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The Telcos' Secret Anti-Net Neutrality Strategy
NoMoreHelio writes "The political blog ThinkProgress lays out big telecom's plan to attack net neutality. The blog obtained a secret PowerPoint presentation from a telecommunications industry front group (PPT) that outlines the industry strategy for defending against regulatory attempts by the FCC. The industry plans to partner with two conservative 'astroturfing' groups, best known for their work seeding the Tea Party movement. Today's revelation from ThinkProgress comes as Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL) joined various telecom-funded front groups to unveil an anti-net neutrality bill."
I guess having the TelCos decide what can and can't be on the Internet is right up the Teabagger's alley when it comes to "smaller government".
PowerPoint is just like a jack-in-the-box, waiting to popup and reveal secrets. First a war in Afghanistan and now a war against internet users.
This isn't so much about Net Neutrality as it is about them not wanting the government to have control of the situation. It wouldn't matter what the government wanted to do, the Telecoms want to be the ones in charge.
Net Neutrality? more liek net BRUTALITY am i rite?
seriously, who writes this crap?
Dear AT&T,
How much for the Slashdot / Reddit / Gmail / Gaming Bandwidth package? Just planning ahead...
They favor small government when it helps big business. They favor new legislation when it helps big business. They are experts at fooling average hard-working folks into voting against their own best interests.
Web Page Traffic: 200 visitors in 3 days.
/snicker
Oh yeah, we're gaining some real traction here! Better get started installing that OC3...
Okay... so let's say I'm an ISP. I don't shape any traffic. A small percentage of my customers are slamming my transit connection with p2p traffic. What if I setup peering connections to large content providers (google, Netflix, Directv, yahoo, large hosting company networks, voip providers, etc)? Now all non-peered BitTorrent traffic will go through the transit link where is could get clogged up. All the sites the most of my non-peering users are interested in get nice fast connectivity. I also setup an alternate network for my own VoIP services -- no QoS, but traffic gets routed off congested points on my network.
If an ISP does this, are they violating net neutrality? Does the government get to tell me which networks I peer with? Is peering now a *bad* thing if the government has too much control over the "neutrality"?
I wonder what completely wrong definition they'll assign "net neutrality" to?
Given that their first 2 scare lines involved the phrase "government takeover", I think they'll take a similar route...
"We are Microsoft. You shall be assimilated. Competition is futile."
Let's see what kind of absurd talking points come out of this, at the end of the day expect outright lies to be gladly paid forward by the "journalists" / stenographers with corporate media. Frankly if they succeed more power to them for exerting that much influence over us proud, "free" people.
While I am for net-neutrality, and we do need some form of regulation on the internet to keep the providers fair and clean, do not, and I repeat, do not assume that the government is pushing net neutrality for the purpose of helping you. There have been many times in the United States where our government will push something like Social Security, saying "This is to help the widows with children", which, yes, is a noble cause that many can't argue with. But look at it now, it is a system used to hook the societal leeches and give paychecks to fat-asses who are too lazy to get up and work.
My point it, watch the other hand. History shows that while on the surface what Uncle Sugar is doing may seem beneficial to average Joe, there sure as hell are things going on behind the scenes that I guarantee will hurt you personally in the long run.
Let me restate, we do need some regulation regarding the neutrality of the internet, but there are ulterior motives most likely at hand. In 10 years, do you think it is that out of the question that your tax money will be used to subsidize lower-class internet connections? What do you think all those extra FCC related charges are on your cell bill.
Also, you do not have a god given right to the internet. But you do have a say in it if you contribute. Your taxes subsidize infrastructure grants that go to these companies, and when these companies are limiting freedom of speech through their filtering agendas, then yes, there is an argument. But watch the other hand.
'We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.' RPF
Linking your cause to the Tea Party should generate a lot more bad publicity than it does. I mean, how can anyone take them seriously? I understand that they think they're revolutionaries like their forefathers, but when most of your constituents can't even spell "America", how do you expect to get anything done?
Raters gon' rate.
Stop the Government from taking over the internet!
Umm Hello?! If you Assholes remember, the Government *created* the Intranet, specifically Al Gore did. They then said, Hey All, we're going to turn this really nifty thing, that we created, over for the public good. I know I lived through it. Despite your best efforts to market/rewrite the web's history. I was on BBS's, CompuServe and Prodigy. I had a Accoustic coupler, and was war-dialing open systems before your fucking CEO's had even a wet dream over how much money could be made.
You Telco Asshats have proven over and over and over again that you are incapable of intelligently stewarding teh Intrawebs.
...though, I still don't know what the real problem is. The biggest issue I hear people talk about it capping the traffic. Okay, fine, make companies advertise the fact they cap. Do you really think net neutrality will increase or decrease the amount of companies wanting to cap traffic? The government doesn't have to stomp around defining QoS and shaping.
Have there really been issues where ISPs have purposely blocked traffic -- and if they did, I would think it would be found out pretty quickly.
to help the widows with children... is a noble cause that many can't argue with. But look at it now, it is a system used to hook the societal leeches and give paychecks to fat-asses who are too lazy to get up and work.
I hear this a lot, but I've never been able to find a lot of evidence that a large portion of Social Security goes to "social leeches" who are just too lazy to work. Do you have data?
Tweet, tweet.
They are against government doing things for other people. Note that they blaim Obama for the rescue plan, that was enacted by Bush and the result of republican policies, the neo-conservative movement started with Reagan.
The most important skill in politics is NEVER to take the word of a party about what it stands for. You don't believe countries with the word democratic in their name are democracies do you?
It is like financial regulation, the banks are dead against that, but want very strict laws that enable them to collect on debts. Freedom is me telling you what I can do and you can't.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
They should thank /. for this promotion of their cause.
I stopped reading the summary at "Think Progress". Is Slashdot going to be a leftist hack site now too?
(and not the good sense of "hack")
"Big telcom", "conservative astroturfing groups", "seeding the Tea-Party movement". But ThinkProgress is a "political blog" without a trace of agenda. I'm sorry, Politico is a political blog, ThinkProgress is a partisan blog. Why all the weasel-words for those on the right-wing, but hide the political leanings of those on the left? I really get sick of having to deal with the spin of kdawson's posts - why can't we simply get it without all the cynicism and political slants?
I'm interested in the net-neutrality debate. I don't see a problem against declaring internet providers to be common carriers. In fact, I think I'd prefer it if they didn't interrogate packets - you just pay for bandwidth. But that doesn't mean I want to see the FCC step in and decide it can regulate how they operate. I certainly don't trust the FCC more than the industry. I share the opinion of the EFF on that matter.
I remember just a few years ago, when people were screaming bloody murder about the "overreach" of the FCC regarding enforcing decency regulations on the networks. But, now they're playing the part of savior? No, something is wrong here. The FCC didn't fundamentally change overnight into the model regulatory agency. The only thing that changed was which political party is in charge. That arrangement is going to change again. If you can live with the current party regulating the internet, can you live with the other party regulating the internet?
I don't know, maybe I'm missing something here. Maybe the FCC is a fundamentally better place for the evolution of network connectivity to be controlled from. But I don't think so. And all this partisan static coming from kdawson and his ilk doesn't set my mind at ease, nor does it better educate me on the issue. All it does is make me think that he and the other pro-net neutrality people are just partisan hacks looking for short-term political gains. That may be uncharitable, but then again, so is his treatment of those who disagree with him.
...the video gamers who are the ones who need net neutrality legislation the most to prevent ISP's from choking off their bandwidth... Clever, and probably very effective, too. No one ever seems to challenge their lies, and the general population is more likely to believe lies than they are the truth (i.e. death panels). Amazing that they can get away with this, but these guys are good. They've been taking away the livelihood of the middle class for a generation and yet people are still cheering them on!
Anybody else notice the slide showing the Facebook page has a tab open titled "How to get a screenshot"? Are these people *that* technically incompetent?
Poor means hoping the toothache goes away.
1. Create sea of regulation preventing competition from entering telecom business.
2. Achieve government-sanctioned monopoly on said services.
3. Screw over users.
4. Prevent users from regulating against being screwed in the name of freedom.
5. Profit
Except they do want the government to be in control of the situation. Repeal all the cable TV franchises? Get rid of all the government-forced easements on other people's property for phone lines?
When we're talking about Republicans, laissez-faire just means, "Pass a shitload of laws to strengthen government's power to take away from people and give to campaign contributors." Democrats do that too, but they don't lie about what they're doing.
Did anyone notice where this story came from? Think Progress, the far-left-liberal group.
Recently a bill was introduced in the House that would provide the FCC the ability to regulate ISPs, it was written by Free Press, a badly misnamed organization dedicated to regulating an over-use of free speech, and, among other things, criminalizing private media ownership in favor of "democratic" collective ownership, regulating bloggers, reporters, instituting government-funded reporting and journalism, and re-introducing the fairness doctrine. Woa! And government doesn't want to regulate ISPs, they just need to? Nothing bad could come of this? Seriously?
Since when were ISPs bad? They provide a great service to many people. Remember what the Internet is. It's a network of privately owned computers, linked together. Each individual has the say as to what happens with their computers and their network, each individual has every right to say how to route their data. Engineering and internal self-regulation has always solved more problems than outside regulation done by force. This is how the Internet has always operated, why are we now criminalizing this idea of Internet freedom?
Wonder what the public key field is for?
The Soviets used a similar approach to legitimize the take over of the Baltic States during the 1930s. Quasi-grassroots organizations, created and funded by the Soviets, poised as the legitimate representative of the people of the Baltic states. These organizations called for intervention by the Soviets to quell internal civil unrest that was caused by agents of the Soviets. The Soviets, out of the goodness of their hearts, intervened and put down the unrest by shipping large numbers of Baltic citizens to death camps. All this to get access to the Baltic Sea.
Having access to the back pockets of people using the internet is just as important as ice free access to the sea. I believe this is why we see organizations like this and why the ISPs tolerate P2P and botnets. Fear is needed so that someone can be the hero.
They only elected GWB once. The first time the Supreme Court elected him by saying speed was more important than accuracy in voting.
As a side note, the first election of GWB was the first time in history that a Republican got 100% of the black vote in the venue of record...
And Again, with less invective: the first election we didn't really know what a disaster GWB would have been as a president. If he haddent got a bump because of his own incompetence basically allowing 9/11 he would have been on vacation the whole time. It's the second election that I find so fascinating. It was the electoral equivalent of throwing good money after bad. Kinda the electoral precursor mindset that the sub prime events pivoted upon.
Then again, this is the second cycle of the same mess, so I register no surprise at all.
Innocent people shouldn't be forced to pay for inferior software development.
--"Code Complete" Microsoft Press
You're wasting your time, they don't believe in society. If someone wants a nuclear waste dump in their backyard then by god they should have one!
There have been many times in the United States where our government will push something like Social Security, saying "This is to help the widows with children", which, yes, is a noble cause that many can't argue with. But look at it now, it is a system used to hook the societal leeches and give paychecks to fat-asses who are too lazy to get up and work.
What the hell are you talking about?
Social Security is offered to "societal leeches" who are 65 and over and have been making payments into the system their whole lives. Social Security was never billed to help "widows with children". It was "pushed" during the Depression (1935) when the elderly had absolutely no social safety net and had their entire life savings evaporate. Unemployment was at 25%, we were experiencing a spiral of deflation, and old people were starving to death in the streets without dignity.
Social Security passed with a large margin-- in the House with 372 yeas, 33 nays, 2 present, and 25 not voting. In the Senate with 77 yeas, 6 nays, and 12 not voting.
while on the surface what Uncle Sugar is doing may seem beneficial to average Joe, there sure as hell are things going on behind the scenes that I guarantee will hurt you personally in the long run.
Yeah......not that you enumerate what those "behind the scenes" things are or anything. You just "sure as hell" know "there are ulterior motives most likely at hand" and they'll "hurt you personally".. What the hell kind of logic is that?
In 10 years, do you think it is that out of the question that your tax money will be used to subsidize lower-class internet connections?
Seriously dude. WTF are you talking about? Like, what's a "lower-class" internet connection even mean? Do you mean a low-bandwidth connection? Or do you mean a connection for the "lower-class", aka poor people?
You DO know that the Internet was invented by ARPA, which is a part of the US Government... which was paid for by "your tax money". I'm guessing you don't know that.
The Internet as a private service came very late in the story. After the government (.mil, .gov) and its tech contractors (ibm.com) had it. After the educational system (.edu) had it... after AOL and Prodigy and Compuserve...
You have it backwards. The internet is not a god-given right for ATT & Time Warner to own, my friend. IF they're going to sell connectivity to the public using public technology and publicly funded networks, they better fucking keep their hands off the bits.
As for subsidizing Internet access for the poor, that's already happening, as it should.
Your taxes subsidize infrastructure grants that go to these companies, and when these companies are limiting freedom of speech through their filtering agendas, then yes, there is an argument. But watch the other hand.
Go read up on how the Internet started. Seriously. If you are subsequently embarassed and feel the need to come back for a mea culpa, that'd be fine.
What do you think all those extra FCC related charges are on your cell bill.
I don't know. What did Glenn Beck tell you they were?
Mods, come on. You can do better than that.
What's ironically labelled "net neutrality" is really all about trying to prevent network owners from charging fees for certain types of traffic - so the CONTENT PROVIDER CAN CHARGE YOU INSTEAD.
Do you REALLY think Google's we-own-our-own-freakin-private-jumbo-jet owners are in this for YOUR benefit?
Do you REALLY think the MAFIAA supports "net neutrality" for YOUR benefit?
"Net neutrality" is just a pissing contest over WHICH group gets to charge you how much for letting you download content.
And Google and the MAFIAA need YOUR HELP to get the government to make the telcos and ISPs let the "content providers" do that, because the telcos and the ISPs own the network.
NEITHER side in this fight is on YOUR side - they're fighting over who gets to turn you over and shake the money out of you.
best known for their work seeding the Tea Party movement.
All these retarded terms related to grass are getting annoying.
I'm not astroturf grass roots anything.
No one 'seeded' me to think we should be hanging senators for their crimes.
There's no place like
It's not such a secret strategy now is it.
If telco's cant have a secret anti-consumer plan then who can? Next thing you'll be telling me my secret plan to overthrow the US government by placing cyanide into Obama's twinkie and mind controlling Biden and Palin (I've already got Clegg and Cameron) isn't a secret any more.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
I'd like to be warned by my browser every time I visit an astroturfing site just the same as I am warned against phishing or malware sites. I have a serious question for slashdotters: what way is the best to get this kind of information? To find out whether a site is a genuine effort or a scam like this one?
Google et al already get paid now by their clients.
Network providers already get paid now already by their clients. They're both charging.
This issue is that Networks want to extort more money out of their existing clients and Google et al and Google et al clients, in return for providing nothing positive of value to either customers or content providers (economic rents).
Extortion is the correct word: they want the right to threaten any of the other parties with technical degradation of various forms unless they are paid more money---money to keep things as they are at present.
There are other scummy "business opportunities" this opens up, for instance taking money to substitute B's ad for A's in Google's search results--A pays Google and B pays the networks.
And then the next stage of the pipe will charge Google more money to change it back to the original ad if they outbid B.
The "get a different ISP" argument doesn't work, because the network providers want the right to do any of the above in the middle of the network. (Oh and of course no anti-trust enforcement)
Why is it "Activism" and "Community Organizing" when The People We Like do it, but "Propaganda" and "Astroturfing" when The People We Don't Like do it?
Crap like this smear campaign have been going on forever but now the people they are trying to con are a bit smarter than the average bear. I guess this will be an opportunity to see how co-opted our government really is.
From nonetbrutality.com:
Despite its inoffensive name, “net neutrality” is actually “net brutality”. It will harass internet users around the world. Once bureaucrats are in charge of setting prices and restricting internet access, and the FCC control mechanism is in place, it is only a very small step towards content censorship, taxes on internet use, and ultimately, one world government with a global internet czar bluntly running the worldwide web. ...One world government? Global Internet Czar? Don't let the Christians read this -- they'll think that they have to support this movement to postpone the end of days...
I'm amused that LULAC is being lumped in with the "conservative astroturfing" groups.
Also amused that they are being painted as a front for AT&T.
The Internet is not immune from economic principles and forces
I would agree with this argument if ISPs engaged in actual free markets instead of the de jure and de fact monopolies they currently enjoy throughout America. The areas with "competition" are rare, and in reality they are just oligarchies.
'Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.' - Mao Tse-tung
Make sure they hear your voice in support of network neutrality.
And when you write them, send your letters in via snail mail. Make sure you point out that, absent provisions for network neutrality, no communications of positions counter to those of the big ISPs are guaranteed of reaching them via the Internet. Or if your representative takes a position not to the liking of these ISPs, their communications are not ensured of reaching us.
Now, if we could find a way to have this mail delivered to their offices via the Pony Express ....
Have gnu, will travel.
They're going to create a Facebook group.
One of the popular Facebook memes is, "I bet X Facebook group can get ##,###,### followers before Y Facebook group does."
Feel free to substitute X and Y for the People and Corporations.
Perhaps X Facebook group can host the leaked PPT file of which Slide #9 is a part of... at least until they get hit with a DCMA notice.
Could they then post said DCMA as part of their group, along with links to relevant media discussions about the subject? Streissand comes to mind.
They favor small government when it helps big business. They favor new legislation when it helps big business. They are experts at fooling average hard-working folks into voting against their own best interests.
I keep hearing that the GOP = Big Business, when big business have given more to the Democratic Party over time than to the GOP. While there is certainly support in business for the Republicans, there is certainly no shortage of support for Democrats in the halls of commerce, either. Goldman Sachs is practically the in-house fundraiser for the DNC. Each of the largest megabanks... Citi, Bank of America, etc.. has very close ties to major Democratic politicians like Chuck Schumer, Chris Dodd, and ... I think you get the picture.
While your narrative plays well at Democratic Underground, Daily Kos, etc, those Wascawy Demokwats are even more deeply buried in the bosom of "big business". The RIAA is big business. As is Google. As is Apple. As is HP. The quintessential "big business" is GM, and guess who was eager to have government buy them? Hmm?
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
Remember that the companies that are whining about this are companies that have a long history of government support to allow them to lay the copper, cable or fiber. From the day that Alexander Graham Bell won a questionable patent, telephony, cable and internet have always relied on government help to get what they wanted. Minor levels of regulation are not oppression, nor would they interfere with the companies' abilities to exploit the market. Until the providers show that they are being hurt by net neutrality, they need to offer it.
The results of ignoring problems have been even messier in the Twentieth and Twenty-first Centuries. Government is hardly ever a perfect solution, but it often has done a good job of cleaning up messes that private enterprise has created. Since the major players in internet service provision have all sucked at the teat of government from time to time and are in dominant positions because of that, there's no reason to worry that government regulation that forbids discrimination by private enterprises is going to be a burden on free enterprise.
The rules were in place. The monopolies were traded for certain standards of service and public service when regulation first went into place. AT&T was happy to be regulated and block out local competitors. The (partial) deregulation of telcos and cable companies was a windfall to these companies. What did we get for it? A pocketful of mumbles -- empty promise from the telcos that we would all have fiber to the door by now.
telcos are against net neutality. oil cos against unconventional fuel technologies. *sigh*
Look at the powerpoint slide in the summary, now look at slide 13. See anything funny? Look again, at the far right tab in Chrome.
The title is "How to Get A Screenshot" (!)
The people that want to regulate our internet experience (and by that I don't mean net neutrality, I mean implementing premiums and unreasonable fees for certain sites and protocols) and weasel their anti-competitive legislation into congress are the people who don't know how to get a fucking SCREENSHOT, running Vista no less. I don't know about you, but that does not give me a great deal of faith in their technical expertise and ability to make competent decisions on the matter.
1. crooksandliars.com and mediamatters.org are sites whose main purpose is to document the outrageous behavior of the right so we don't have to rely on hearsay and wacky conspiracy theories. They actually do what you claim Glenn Beck does.
2. Glenn Beck is one seriously troubled and paranoid man. Or else he's morally bankrupt and just acting nuts so he can make truckloads of money by whipping people into a frenzy.
3. You've got the "hands over control of the internet" idea exactly backwards. Net neutrality is about preventing any entity from having control of the Internet - whether that is the government or corporations. It's the opposite of shutting down dissent - it makes it illegal to shut down dissent. And that's a good idea under any administration.
The prior administration had such great names for less than stellar legislation. "Patriot Act" "No Child Left Behind" etc. Things you could vote for and feel good about without looking too closely. Why is it that truly good legislation actually is hobbled with terrible names?
Whoever thought of the name "Net Neutrality"? Is there a better one? Like "Open Networks" or something like that? Omg, it's almost as if the opponents of the idea picked out the name. Is there a way to change the name?
Btw, Net Neutrality is quite desirable *until* we have more choices of Internet Providers. Here we only have Verizon and Comcast, and I feel very very lucky there is any choice at all, as it used to only be Comcast a year ago. If there were actually a choice of several ISP's, then Net Neutrality regulation would be superfluous. There would always be some far-sighted ISP competitor that offered full access to google, facebook, etc, without an extra surcharge or a kickback. When there are few or no choices, the ISP should definitely be regulated, as they are effectively in a monopoly or oligopoly position.
That's a false proposition. Currently the laws state that there is net neutrality. The laws are merely instating that situation. And even if it WERE new regulation, it wouldn't be "government control of the telecoms", it would be "government enforcing nobody controls it".
Tell me: is the constitution's proposition to have no law proposing and enforcing a state religion "government control of religion"?
No?
Then why is a law proposing nobody control the internet government control of it?
Like Phorm did in secret on the BT customers?
Ah found it!
14 April 2009--case has been dragging on for ages then..
It was so bad because the UK government refused to do something about it that the EU had to step in and overrule them!
Telecoms: Commission launches case against UK over privacy and personal data protection
Government body ignoring study results which don't support their agenda! Corporation-backed corrupt politicians ignoring anti-competitive behaviour in exchange for large "campaign fund" donations across the two main parties in the US!
More at 7, 8, 8.30, 9, 9.15, 9.25, in fact all the time, as this is nothing new.
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
Saying that you want to vote the bastards out of office is reasonable.
The Republicans and the Democrats do not follow the laws of this nation, period. They spend their days harassing 'we the people' with new laws and regulations. They do it for bribes, money, and power. Who gave them the right to break the laws and harass individuals?
Who gave you the right to be judge, jury, and executioner? If these people are breaking the law, they can be prosecuted and jailed. Unfortunatley, by and large they aren't. What they're doing is passing laws you don't like (and therefor take as 'personal harrassment'), and you don't like the motivation you assume (perhaps rightly) they have. Too bad. If they're breaking the law, prove it and have them prosecuted. If they're not, and you don't like what they're doing, then work to reform the law so that the campaign contributions (bribes) they're taking are no longer legal.
Saying that you want to see criminal prosecutions against those who you believe have acted illegally is reasonable.
Really? How reasonable is it when the judicial branch of our government doesn't even follow the laws?
What you mean is: they don't follow your specific, dogmatic, and fringe interpretation of the laws and constitution.
Threatening violence is not.
George Washington and friends didn't get rid of Big British Government by threatening legal action, writing petitions, and holding meetings. George Washington and friends got rid of Big British Government through the killing of thousands of British Government employees.
OK, nevermind, I'm wasting my time talking to a nutball.
You sir are a fucking menace to civilized people everywhere. Please stay the fuck out of my neighborhood. In fact, stay the fuck out of my state.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
I don't buy the cover-story at all. MBAs understand the basic rules of how to present an argument using powerpoint. This deck is amateur hour, it was obviously not done as a serious effort. It looks like a hoax aimed straight at the typical readers of slashdot.
They called themselves that. Therefore, to that extent, you're right: don't listen to the teabaggers.
You observe an ability to walk through Vancouver's east side in (moderate) safety and observe its generous social welfare programs and then (commiting the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy) proceed to infer that the generous social welfare programs are the reason for the safety.
Yet England has social welfare programs which are even more generous than those of Canada and not only has that failed to produce the same result (URL:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chav), there are many who argue that it is the overly-generous social welfare programs which create this violent population.
Or ... to re-phrase this response in terms you might be more familiar with: "Lisa, I want to buy your rock"
If you think the telecoms are a problem and government management would be an improvement, you need to find a friend who'll lend you a few grey cells.
Yes, that is exactly the problem - the lack of competition and the corporate influence in the American internet market has gotten so bad that government regulation looks better by comparison.
Libertarians somehow believe that private businesses should be stronger than governments but weaker than individuals.
Because "astroturfing" is by definition not "community organizing." An astroturf campaign is an organization that has been set up to appear independent and supported by a base of concerned people when in fact it was created by and overwhelmingly supported by the corporations that most stand to benefit from the activism. If the ISPs are directly funding these groups to solicit on their behalf, then that is rightly defined as astroturfing. It doesn't matter what partisan side it falls on.
Libertarians somehow believe that private businesses should be stronger than governments but weaker than individuals.
We're not talking about regulating the content creators - we're talking about regulating the access providers. Exactly how much "innovation" has come out of Comcast and Verizon for internet service as a result of the lack of regulation we've granted them?
Libertarians somehow believe that private businesses should be stronger than governments but weaker than individuals.
Google already pays for a portion of their bandwidth. I seem to recall reading somewhere, in fact, that instead of paying for a lot of their bandwidth, they trade with some ISPs to allow those ISPs to route their traffic over Google's fiber to save on their own bandwidth. So this is partially a strawman - you're talking about a situation in which an ISP is trying to shake Google down for more money.
More than that, on the off-chance that an ISP somehow pulls this off and blocks Google, it will be a while before you see alternate ISPs in your area. And by "area," I mean "your house," because you would have to wait for another ISP to run last mile service up to your building before you could have any competition. And even then, you run into the danger of the oligarchy - if Comcast, Verizon, and TWC all decide to shake down Google in this same way, then who is going to be your alternative exactly?
Libertarians somehow believe that private businesses should be stronger than governments but weaker than individuals.
using namespace united_states;
Let's not forget that ISP monopoly status is granted at the municipal level, leading to much of our woes.
-- I was raised on the command line, bitch
I use Qwest DSL and have used several other ISP's over the years with it you can look at the list yourself if you want. Though that just makes billing weird with half going to the DSL provider and half to the ISP.
i think what the big telcos want is a way to restrict
you from shouting into the phone. shouting needs lots of bandwidth.
then again, i think everybody has the right to shout
into their phone (or whisper or whatever).
anyways it boils down to the advertisement going something like:
"you can shout into your phone 24/7, unlimited" and then not delivering
on that promise.
Number one, their anti-net-neutrality stance is hardly a secret.
"Grover Norquist, representing his “Americans for Tax Reform” corporate front group, said net neutrality is like what China does, “putting policemen on every corner, on the street or on the Internet.”"
If I'm not mistake, I think that he's a bit mixed up here, as by allowing ISPs to control what, when, where, and how I can view various sites and use other internet based services that would be MUCH more akin to the restrictions placed on the Chinese citizenry by their communist masters. The only difference here being that we would be oppressed by our corporate oligarch masters rather than some politicos as far as to what we could see and do, and not worry about being maliciously re-directed to some revenue generating site for said oligarchs.
Along with net-neutrality, DRM, and other methodologies it's all coming down to who actually has more right the corporations as represented by their corporate oligarchs(and clients) or the general citizenry.... Right now it would appear, unfortunately, that $$$ counts for more than rule of law, especially when that money can also, eventually, purchase the necessary pieces of legislation.
Now, would you really want some entity like Comcraptic(winner of the great Golden Poo award) running things when they can't even manage to ship out a settop box with, oh some minor little thing, like say a power cord?! (My father recently received one and when I went over to install it for him, to my disgust they supplied everything except a powercord, so he now has a nice paperweight on top of his TV until I can scrounge the unusual power cord attachment type or decide to waste an hour trying to extract one from Comcraptic.) I mean really, they don't ship an essential piece of the equipment and they expect us to be happy with their control on what we can view on the web along with when and where. (Most of the other ISPs are no better than comcraptic when it comes to screwing things up. i.e. most of them have a hard time keeping their networks together as it is already, which makes me wonder exactly where those almost yearly price hikes go... oh for some competition...)
The telcos own the fiber, just like you own your house or iPod. So the government forcing a telco to manage the fiber data in a certain way is no different than the gov't forcing you to use certain colors of paint in your house or certain songs on your iPod.
If you're for gov't regulating something belonging to some one else, then you've got to be OK with them regulating something belonging to YOU.
If telcos start restricting content, and lots of people absolutely hate it, then there will be a lot of money to be made in building an open network, and business people will flock to create such open networks. Even before restrictions started, sentiment of the idea alone would create profit opportunities.
Absolutely - I would love to have 50 competing companies digging up my yard, and "accidentally" cutting each other's cables in the process...brilliant!
You and the GP are both right, we should nether have private monopolies on telecom nor 50 companies trying to run wires through every easement. Monopolies are too frequently abused, and having multiple connections to each home is wasteful - duplication of effort + the inevitable human error/sabotage possibilities are both obvious wastes there.
What we should do instead is to have a single fiber run to each house and maintained as a public utility. The ISPs and cable companies could then lease time on the lines and sell their services to the various homes, competing on a cost/value basis rather than an "I have a wire there and you don't" basis. This is already being done in some communities, and is an elegant solution to the twin problems of needing market competition and efficient use of resources.
"Space Exploration is not endless circles in low earth orbit." -Buzz Aldrin
Think Progess either got suckered, or is trying to pull a fast one.
The PPT document was created by six students as a class project in Florida last month. From the CNET article:
The GP presented a fairly accurate representation of the history of the internet's development, but seems to overlook the fact that the modems that formed the internet operated over a publicly regulated infrastructure of telcoms for which net neutrality was the rule. That changed with the advent of the new telcom rules in '96. Now the fight is over broadband, which traditonally has not been regulated as the telco's have and which most people connect to the internet through.
Declan McCullagh's CNET article
It was an MBA class project to create a marketing campaign for a think tank to SELL to a telecom company on a $100 budget, and it wasn't even the winning entry for the class.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Declan McCullagh's CNET article
It was an MBA class project to create a marketing campaign for a think tank to SELL to a telecom company on a $100 budget, and it wasn't even the winning entry for the class. So yeah, it's a Powerpoint that's just waiting to cause trouble.
So it's meta-Astroturf , not genuine Astroturf(tm) fake grass product as-seen-on-TV. And these meddling liberals have just burned it (without even filing an Environmental Impact Report about the effects of flame on Astroturf!)
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
It's all very well to point out that some people abuse the system. But the solution to that is not to abolish a system that is there for a very real reason - the solution is to tackle the abuse.
As with Social Security and benefits, so with regulation of communications. Some regulation is needed to stop abuses like... well I'm sure you can think of some... but bad regulations (like the bizzaro US local telecomms monopolies) are an argument for BETTER regulations, not for none at all.
Paul "Say no to feeping creaturism"
Competition does not necessarily cause the saintliness you hope for...
...There are plenty of examples throughout the world where there is good competition at the ISP level, with consumers benefiting from better infrastructure, services, and prices. And the great majority of it is from introducing competition, not allowing monopolies to get larger and larger. Net Neutrality probably wouldn't even be on the radar if infrastructure and services were not tied together in government granted monopolies.
In the UK there is plenty of competition, but the ISPs understandably want to increase profitability. Thus they cloud the market with "unlimited [with "fair" usage limits]" deals and offers of "up to" XYZ - note that free market theology assumes a perfectly informed customer base, and its benefits don't necessarily follow where that doesn't happen.
More seriously, they want to move away from being "dumb pipes" to entities that can "monetize" (read "charge for") everything. Just the same as the USA's local monopolies do.
So competition will not necessarily guarantee good behaviour - especially where customers don't understand the market, and where providers collude in a race to the bottom.
Paul "Say no to feeping creaturism"
The telcos own fibre, whose value has been artificially inflated by a government-granted monopoly, so it is perfectly reasonable for the government (or "the People") to demand in return certain standards of behaviour with that monopoly fibre. Behaviour which is in the public interest, rather than the short term economic interest of the Fibre company. Otherwise that would be government welfare, and that's just evil, right?
And even if someone else builds an open network to compete with the local monopolists' highly monetised, high-cost, not-dumb-pipe access network, they still need to connect it to actual customers, right? If you keep the current US local-monopoly regulatory framework, what makes you think that the monopolist will provide a fast and unthrottled connection to their competitors, at a reasonable price? After all, they are not just dumb pipes...
I don't see how things are supposed to get better (for consumers), in the world you advocate.
Paul "Say no to feeping creaturism"