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FCC Commissioner Urges, Don't Regulate the Internet
Brett Glass writes "In an op-ed in today's Washington Post, FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell makes a case against government regulation of the Internet, opining that 'engineers, not politicians or bureaucrats, should solve engineering problems.' With state governments pressuring ISPs to pull the plug on Usenet, and a proposal now in play for a censored public Internet, McDowell may have a very good point." McDowell is one of the two FCC commissioners who did not vote with the majority to punish Comcast for their BitTorrent throttling.
Do we really want to allow the government to move into regulating the internet just so that a few companies can't throttle torrents? Really!? Because when I think of the government regulating the internet, it reminds me of things like the FCC trying to fine CBS over Janet Jackson's boob. Or the fact that you can't say a swearword over the radio without risking a fine.
What does net neutrality really accomplish? What are the people pushing net neutrality trying to accomplish? People like to talk about nobel goals like allowing a "free" internet, but what they really mean is that they want to use a lot of bandwidth and not have to worry about paying for it. That's why ISPs want to throttle, or disallow services. But to my thinking, it's unfair to let some people hog the internet at the expense of the rest of us.
I also don't like the idea that bandwidth providers and content providers should not be associated. That's the reason we have to pay for cable, and watch advertisements right now. Is it really so unreasonable to ask people to pay for content directly?
People need to stop trying to write laws just to make their lives cheaper and easier. Laws are for prosecuting criminals, not making your internet cheaper.