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Net Neutrality Suffers Major Setback
RingDev writes "The US Court of Appeals ruled in favor of Comcast today, stating that the FCC lacks the authority to require broadband providers to give equal treatment to all Internet traffic flowing over their networks."
Bye-bye internet, was nice knowing ya.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
This is just one Circuit of the US Court of Appeals (although very influential). There is no "The United States Court of Appeals".
If they can filter content, based on whatever they want to do, they lose their common carrier status,
Lose what? They don't have common carrier status. They never were common carriers.
In fact they have lobbied and fought hard to AVOID getting common carrier status. Being a common carrier would expose them to regulatory oversight they DO NOT WANT. And would limit them from doing certain types of Deep packet inspection, traffic shaping, etc, etc, that they DO WANT.
and are now responsible for all content passed over their networks.
Except libel and slander because they are exempted from respoonsibility in the communications decency act. Except Copyright infringement because they are protected provided they follow DMCA takedown requests. And so on.
I am sure they will get out of it somehow.
Of course they will. By and large they already have.
What is the point of having the FCC if you don't let it do its job? Under what guise could anyone come under the impression that this isn't FCC Jurisdiction?
Lacks the Authority? It should be the Authority. The courts should only be called in when the FCC is doing something that is questionable. Instead, they have prevented the FCC from stopping all of the questionable behavior that is undoubtedly going to be spawned by this.
With Wikileaks the other day, and now this, news is giving me a serious headache this week.
$.08 per page. That's only really worthy of +4 informative if parent also post's his/her PACER login details.
That's a ridiculous generalization. You speak of Europe like it's a homogenous entity. In reality, only a handful of countries are even thinking about what you're suggesting, and most of those are just simple corruption and greed (see: Italy) rather than anything major. Scandinavian countries are still largely separate from the stuff that's been going on in the west.
Also, eastern europe is pretty much a dark spot - does anyone know if there is filtering or throttling there, and, if so, how much?
Yet Another Tech Blog
(but so much more, including game and movie reviews)
http://yanteb.peasantoid.org
>You really think that such improvements would happen in a hyper-regulated marketplace?
As evidence by Europe: yes.
Note: basic consumer protection is not "hyper-regulated", only an ignorant anarchocapitalist thinks that kinda crap - and considering implementing even a few of the anarchocapitalist deregulatory wet dreams led to the current recession: why the @#%$ should we listen to you?
If you cannot keep politics out of your moderation remove yourself from the Mod Lottery.. NOW!
This is an FTC issue. If you want the FCC to keep their hands off of the broadcast flag or a three-strikes program, then they need to not be in net neutrality business either.
Nearly anything is true when you operate on the principles of confirmation bias.
did free market work out the issues in wall street ?
stop believing that 'free market' religion. it NEVER existed at any point in human history, just like real communism. BECAUSE THEY ARE TOO IDEALISTIC AND CANT EXIST.
once a company acquires monopoly, it doesnt matter shit whether it acquired it through legitimate means, or underhand means. a monopoly is a monopoly.
its even stupider to expect the monopoly or near monopoly companies and groups not to ab use their power for their own profit, at the expense of the people or the free market. "oh, im near monopoly, i can lock out everyone and force my will upon everyone, but, well, i shouldnt do this, because it is unethical" => can you expect this from any executive officer of any company ?
"people will make choices, and all will be good" BUT WHO GETS STRONGEST FIRST DENIES THE PEOPLE THE RIGHT TO MAKE CHOICES. they lock them down into their stuff only. just like how 30% of america is locked down to one single ISP, just like how despite seemingly having an innumerable array of cleaning liquids/products in your local wal mart, more than half of them are produced by a single company, procter&gamble. choice is in the labeling only. source is the same.
below is an excerpt from another well made post by another user in /. in another thread :
"Free market capitalism has never been tried"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_market [wikipedia.org]
"Free market economics is closely associated with laissez-faire economic philosophy, which advocates approximating this condition in the real world by mostly confining government intervention in economic matters to regulating against force and fraud among market participants."
The USA tried something close to a laissez faire marketplace and it failed miserably.
Starting in 1898, there was an explosion of regulation and the breaking up of monopolies.
Free markets did not self-regulate. They polluted, colluded, abused the workforce,
sold unhealthy foods, caused stock/bank crashes and a 101 other things.
The EPA, SEC, FTC, FDA, OSHA, etc are all the direct result of that failed philosophy.
The problem with advocating a "free" market is that it is simply bad public policy to let
a corporation kill 100 people and then settle the matter afterwards through the court.
Ideology rarely succeeds in the real world.
Read radical news here
Sheesh, forget your drama queen pills this morning?
There is nothing terrible about this decision, because this decision has nothing to do with net neutrality. It was a decision about whether a government agency has carte blanche to do whatever the hell it wants without any congressional oversight, much less voter oversight.
Please, get a clue. Anyone with a brain does NOT WANT GOVERNMENT AGENCIES HAVING UNLIMITED POWER, even if they do things you like. They next decision might be something you don't like, and you won't have any way to stop them.
If you want net neutrality, then fine, get the government to pass a law. That's the way we do things in a representative democracy. We do NOT want government by executive order.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Nobody here disputes that Congress could pass laws to give the FCC such power. At most that's where Wickard would come in but I don't think you'd have to rely on Wickard (which involved interstate commerce powers and growing a portion of one's wheat crop for personal use-- while I think Wickard was wrongly decided, it isn't really relevant here). However here you have money clearly changing hands for a service, which involves interstate communication. That's pretty uncontroversially inside the power to regulate interstate commerce.
Wickard was at its basis a question of the scope of powers that Congress had under the "necessary and proper" clause as it relates to interstate commerce. It was a Constitutional question.
However the FCC can only act on powers specifically delegated to them by Congress. Unless Congress acts, the FCC cannot. That would pose other problems including separation of powers issues.
This decision here involving Comcast was a good one. It ensures that elected lawmakers make the laws, rather than unelected beaurocrats. Whether or not you like the immediate outcome, it seems like supporting the idea that Congress makes the laws and the FCC only acts pursuant to them is a good thing. Anyone really disagree with that?
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