Maine Passes a Net Neutrality Resolution

Spamicles writes "Maine has become the first state in the US to pass legislation on net neutrality. The resolution, LD 1675, recognizes the importance of 'full, fair and non-discriminatory access to the Internet' and instructs the Public Advocate to study what can be done to protect the rights of Maine Internet users. A 2005 decision by the Federal Communications Commission put in jeopardy net neutrality principles that had been in place since the inception of the Internet." Maine's resolution may be more symbolic than effective. This isn't the first time Maine has been out in front of other states on a controversial issue.

Comments

and you thought maine was only for lobsters!

[joeldg]

and you thought Maine was only for lobsters!
of course Maine in front of the pack, all that seafood is good for the brain..
(of course the butter and chowders do slow you down a bit in other areas).

Congrats Maine, we (the net) salute you!

Did you comment?

[mcrbids]

Your voice means NOTHING if you don't submit it via the proper channels. If you care about your politicians, then VOTE. If you care about FCC decisions, then COMMENT. It's your civic duty. When people argue politics with me, my first question is: "In the last election, did you vote?". If the answer is no, then I refuse to discuss politics, after telling them "I don't care what you think, your opinion doesn't matter!".

I commented to the FCC, and I sincerely hope you did, too. Here's my comment to the FCC, first posted to slashdot here. Here's what I wrote:



Airwaves belong to everyone. Although transmission is regulated,
reception is open and unrestricted. And the only purpose of the
regulation is to ensure that the openness of the medium is preserved
and the utility of the radio space is not compromised.

This is as it should be. Everybody benefits when the utility of a
common resource is preserved. Otherwise, the phenomenon of the
"Tragedy of the Commons" rears its ugly head. Here, overly agressive
private consumption of a public resource causes a compromise of the
utility of the common resource, to the detriment of all, including
the private individuals hogging the resource!

The Internet is, by definition, a shared resource. It's a peering
agreement based on communications protocols which enable all of its
parts to cooperate together, seamlessly, for the public benefit. Any
part can access any other part as though all parts were local. It's
the first, truly open, global communications system whose immense
potential for benefiting humankind has barely begun.

It is now up to you, here, to declare for our progeny, that this
shared, common resource shall remain open and free for the benefit of
all, to ensure its use, utility, and power so that everybody can benefit.

Balkanizing this public medium with an "unequal" internet, where the
common carriers of the traffic are free to degrade access to portions
of the network not in their personal interest, serves only to pillage
the utility of the common good. It provides enhanced short-term
profits for the pillager, but degrades the overall utility of the
network.

Please, please please, follow the forefathers before you who have
declared that this land be preserved for the common good, and those
who declared that the roads be preserved for the common good, and
those who have declared that the nation's power grid and telephone
grid be regulated to preserve their utility for the common good.

The utility of the Internet should be preserved. Please, please, keep it neutral.

Re:Did you comment?

[Greg_D]

It doesn't matter whether someone didn't vote last time. What matters is that they still have the right to vote NEXT time, and by ignoring them politically, you're isolating your voice as well as the potential for their own unique perspective to be added to the mix. If everyone you spoke to about matters told you to fuck off, sooner or later you'd take the hint.

Well, unless you're a stalker or a husband. That's what we have the 2nd amendment and rolling pins for.

Civil War v2.0?

[erroneus]

You know, more and more we are seeing states resisting things the federal government is doing. (You know, things like the new ID thing.) And more and more, we see the states attempting to take action where the federal government is either ignoring the problem... you know, issues like net neutrality and illegal immigration. (Do open document format issues fit in there somewhere? They should...)

It seems that not only is the federal government not acting with the interests of the people (I know, it's not news to anyone) but the state governments are actually becoming a lot more relevant than ever before.

I know that when we think of politics and elections, many people think of presidents and US house of representatives and the US senate. But clearly, since state level policies and law making are becoming more relevant, people should start paying additional attention to their state government elections as well.

Re:Civil War v2.0?

[omeomi]

It's why there ARE states - the term "state" can literally mean "country"

Somewhat ironically, the 50 states in the US, however, are not states in that sense...

They were, quite literally, separate nations until they united under the Constitution of the United States. This isn't new, and a modicum of research will reveal this.

Their relative influence over American life, however, has gone up and down quite a bit over the years. The GP seems to be pointing out that state independence is on a bit of an upswing. He's probably right about that.

Re:Civil War v2.0?

[Kadin2048]

I won't speak for the GP, but I am not historically ignorant, and I don't think that his post should be blown off like you seem so keen on doing.

Throughout U.S. history there are identifiable patterns or periods when power has shifted between the States and the Federal government -- although the overwhelming theme has been from the former to the latter, there have been some periods where the reverse has occurred. I think it's entirely possible that the current uber-Federalism has reached the end of its rope with the public, and we're starting to see a loss of patience for highly centralized government, and a desire to decentralize some authority back out to the States. People want more accountability, and it's just not clear that the Federal government is in a position to provide it.

Although it's not a total non sequitur, I'm not sure that bringing up the Civil War is really relevant to the discussion; it's nearly impossible to have a rational discussion of the Civil War without getting wrapped up in the historically-related (and still partially unresolved) issues of agrarian-vs-industrial economies, slavery, and 19th century politics. (Particularly slavery -- it's hardly worth even trying to discuss the abstract issue of states' rights when anyone on the states' side of the argument is going to be called pro-slavery. It's like Nazism; it just stops the discussion.)

Re:Ya think?

[im_thatoneguy]

It's more than symbolic it's the start of a legislation patchwork policy. If there is something that large corporations hate more than just about anything else it's legislative patchwork because it costs them a lot of money.

When it comes to mass production it will often cost more to design a product or service which conforms to two different standards than just implement the stricter standard in all of your products.

If even 25% of the states in the US implemented a Net Neutrality Resolution the cost to ISPs to ensure that packets originating and ending in a Net Neutral state would be significantly higher than just abandoning QoS nation wide. And if someone like Google moved into your state then ISPs would need to know which datacenter IP range they need to throttle and which they can leave alone.

If you bounce your packet through a Net Neutral state and it is throttled while in the state, they've broken the law. Can you imagine how difficult it would be to ensure that every packet you send and receive didn't pass through a state with a net neutrality law?

Behold the beauty of de facto legislation. One of the first real gems of globalization.

Re:Net Neutrality Resolution -- seems good to me

[olden]

Call me weird, anti-/. or something, but I've read the bill (it's not that long, really), and it seems actually quite good.

Some interesting bits (my interpretation, IANAL etc; check the real stuff if you're into legalese):

• ISPs can still block spam/porn/attacks... as long as the customer is clearly notified of such filtering and can opt out

• However ISPs aren't allowed to, say, collect money from content providers for 'improved' service... bye Goodmail! :-)

• ISPs can implement some QoS (good!) but only based on the type of service, not its source/destination/ownership/content... In sync with this post by jonwil, who I fully agree with.

• Users can attach to their PC any device they want unless it "substantially degrade[s]" others' service -- Hello Wi-Fi sharing? :-]
  (this however certainly doesn't shield you from trouble if your line is used for illegal stuff)

All in all, seems pretty well-thought. Good job Maine. I can't see a nasty flaw, loophole, unnecessary burden put on ISPs or end-users...; did anyone spot some problem I missed?