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Justice Department Opposes Net Neutrality
thornomad writes "I was saddened (though not surprised) to read that the Justice Department opposes net neutrality saying that it could 'hamper development of the internet.' While it may seem counter-intuitive to me, they argue that allowing ISPs to provide different levels of service/speed for different content will benefit consumers. They did promise to 'continue to monitor and enforce any anticompetitive conduct to ensure a competitive broadband marketplace' — not that anyone was worried about that."
This is already the case with a lot of webhosting providers - many run two networks, one with quality bandwidth blends that cost more for them to operate and result in lower ping times and higher throughput, and one with inexpensive (read: crappy) Cogent bandwidth.
This whole price to performance thing has been around forever - there are already massive tiers of quality built into the internet, both on the consumer end and the content provider end. Take a look at Akamai and Limelight - you'll pay absurd amounts of money to have your content hosted on their CDN - sometimes several dollars per GB transfered.
Then take a look at a webhost like Colo4Dallas, Voxel, or The Planet and you'll find that they as well offer expensive fast bandwidth, or cheap slower bandwidth. Also keep in mind that you can pay Time Warner, Optimum Online, or Verizon an extra monthly fee to bump up your speed. Should that be against the rules?
Prioritizing web traffic isn't really the major issue. I think your original analogy doesn't apply to this particular article, however it's a good analogy which hits on another core issue of "net neutrality" - ie the type of filtering that Comcast has been caught doing over the last few days. I think the headline is a bit misleading, as the DoJ isn't coming out against Net Neutrality - they're coming out and saying this is already how shit works, and there's nothing wrong with it. Now if they came out and said what Comcast is doing is alright, that would certainly justify the headline...
Who the hell cares? They shouldn't even have an official position on this; the Justice Department has certain specific duties and interests, and setting communications or commerce policy is not one of them. They have neither the expertise nor the authority to even contribute to the debate.
This is the same justice department that eviscerated the anti-trust judgment against Microsoft that the proceeding administration worked so hard to obtain.
And this is the same justice department that can't seem to see that ICANN is a combination in restraint of trade on the internet that is costing domain name consumers something on the order of $500,000,000 per year in excessive fees for domain names.
So I wouldn't expect to see this Justice department to notice even the total destruction of the end-to-end principle.
My prediction: The internet will soon resemble the US cellular phone system - a system of provider shaped lumps of good connectivity, for paid-for applications, and only enough free inter-provider HTTP/HTTPS connectivity to keep the level of customer complaints manageable.
And perhaps we might even see mandatory provider-centric, provider crippled user software, just like we have provider centric, provider-crippled cell phones.
Just like patents, we in America need a profit-making monopoly to encourage progress in the useful arts and sciences. Because, everyone knows that businesses won't invest in technology unless they can turn it into a profit-making monopoly and shut out the competition. ;-)
Some people think of progress as something that enriches all of humankind. Obviously, these people don't work for the Justice Department - whose notion of progress is measured by how much money is being made from things formerly given away for free. Apparently, progress isn't progress unless you can put a dollar value on it and sell it. It's called Market Creation(TM), and it is considered a Good Thing(TM) by those who believe Corporate America(SM) is the savior of the working classes.
After all, every politician drools at the prospect of creating jobs out of thin air. The rights of the consumer, OTOH, don't seem so important.
Now is the time for us to raise our concerns with our elected officials. Write or call a senator. Send them an email before it becomes "premium content" and subject to an additional surcharge.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
A poster (above) has commented that this is analogous to UPS charging more to deliver your package faster. Nothing could be further from the truth. The ISP's et. al. want to be legally permitted to throttle or block traffic based not only on how much the consumer pays for internet access but also upon whether or not the web content provider has ponied up for "express lane" service. Also, the ISP's want the authority to block certain types of content from delivery altogether (gnutella, bittorrent, audio/video streams). A better analogy would be UPS refusing to give me priority delivery because the recipient on my package isn't on their preferred list - and letting UPS determine that the content of my package is not merely safe for transport, but doesn't contain anything which UPS might consider bad for their business (say, fliers and advertising materials for the USPS).
My local cable company shamelessly blocks all gnutella and bittorrent traffic (when they can identify it), and throttles audio and video streams regardless of source. My perception is that they don't want guys like me getting their audio or video unless it comes down their designated pipe - after I pay them for it, that is. Now, my ISP is a telco. I can stream/download anything I want, but I suspect that any attempt on my part to set up a VOIP solution is doomed to failure. Funny, when I was using the cable company for internet, they encouraged me to use VOIP, bundling their own telephony technology up with my cable and internet access. Hmmm . . .
Back to my point - this kind of decision is what we get when we let non-technically oriented people make fundamental, binding, long-term decisions about consumer rights vs. corporate rights with regard to technology. I suspect that the justices under discussion have the same understanding of net neutrality that the UPS poster does - and that understanding is inadequate to the job.
It only specifies 'users'. It doesn't specify whether the users are end consumers or not.
A better analogy would be:
"Should Intel be able to pay UPS to look inside your packages, and if it contains AMD chips, sit on the package for an extra day or two?"
Your analogy applies to the current situation, where ISPs already charge different prices for different bandwidths. So this DOJ thing can't be about that, since it's about preventing something that doesn't already exist.
It's about enabling ISPs to require end-consumers to pay more for faster delivery of content. The only way that can work is if at least some content is intentionally delivered SLOWER than the user's paid-for bandwidth.
paintball
"continue to monitor and enforce any anticompetitive conduct to ensure a competitive broadband marketplace"
Like, maybe, cutting out copper infrastructures when installing FiOS, locking the current and any future customers in to one vendor?
Antitrust lost its fangs under Clinton and the rest of its teeth under Shrub. It's not even bother to gum corporations anymore.
Returned Peace Corps IT Volunteer
I am confused. The problem is not paying for a bigger pipe, the problem is that speeds will be determined in part by content. In other words, some sites will load faster than others on the same connection. I have no problem kicking speakeasy extra bucks for a faster connection; I do have a problem if they get to choose which of my packets is speedier.
Speakeasy is of course the google of ISPs, but don't be surprised if you start to see abuse of this system. AT&T has a deal with myMusic? Wow, my iTunes Store downloads are taking quite a bit longer...
Protect your liberties. Donate to the ACLU
Maybe they understand the issue, but oppose (or see no reason for) government intervention, like I do. And like all the supposed libertarians on /. should.
Take a lesson from history, drop blind ideology because there are no ideal fixes. Sometimes government intervention is good, sometimes bad. A blanket statement or position that ignores all variables is not a productive socio/political philosphy but so many Americans/slashdotters seem to take it because it's simplistic and appeals to the "KIS" side of you. Unfortunately people aren't simple.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
A libertarian should support network neutrality because the minimal government intervention necessary to enforce the rules is required for capitalism to function. Libertarianism without this principle devolves into a corporate oligarchy.
A libertarian would do no such thing. Enforcing net neutrality laws in fact supports entrenched economic rights (i.e. de jure monopolies) rather allowing a free market system to work. Maybe people actually WANT a non-neutral system. They should be allowed to choose it if that is what they want. A libertarian would work to remove the regulatory barriers that give incumbent ISPs an economic advantage. With a proliferation of ISPs there would be a choice of carriers to use, and people would pick the service model they want.
This link illustrates the principle as applied to another famous monopoly.
http://fare.tunes.org/liberty/microsoft_monopoly.
What does the DOJ have to do with Internet regulation? I could see this as a Dept. of Commerce thing, but Justice?
But, I wanted socialized health insurance!
God damn people like you piss me the fuck off.
Internet is not a private road. Internet was built on lots and lots of public funds, and lots and lots of private funds. Likewise the physical cabling runs across all sorts of land, most of it public right of way, granted to the telcos to use for what amounts to in the end, a bribe to governments.
So you analogy has a fucking hole right in the center of it like akin to 'hello.jpg', fingers digging in and pulling it open and all.
And what YOU are proposing is not just a fee to get on this "private highway" but also the private highway gets to steal paint, concrete and exit/entrance ramps from the public highway. Unless you are talking exclusively about point-to-point lines, you are a fucking liar. ALL of it connects to the same public network one way or another. And allowing priority this and QOS will fuck it all up. You think the telcos get in pissing matches about peering points now, just wait until they can charge everybody by the packet/hop and oh, if you leave the network thats x10.
The ONLY question is do the carriers have a right to charge content provider A to content consumer B as well as charge content consumer B for the bandwidth.
In other words, can we extort and double dip or not?
Nobody with any goddamn brains thinks that's a good idea. Nobody that doesn't stand to get RICH while doing it as well anyway.
But your analogy is a bit flawed. The UPS consumer who will receive the package is like you or I at home at our computer; we know not nor care what UPS had to do to get it to our doorstep, as long as they charge us the amount agreed upon. How do you fit that into your Internet analogy? I suppose you could say UPS is like your local ISP, whereas the trunk providers are the toll road owners.
And here is where it boils down to: assuming there isn't a local monopoly* on high speed Internet access in your area, your ISP is going to do whatever it is they can to please the consumer; if the consumer wants non-tiered** Internet access, they will either a) demand it and get it, b) go to a provider who will meet the demand, or c) do nothing because non-tiered access isn't, for whatever reason, enough for them to complain or switch providers.
*More often than not, competition is forbidden due to the local government giving a local company, or a "city-owned" company, a monopoly on high-speed Internet access. Don't like the service? Tough shit--get satellite or go without.
**Non-tiered from the end-user's perspective. If you're capped, and you most certainly are, it doesn't matter if access is tiered at a higher level than the cap your provider imposes on you, so you'll have virtually non-tiered access.
Truckin like the Doo-Dah man...
Here is the question: Should the road builder be forced to open up his private roadways to the public, at no cost, even though he spent $X Billion of his own money building the roads?
Problem with this: AT&T and others were given tax breaks and governmental funding to build their infrastructure. THEN, they charge the consumers to use it after having been granted an essential monopoly by the government. THEN, they continue to receive tax revenues and government subsidies to operate it (Universal service fund). NOW, they want to be able to charge Google to give their content to you, as well as charge you to get Google's content.
I don't know why you all want to use analogies, because this genuinely isn't hard to understand.
But, if it were your road analogy, it would be more along the lines of: The road builder spent $X billion of his own money, along with $Y Billion government subsidies to build the road. Now he has been granted exclusive rights to high-speed traffic, and the only other routes from anywhere to anywhere else are 2 lanes and filled with traffic 24/7. Oh, and he owns that route, too, by the way. So, he charges people a fee to use the highway, while the government is still paying him to maintain the road.
Now he wants to charge you not only to get ON the toll road, but to get OFF the toll road, and charge more, based on how fast you were going. Also, the road builder is ugly, and wants to have sex with your sister.
Whatever. ISP's should be tightly regulated in favor of the consumer, at ANY cost. It helps our case that our fucking tax dollars built their infrastructure in the first place, and that the companies have been granted a virtual monopoly over what *should* be publicly owned infrastructure. I dunno, man, sweeden seems to be headed for 100 Mbit internet for $30/month in the next year or three. What the fuck is wrong with us?
~Wx
sig?
First, most of the US internet infrastructure was paid for by the taxpayers, in the form of tax incentives, and favorable laws restricting competition. The result was _supposed_ to be high bandwidth everywhere, but somehow the various parties didn't fulfill their part of the bargain. Second, yea, that happens all the time. It's called an easement
Ya know what happens if an ISP blocks "Google and friends"? They get a phone call from every single one of their subscribers asking why they can't get to Google. If the ISP lies and claims that it isn't their fault? The customers say, yes, it is their fault, their friend with another ISP (or their connection at work) has no problem getting to Google. If the ISP still refuses to remove the block? The customers quit and go to another ISP.
You are living in a fantasy land.
And before you say "we have no choice of ISP here", that is your problem. Fix that and everything else will be fine. Sheesh.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Thank you! I'm so sick of this "think of the children" bullshit. Mommy, Daddy, YOU think of your children. I grew up and now still have to play in the kiddie pool because you don't like how the net is? I am thinking of the children- may I please have the freedom to not be one?
This is what things like PROXY SERVERS were invented for.
lemonade was a popular drink and it still is