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FCC Begins Crafting Net Neutrality Regulations
ceswiedler writes "The FCC has begun crafting rules for network neutrality. The full proposal hasn't been released yet, but according to their press release (warning, Microsoft Word document) carriers would not be allowed to 'prevent users from sending or receiving the lawful content,' 'running lawful applications,' or 'connecting and using ... lawful devices that do not harm the network.' There will be a three-month period for comments beginning January 14, followed by 2 months for replies, after which the FCC will issue its final guidelines." Reader Adrian Lopez notes that US Senator and former presidential candidate John McCain has introduced legislation that "would keep the FCC from enacting rules prohibiting broadband providers from selectively blocking or slowing Internet content and applications." McCain called the proposed net neutrality rules a "government takeover" of the Internet.
Update: 10/24 16:32 GMT by KD : jamie found a Reuters story reporting that the Sunlight Foundation has revealed John McCain to be Congress's biggest recipient of telco money over the last two years — "a total of $894,379..., more than twice the amount taken by the next-largest beneficiary, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev."
Update: 10/24 16:32 GMT by KD : jamie found a Reuters story reporting that the Sunlight Foundation has revealed John McCain to be Congress's biggest recipient of telco money over the last two years — "a total of $894,379..., more than twice the amount taken by the next-largest beneficiary, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev."
decides what is lawful?
Why, yes! I AM new here.
As usual McCain has no clue what he's going on about, surprise, surprise.
There is a war going on for your mind.
Oh I love this part.
"McCain protested the FCC's proposal that wireless broadband providers be included in the net neutrality rules. The wireless industry has "exploded over the past 20 years due to limited government regulation," McCain said in the statement."
Wireless has exploded in the past 20 years because the damn technology has only become feasable for mass market computing in the past 20 years.
There is a war going on for your mind.
Why is FCC doing its press releases in a proprietary vendor lock in format? Haven't they heard of ODF? We should demand FCC and all government agencies to release their documents in a vendor neutral or vendor agnostic format.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Somebody hasn't been paying attention. The FCC is already in charge of regulating communications. They've had guidelines for Net Neutrality since 2005. Now they are just going to take those existing guidelines & make them laws so that they can fine companies for not following them. None of this would have happened if said ISPs weren't getting hard-ons over trying to screw-over their customers both big (Google) & small (me & you).
There is a war going on for your mind.
The libertarian side of me gets really worried when the government gets involved in anything that says "neutrality" I'm sorry, but freedom of speech is freedom of speech...PERIOD! Do I like about 75% of the garbage on TV, radio or the internet? Hell no! But, I always side on freedom. No one is FORCING me to watch or listen to something I do not want to hear or see. When government gets involved, it usually screws everything up. Truer words were never spoken when someone said the scariest thing every said was... "I'm from the government, and I'm here to help". I don't want ANY regulation on speech, though, or expression. That includes the KKK, pro-gay, pro-abortion, anti-abortion, pro-religion, anti-religion or anything else. If you don't like it, don't watch, read or listen to it.
I wonder how they plan to enforce the "lawful uses"/"lawful content" clause. That could turn out to be a hole big enough to drive a truck through. What if the providers say that the only way to insure that legal content is available to to limit access to the few sites that they have vetted and partnered with.
I can fully understand giving ISPs the right a prevent DDOS and other attacks on the network, but the enforcement of what is lawful should be limited to that, and not be a license or directive to police the sites and protocols allowed on a network.
The proposed rules only apply to "lawful content", "lawful applications", "lawful services", and "lawful devices". I'm not sure what I think about this. By way of analogy, do we have laws for our public highway system that limits our use of the road based on what content we carry in our vehicles? Is our use of the roadway illegal if we intend to use something we're carrying for an evil purpose or application? I can see where my vehicle (device) might be unlawfully configured (over the maximum weight limit, for example), and that might be analogous to a lawful network device, but even then, only in so far as it affects use of the network itself, not in any other context.
Why do we need this automatic extension of contexts? It will mean that anything illegal in one context (say, money-laundering), is going to also be automatically illegal in the entirely different context of how it is being conveyed. It would not only be illegal to launder money, but if one uses the Internet, it would be additionally illegal to have merely conveyed instructions to do so.
That we will get all manner of unintended, unhappy side consequences out of this mixing of contexts seems almost guaranteed.
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
Please turn in your libertarian credentials at the desk on your way out.
There is no such thing as a market failure. There is only government failure. Want to know why cell phone services are expensive here? Because if you start your own cell phone company, the FCC puts you in jail.
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
I'm libertarian leaning, and after much internal struggle, I also concluded that I support the "concept" of network neutrality.
It's extremely unfortunate that the only institution in the U.S. with enough power to enforce something like that is the Federal Government. With that in mind, I do not trust any "implementation" of network neutrality that the D.C. crowd will come up with. They may give a piece of legislation a nice label, but you can be sure that in the end, the big money special interests will get everything they want. Our government is currently unwilling to pass any major legislation, or even enforce existing laws that might benefit the average citizen at the expense of wealthy special interests.
It sucks, but I think that we're on our own here. Hopefully we can generate enough backlash against corporations that start throttling bandwidth, discriminating based on data type, content, source or destination to make them reconsider their practices. If we have to put our trust in D.C. we're screwed.
How can you sit there with a stright face (I assume you have a straight face) and say this is a government takeover of the internet?
All this is saying is that your ISP, which you have practically no choice of who it is (at best a choice between one DSL and one cable TV Co.) can't decide which websites you can visit at the full bandwidth you paid for.
Let me assume you are a republican and like to visit foxnews.com. What if your ISP got into marketing agreement with MSNBC and throttled its competitors, including foxnews.com, so much it became almost unusable. Would that be OK in your book?
The ISPs should not have the power to decide what web sites and net services you can reasonably visit/use. If there were true competition in the ISP market, then maybe so. But that is not the case, and probably will never be the case. That is why we need net neutrality regulations.
I hate regulation. I'm so sick of Comcast regulating my Internet habits that I want my government to regulate Comcast. Net Neutrality is the least-regulation possible.
Robert Mcdowell:
"Consumers are telling the marketplace that they don't want networks that operate merely as 'dumb pipes,'" he said. "Sometimes they want the added value and efficiency that comes from intelligence inside networks as well."
I wish I could interview politicians, "You just made that shit up didn't you?"
Samsung took back my unlocked bootloader because Google wants me to rent movies. They're both evil.
Fictitious far right Republican response: Hell no, of course that's not right! That's Obama propaganda marketing! More evidence of him trying to destroy America from within the white house to turn us into a socialist state where the government decides how much money everybody can make, what we can eat and what we can watch! He needs to be stopped!
On the other hand, if the question was posed like so:
Fictitious far right Republican response: It doesn't matter, the government does not have the right to tell businesses how to operate! Businesses can get into any agreements that they want and the government has to stay out of it! If msbnc viewers don't like it they can change ISPs! Vote with your wallet, that's the American way!
Judges? Based on .. the law?
The problem with relying on judges is that you're more likely to get a ruling like Kelo than some noble defense of the Constitution. You know, Kelo, the one that declared, yes, governments can seize your private property and transfer it to other private citizens for "the public good".
There's a line in the Bible... "Put not your trust in princes"... that I think could easily apply to judges when it comes to your rights and the Constitution.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
Just wanted to point out that you gave excellent background in the first two paragraphs, then argued against Libertarianism in the third. However, you debunked your own argument against Libertarainism in the fourth, proving what I've always believed... That yes, indeed, Libertarianism is the true Capitalism. And with Capitalism comes natural ups and downs, much like with the weather and nature.
In short, you try to argue against Libertarianism but end up proving it the best course of action by the end of your rant. Not sure if that was your intent, but it does say something.
You seem to think it's the 50s all over again, not the 60s. And you're just as retarded as McCarthy was. Communism isn't a system of government! It's an economic system. Capitalism isn't a system of government! It's an economic system. Conflating the two results in the meaningless muddy thinking your post is full of.
You were dumb enough to bring up Nazism as an argument. I'll do you one better. Corporate control of government, also known as regulatory capture, has a name too. Mussolini himself named it fascism, in his own writings, and that's what it is. Guess what? That's what we're getting. The US is in no danger of becoming a Nazi state, any more than it's in danger of converting to a communist economy. It IS in danger of becoming a fascist state, and there you sit, advocating more corporate power.
The Internet is the greatest communication tool ever created by mankind and the FCC is moving to pass regulations to keep it that way, because the CEO of SBC went on the record claiming Google was stealing from them. It was a blatant lie, a venal attempt to charge people at both ends more money for the exact same service. The Internet is the greatest communication tool ever created and you DARE to use it to post polemics in favor of DESTROYING it?
You complete and utter fool. Stop typing. Stop talking. You don't deserve to use the Internet. You're so stupid you write "communism/socialism" as if they're the same thing. The Internet is about words, and you are a total failure at understanding words. Stop polluting the thoughts of people around you with your failure.
In the event that companies do start charging major sites to carry the traffic then yes it should be passed. Until then they are passing laws that will give more examples of the government controlling what is on the Internet and does not solve a problem for the consumer.
"Leave things alone until the free market fucks it up" is not a good way to pursue public policy.
Example: Credit Default Swaps and Mortgage Backed Securities
Not to mention your bald assertions that this will lead to "government controlling what is on the Internet and does not solve a problem for the consumer" make no sense at all. If you think that your net connection being subject to the whims of a corporation, with no recourse, isn't a problem, I can't help you to understand.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!