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FTC Could Gain Enforcement Power Over Internet
Hugh Pickens writes "The Washington Post reports that under a little-known provision in financial overhaul legislation before Congress the Federal Trade Commission could become a more powerful watchdog for Internet users with the power to to issue rules on a fast track and impose civil penalties on companies that hurt consumers. 'If we had a deterrent, a bigger stick to fine malefactors, that would be helpful,' says FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz, who has argued in favor of bolstering his agency's enforcement ability. This power would stand in stark contrast to a besieged FCC, whose ability to oversee broadband providers has been cast into doubt after a federal court ruled last month that the agency lacked the ability to punish Comcast for violating open-Internet guidelines. The provision to strengthen the FTC is in the regulatory overhaul legislation passed by the House, and although it is absent from the legislation before the Senate, some observers expect the measure to be included when the House and Senate versions are combined."
FCC is the besieged agency the summary is actually referring to, not the FTC.
The FCC has the jurisdiction, they should be enforcing the rules. But since they don't have the teeth, let the FTC do it, those guys are sharks.
Oh and the summary says FTC when it would say FCC - "FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz, who has argued in favor of bolstering his agency's enforcement ability. This power would stand in stark contrast to a besieged FTC, whose ability to oversee broadband providers has been cast into doubt after a federal court ruled last month that the agency lacked the ability to punish Comcast for violating open-Internet guidelines."
From what I understand, the FCC regulates the use of the channel. They make sure you're putting appropriate material in your allocated slice of the spectrum. That includes a small amount of actual content control to ensure that, for example, you don't have a parade of nipples during a family event, such as the Superb Owl. They'll also make sure that your transmitters are of a certain power, etc.
The FTC makes sure that customers are getting what they paid for. For example, if you're paying $X for a 10MB/s connection and you're only ever getting 3MB/s, then they'll step in and slap the provider around with a haddock. The FCC can't regulate this because it's outside their jurisdiction, nor can they prevent a provider from filtering results or blocking traffic. The FTC will put limits on font sizes so they can't say "actual bandwidth depends on network conditions and by "internet" we mean only HTTP and SMTP" in 3pt on the back of the inside cover of the modem.
Please bear in mind that I'm not from the US so I could just be dead wrong. Also, I didn't read the article or any of the other comments.
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ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
Thank you Wickard v. Filburn
Certainly our little excursions into Afghanistan and Iraq haven't helped the Federal Budget, but these are considered anomalies, not continuous spending. I think you really need to look at is Federal Spending as a percentage of GDP. Currently, it appears to be at about 45%, a level it hasn't been at since WWII. I think we need a constitutional amendment capping spending as a percentage of GDP, with an exception for war-time spending. But what percentage is reasonable limit? 10%? 25%? 50%? I'd like to see a maximum of 10% of GDP, but it hasn't been that low in a very long time.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Says you. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled a long time ago that the federal government can regulate entire industries, even though portions of them are decidedly local. (Including quotas on grain grown on one's own land that were not trafficked in any way.)
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commerce_Clause
IANAL.
I absolutely love humor