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Why is public WiFi in Europe so painful?

5 points by pswenson ↗ HN
Why is WiFi in Europe so awful? Every public network wants you to sign up via a painful signup process (enter a user name/pw/address/age/email/etc). In the US it's usually as simple as accept a EULA. Are there laws concerning this in Europe? Is it all about liability?<p>I am curious as to why as I'm used to the mostly frictionless US way and find it much nicer.

5 comments

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venomsnake
They made the owner of wi-fi networks liable for all actions. In Spain I think. Mostly for the benefit of the carriers. Because almost everywhere there were open wifi-s before the law. But you can get 1GB 3G traffic for the modest 20 euro .. .
ysleepy
It is liability. In Germany for example they are currently debating of easing up on it, so free WiFi can be deployed in Berlin.
[dead] joeycfan
It's immensely expensive too - I used wifi on the island of Gibraltar and it was over a euro a minute.....
_delirium
Depends strongly on the country. It's not too bad in some. At Baresso coffee shops in Denmark you just click through to the wifi with no signup/password. And Helsinki has free no-login wifi across the whole city center.
ivanbrezakbrkan
As _delirium said, depends on the country. Sofia (BG) has wifi all over the place while my own hometown Zagreb (CRO) doesn't...