's interesting to speculate on the 
progress of such increasing disadvantage, but history shows us it usually ends 
with a guillotine or a civil war.

Perhaps there should be a general requirement on providers of "basic" services 
to cater for the whole of society?

Dear me, was I just dreaming?

David L.

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Re: [LINK] Digital Quality of Life

[Stephen Loosley]

Yes indeed Roger .. and also here’s responses from another forum where this 
research has been discussed ..

“Australia has the highest Digital Quality of Life (DQL), with a 0.7992 index 
value. This high score was mainly determined by a very high affordability of 
mobile internet, comparatively high mobile internet speeds, and a solid level 
of cybersecurity in the country. However, the score could have been higher if 
not for Australia’s underdeveloped broadband infrastructure, which ranked the 
country in the lower end of corresponding indicators of broadband speed and 
affordability. This makes it an exception, since among the selected countries 
for DQL 2019, Australia is ninth in GDP per capita and has the fifth highest 
average net-wage.

Australia’s average mobile internet speed is 57.71 Mbps and its average 
broadband speed is 34.26 Mbps. This makes Australia one of the few indexed 
countries in which mobile internet is faster than broadband. Also, one only has 
to work 21 seconds to afford the cheapest 1GB of mobile internet and 1.36 hours 
for the cheapest broadband package. Additionally, Australia ranks high because 
of well-developed e-government services (OSI score of 0.9722), its 
cybersecurity (GCI score of 0.8900), as well as comparatively extensive 
legislation on personal data protection. Finally, the most popular forms of 
entertainment content, namely Netflix, Amazon Prime, YouTube Premium, and 
internet porn, are all available for unrestricted access from within the 
country. Even though the weighting factor of the significance of availability 
of entertainment content is on the lower end in the scope of this research, it 
is important to note that people living in around two-thirds of the indexed 
countries do not have unrestricted access to at least one of the four 
researched services.

The research also revealed that although labelled as personal data protection 
laws, in some countries, their intention can be considered as equivocal. 
However, as explained in the Methodology section of this study, potential 
implications of such laws were not investigated in more detail due to the legal 
complexity of the topic. An exceptional case is the country that received the 
overall highest DQL index score, Australia. Although it received the highest 
indicator score for the presence of personal data laws, recent legislative 
developments and the encryption backdoor law passed in the Parliament of 
Australia might reflect poorly on the digital quality of life there in future.”


From: Roger Clarke
Sent: Wednesday, 14 August 2019 4:44 AM
To: link@mailman.anu.edu.au
Subject: Re: [LINK] Digital Quality of Life

> Global Research: 65 Countries’ Digital Quality of Life
 > ... https://surfshark.com/dql-report.pdf ...
 > Highest  DIGITAL QUALITY OF LIFE
 > 1. Australia
 > We indexed Digital Quality of Life (DQL) based on the internet speed
& affordability (broadband and mobile), the presence of personal data
protection laws, the state of e-government, the variety & availability
of e-entertainment, and the advancement of

Starting with an obvious issue, the criterion of "the presence of
personal data protection laws" is laughable.

Firstly, it's a completely inadequate proxy for the real need, which is
for comprehensive data protection laws, effective enforcement
mechanisms, enforcement resources and actual enforcement.

Secondly, Australia has what are arguably the world's weakest data
protection laws, 3 of 8 subsidiary jurisdictions that have either no
laws or no laws of consequence, the world's weakest enforcement
mechanisms, and the world's weakest data protection commissioners, both
in terms of the powers at their disposal and their exercise of such
powers as they have.

Assessing "internet speed & affordability" is a complex matter, but a
great many people, consumers and policy-watchers alike, would be
flabbergasted by what appears to be a remarkably high score.

The "advancement of cybersecurity" is also hilariously off the beam,
given the ongoing failure of almost all government agencies to comply
with the requirements of cybersecurity agencies, the abject failure of
data protection commissioners to define baseline security requirements,
the ongoing flood of data breaches, and the abject failure of data
protection commissioners to take firm action against *any* organisations
within their field of view.

And then there's the small matter of such things as "the variety &
availability of e-entertainment", and the vulnerability of consumer
devices, being largely international rather than national phenomena.

The quality of the PDF is pretty good.  But the quality of the design
and the results is ridiculously low.


The company gives its address as Tortola, BVI.  I had a client there
quite some years ago.  It's a funny little corner of the world, and a
tax haven, sorry, 'a low-documentation jurisdiction' (their own term).

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