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."

Comments

This isn't net neutrality,

[casualsax3]

This is the DoJ saying it's legal to have different levels and quality of service. A good analogy would be "should I have the option of paying UPS more to get my package to its destination faster". The answer is an obvious yes - there's nothing wrong with priority traffic. If you want to pay to have your data moved faster, why shouldn't you be able to?

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...

This is what we get . . .

[mmell]

for allowing non-technical people to make fundamental decisions about the appropriate use of technology.

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.

Re:Here's a better analogy

[jafiwam]

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.

Re:Here's a better analogy

[edwdig]

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?

That's about as far off as you can be. To go along with your original UPS/FedEx/etc idea...

You order a package from Amazon. Amazon ships it to you via UPS. Along the way, UPS takes your package along a toll road. The toll operator looks inside the truck, sees an Amazon package, wants to force the truck to take the slow lanes unless Amazon pays a toll in addition to the toll UPS is paying. Should that be allowed?

Re:what the internet needs

[cayenne8]

"Its time to make the net safe again for our families and businesses."

And when pray tell, was this?!?!

I hate to feel the trolls, but, then again I think.....some people might actually believe this shit.

Get it straight...the internet was not developed for, nor designed to be there for business, nor family safe entertainment. Perhaps you are thinking about AOL before it was on the internet? That was not the internet...that was a private network....

The internet is not for business....business, like anyone else is welcome to use it, but, it is something that is and should remain a way for everyone connected, to be a true 'peer' to every other user with a computer hooked to the network. The little guy needs the same voice as the big guys.....and when you do this, well, chances are you might hear, read or see something you don't agree with...

It is a tool for the adult world...it is a freedom that must be preserved to give people a free voice to express themselves. If you don't like little Johnny seeing some parts of it...it is up to YOU as a parent to regulate their access. It is not right to muzzle the adult world for your lack of desire to police what your kids see and do on it.