Obama & McCain Conflicting On Net Neutrality

longacre writes "For all their incessant bickering in the first two presidential debates over conflicts of interest and government regulation, PopMech columnist Glenn Derene is puzzled that the candidates have yet to be challenged on a vital issue directly related to both those topics: Net neutrality. John McCain and Barack Obama have stated elsewhere their opposing views on the issue, with McCain being opposed to Net neutrality and favoring light regulation of the Internet, while Obama is in favor of neutrality and seeks Government involvement. In any case, since there is no standard accepted definition of 'network neutrality,' until the candidates elaborate on their positions (which they both declined to do for this piece, nor anywhere else so far, for that matter), 'both sides can make a credible case that they're the ones defending freedom of innovation and open communication.'"

Comments

Both sides...

[Sasayaki]

Obviously. Both sides refuse to clearly state their positions so that they can define them... after the election.

"Of course we mean X. We always meant X. Why, did we ever say otherwise?"

Re:Both sides...

[Doc Ruby]

Oh, you meant "that one". Or did you mean the other McCain slur, "The One"? More Slashdotty.

We do have to keep our eyes on all these politicians. They will all change their terms after getting power if we can help it. It's pretty clear that with McCain, he doesn't even have to "spend any political capital" to side with the telcos against Net Neutrality: he's already against it, and fully lobbyist compliant.

Obama has made a couple of statements on his website that only support Net Neutrality, which is the position he's taken all the times he's mentioned it in public. If he'd made a simple statement, then changed to the more detailed one, people would say "he's just changing an easily identified opposition to a load of complicated doubletalk so he can weasel out later". That article you linked to is complaining about "changes", when it's the same policy, just stated in under 50 words as the website's traffic grows heavy with the mass of people who tune in late in the campaign to the more easily understood message, rather than the wonky details the earlier audience of more political consumers wanted. The campaign, when asked, confirmed that the policy hasn't changed. The activists for Net Neutrality of course have the earlier rendition of the policy in full detail, and aren't complaining. Because it hasn't changed, it's just being communicated to a wider audience.

By all means keep a close eye on both of them. But with Obama, you can actually watch him support Net Neutrality. Especially if you actually vote for him for president. With McCain, all you'll get is the short end of the stick: he's never even offered anything else.

Re:Both sides...

[Dak RIT]

You are aware that campaign donations from "organizations" is actually based on individuals who donate to that candidate and then self-identify with a specific organization, right? The information comes from what you list as your employer when you donate.

Looking at the actual data available, it shows Obama receiving $2,000 from the RIAA. OMG, the sky is falling, $2000? That's probably a single individual. There's no way you can possibly draw conclusions based on that... a single individual has far too many possible extraneous reasons for choosing who to donate money to.

If you actually did a little bit of research though, by going to a free site like opensecrets.org, you could actually get some more substantial donor information for both candidates. For example, Obama's 5th largest donor is Google, 8th is Microsoft, and 12th is Time Warner. He also has a number of universities showing up near the top, including Cal at #2 and Harvard at #3.

Comparatively, 7 of McCain's top 8 donors, and all of his top 5, are financial institutions. AT&T is mixed in there at 6. There's no other computer/technology/communications company showing up on McCain's top 20.

So what conclusions do you want to draw from that? Google is pretty invested in net neutrality, and its employees seem to be voting with their dollars pretty heavily for Obama. Should we conclude instead that Obama is really better for net neutrality? AT&T was also one of the biggest opponents of net neutrality, and its employees seem to favor McCain a lot more strongly than Obama.

The thing with data like this, is you can prove just about anything you damn want. That's why I always do my own research on issues that matter to me instead of reading a random blog. If you care about net neutrality, do research about donors at sites like opensecrets.org, and check out voting records and interest group ratings at votesmart.org. And also just read the positions of the candidates themselves.

Re:Both sides...

[wolfemi1]

What in the world are you going on about? When did either of the candidates ever say anything like this?

I read an article the other day about the power of stereotypes in politics, and how they're used in campaigns. In this case, I would wager that you are putting words in the candidates' mouths and acting as if they're planning to do this based solely upon your preexisting stereotypes of the party, rather than anything they've said or done. AND YOU WERE MODDED +2 INSIGHTFUL FOR YOUR WORTHLESS RANT. This is a prime example of how we all need to think more.

come on

[nomadic]

This is a minor issue, not a vital one. I'm glad they don't waste debate time talking about it.

Re:come on

[JeanBaptiste]

This has huge repercussions on my ability to torrent porn. I would not call this a minor issue.

Re:On the fence

[Trahloc]

Free market, to me, gives me the impression that I have a choice among many competitors. Unfortunately where I live this isn't true. DSL doesn't work and I have only one cable provider to choose from. If this happens to be one of the ones that decides net neutrality is evil then I'm screwed. So the government needs to force a standard. I guess to me, as a self described libertarian, I see the government as a sort of ISO standard body with military backing. Perhaps I'm off my rocker with that idea.

Re:Government Involvement?

[Anonymous Coward]

Posting anonymously because I modded in this thread.

You seem to misunderstand what Net Neutrality is. Net Neutrality is the principle that telecoms can't favor one type of net traffic over another. Since the telecoms are in a sense the gatekeepers of net access, then they have the technological power to do this.

The ONLY way to keep a business from doing something within its power is (obviously) to pass legislation against doing that thing.

Guess what? Legislation = "government involvement"

I'd be interested in knowing exactly how you'd MAKE Comcast stop downthrottling bittorrent without, you know, making them. Care to elaborate?

Re:On the fence

[Mr. Underbridge]

I personally am on the fence on this issue. As a libertarian, I am against government regulation and pro-free market and net neutrality seems to me to be a regulation against the telecom providers to do what they want with their lines.

I condider myself a libertarian, and am against regulation where truly free markets (or close approximations thereto) exist. However, in many cases, they don't, and this is an example. What you have is a very small number of players with a very high barrier to entry to the market. In that case, the equilibrium required for the operation of a free market simply doesn't exist. Because of the barrier to market entry, the actors can create a situation where a free market would demand competition to meet consumers' needs, but that no one can fill that need in any efficient manner because of the market barrier. In cases where such huge barriers exist and the actors seems to be colluding (explicitly or implicitly), I do think regulation is needed.