Online traffic wise in 2023, everyday is Christmas in Europe
Online attacks increase exponentially during the holiday season. This is due to several factors. Web traffic from real people is higher during the holidays as they search for specific gifts that are not common during the rest of the year. As a result, eCommerce booms on these specific days during each holiday season. Then they have a few extra days to get away from it all, and so hobby, entertainment, gaming and gambling sites get their fair share of spike, again from real people. It’s all good, everybody’s happy, nobody’s complaining.
Then there is the grey area where governments, organisations and social media … monitor and lurk behind the scenes. They look at how well consumerism is spreading, how much demand there is for certain products and trends and socially engineered needs. Especially how much extra debt everyone has created. What? Not enough? Open the ad gate, double the AI-generated blog posts that push trends, triple the social media likes from your friends who like an AI-generated picture, because if 600 of your “friends” like something, it must be real! Everyone needs an ugly NEW sweater this season! Yes, send those credit card bills soaring!
And it gets worse from here. The dark and hidden zone is reached, where all the shady and illegal stuff happens. As companies typically don’t have enough human resources to guard their networks, applications, sites and e-shops, the fake orders, the fraud, the theft of personal and sensitive information begins. There is no better day to do it, as they can harvest in bulk, nationwide. And why not attack your competitor? Maybe their site goes down for 1-2 days, forcing all their eager shoppers to your site. Happy DDos everyone! Ho Ho ho! :))
This was the norm during 2022’s holiday:
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Now, in the Europe of 2023, it seems that every day is a holiday! Traffic is through the roof!
The European Commission doesn’t just want opinions. It wants data from providers on the cost of network upgrades, the prices paid for network peering and transit services, and other figures. Forcing tech companies to make new payments would achieve a longstanding goal for the telecoms industry. Companies such as Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telefonica and Telecom Italia have been lobbying for “more than two decades” for leading technology companies to contribute to network costs.
A letter from the CEOs of 13 major European telecoms companies in 2021 said that network investment “can only be sustainable if such big tech platforms also contribute fairly to network costs”. In the US, a Republican member of the Federal Communications Commission argues that Big Tech is getting a “free ride” on networks built by ISPs. CCIA Europe Head Christian Borggreen suggested new fees would be passed to Internet users. “Europeans already pay telecom operators for Internet access, they should not have to pay telcos a second time through pricier streaming and cloud services. Putting a fee on Internet traffic would hurt European consumers and undermine the open Internet by treating data differently,”.
Here in Europe, we’re all paying for it. Electricity costs have skyrocketed, blamed on geopolitical sanctions, proxy wars and climate change. ISP bills have been adding new charges since December 2022, without telling customers, without legally justifying the extra charge, or updating the contract terms, or even providing anything for the amount being forced on end users. When challenged, they say it is for “continuous proof of a decent experience” – but all measurements prove otherwise, always contrary to these statements. After each complaint, the bill changes its justification, but the amount remains the same. Complaining to local governments seems pointless, as several areas collide: increase in censorship pressure; lack of representative personnel and increase in citizen requests; multiple strikes across the country; old infrastructure; blaming China for the lack of 5G infrastructure.
I’ll stop here, but I could go on for at least a couple of posts, pointing out that cloud costs are rising….from the same providers, blamed by ISPs.
