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Net Neutrality Voted Down in U.S. House Committee
Ana10g writes "Business Week provides a look at the recent vote by the House Committee on Energy & Commerce, in which the FCC would have been given the power to prohibit discrimination of Internet traffic. The battlefield seems to be centered around which group has the better funded lobbyists, with companies such as Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, and many others competing against the well funded Telecommunications lobbysts. The committee voted the amendment down, 34 to 22."
13 years ago?
For once the public interest was served - you lot love to whine about telcos while misunderstanding that Google and others - say, P2P users - are FREELOADERS, basically using up what functions like a public good!
There is no good and bad side to this story. The Democrats supporting "net neutrality" most probably know very well they are acting AGAINST PUBLIC INTEREST - there's enough of experts, as opposed to bug-eyed, shrill slashdotters, who understand how it works. Yes, there are advantages to flat rates, as papers by Andrew Odlyzko has shown. But this has been the result of customer demand, not heavy and dumb hand of the government!
You are deeply mistaken if you think you can fix it or that Dems are honest enough to tell you how it works in cases when they happen to understand this issue.
Follow the money.
Who supported the bill? Bandwidth hogs. Who opposed it? Those in first line to subsidize. Who tried to exploit this issue to score political points? The lawmakers. There is no good and bad side here, there are only vested interests.
Please save me, there will be no freedom when companys own the net. Also, who the hell is to say that the United States government gets to decide what the internet can and cannot due, isn't the net supposed to be some kind of international world. Oh wait, we will only get that when the net is truely virtual, using no physical conections that can be blocked in any way. Also, f**k rich ass companies.
...screeeeech....ihaterepubs ihaterepubs ihaterepubs ihaterepubs....screeech....
Python is nice quick and flexible... but it provides so much rope a monkey would hang the whole ecosystem with it. -- in