Cloud Computing: EU wants to regulate WhatsApp and Skype like carriers
January 12, 2017
Grazed from ComputerWorld. Author: Peter Sayer.
Internet-based communications services such as Skype, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Google Duo, Apple iMessage, or Viber offer a host of advantages over the old-fashioned telephone, including, for their operators, exemption from the European Union’s strict telecommunications privacy rules.
The European Commission wants to change that, and on Tuesday proposed new legislation to protect consumers’ online privacy. The move is no surprise: An early draft of the Proposal for a Regulation on Privacy and Electronic Communications leaked in December. Smartphone apps such as Skype and WhatsApp replicate the voice-calling and text-messaging features of older phones but don’t fall under EU communications privacy legislation because they are data services that run over the top of an internet connection, rather than native functions of the network like phone calls and SMS…
The rules were written in 2002, before smartphones became widely available…
Read more from the source @ http://www.computerworld.com/article/3156847/mobile-wireless/eu-wants-to-regulate-whatsapp-and-skype-like-carriers.html