FCC Vote Marks Effort To Take Greater Control of the Web

GovTechGuy writes "The FCC voted today to open an inquiry into how the broadband industry is regulated, the first step in a controversial attempt to assert greater regulatory control over Internet service providers. In a 3-2 vote the Democratic members of the Commission voted to move forward with the FCC's proposal to reclassify broadband as a telecom service, increasing the regulation it is subject to. The move also has large implications for net neutrality, which FCC Commissioner Julius Genachowski has made a focus under his watch."

Comments

Re:Bad Title

[Timothy Brownawell]

Yeah, this has exactly as much to do with taking control of the web, as regulating the phone company has to do with taking control of what you can say over the phone.

Re:How does this relate to the recent court ruling

[Timothy Brownawell]

The law gives the FCC several categories to put things in, and gives them different powers over each category. That ruling said they were trying to use powers from category A on ISPs while ISPs were in category B. So now they're trying to move ISPs into category A.

Re:Take Control?

[Anonymous Coward]

Prohibition
War on Drugs
Japanese Internment Camps
National Security Letters
Register for Sex offenders

Hmm, I'm sure someone could object that one or perhaps all of these programs didn't cause any abuse... but that's just from atop of my head, and I'm not even American (as you can no doubt tell from my spelling).

Re:Take Control?

[PapayaSF]

1. Prohibition: Meant to improve health and morality, it lead to vastly more organized crime, murder, and health problems from bad liquor.
2. Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the CRA: Meant to help people buys homes, they helped fuel a housing bubble and subsequent crash which caused many foreclosures. The Fannie/Freddie collapse may cost taxpayers up to a $1 trillion.
3. Urban renewal: the destruction of poorer neighborhoods of single-family homes and small apartment buildings to build giant housing projects, which quickly turned into much worse places to live.
4. The Enlarged Homestead Act of 1909, meant to give farmers land, led to massive soil erosion and the Dust Bowl of the 1930s.
5. The Aswan Dam: To go outside the US, the dam stopped the silt from flowing down the Nile and fertilizing crops. Now much of the electricity produced by the dam goes to making artificial fertilizer now needed by the farmers.
6. There are many more, but here's a bonus, favorite example: the Trabant. Designed and built by the East German government, this notoriously poor and polluting car holds a special place in economic history. It's not uncommon for business to lose money when the cost of making a product is less than the product is worth. But after the Berlin Wall fell and the books could be examined, something unique was discovered: the value of a Trabant was less than the value of the steel, glass, plastic, rubber, and other raw materials that went into it. AFAIK no other mass-produced product has ever been so "value-subtracted."

But to get more on-topic, here's my problem with the FCC action: what problem, exactly, are they solving? I've read lots here about net neutrality and all the horrible things it's supposed to prevent, but have any of those horrible things actually, you know, happened? If not, what's the rush? Why not wait to see exactly what the abuses are, so that we can know what problems the government is supposed to be fixing?

Re:Take Control?

[Timothy Brownawell]

I've read lots here about net neutrality and all the horrible things it's supposed to prevent, but have any of those horrible things actually, you know, happened?

Comcast has been caught actually dropping certain types of traffic. High-up ISP corporate officers have been publicly claiming that they should have a right to charge the sites that their customers visit.

Re:Take Control?

[d3ac0n]

The problem is, how did the market become "uncompetitive" in the first place?

Oh yeah, Government interference. First by creating and enforcing local monopolies rather than simply selling right of way space to anyone that wanted it, and second by scooping up several billion in taxpayer money and just GIVING it to the big telcos to create and infrastructure.

If the government had just stayed the hell out, we wouldn't be having this discussion today as the Internet would likely already be far more built-out and with way more players in the market, each of them significantly smaller than the giant megacorps we have involved right now.

The BEST thing the government can do is to eliminate local monopoly legislation,(along with any other regulation making the barrier to entry so damned high) and demand a full refund of the money we wasted on the megacorps. Then give that money back to the taxpayers.

And before some "hair on fire" leftist comes along and tries to beat me with the "You don't want ANY regulation!" straw man argument; OF COURSE I want SOME regulation. I want the absolute MINIMUM amount of regulation possible, and ONLY those regulations put in place by elected officials. Unelected bureaucrats should not be allowed to create regulation and any regulation created by them should be summarily deleted from the record. PERIOD.

Re:Take Control?

[_Sharp'r_]

I guess checking Google News for Internet Kill Switch is too much trouble.... this reply is at least as much for the person who said to get news from somewhere other than Slashdot, but it's been proposed and talked about by more than one Congressman. There are multiple bills mentioned in the below quote alone:

News about the Leiberman Senate bill has been in the mainstream press recently, and they've had hearings on it:

Philip Reitinger, deputy undersecretary for the Department of Homeland Security, agreed that the executive branch "may need to take extraordinary measures" to respond to cyberthreats. But Reitinger said that "we believe it is preferable" to have a single organization--that is, an arm of the DHS--handle physical and Internet infrastructure rather than create a new office.

In addition, Reitinger said, the 1934 Communications Act already gives the president broad emergency power. "Congress and the administration should work together to identify any needed adjustments to the act, as opposed to developing overlapping legislation," he said.

Section 706 of that nearly century-old law says if there is a "threat of war," the president may seize control of any "facilities or stations for wire communication"--archaic wording that nevertheless would presumably sweep in broadband providers or Web sites. Anyone who disobeys can be imprisoned for a year.

The idea of an Internet "kill switch" that the president could flip is not new. A draft Senate proposal that CNET obtained in August allowed the White House to "declare a cybersecurity emergency," and another from Sens. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.V.) and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) would have explicitly given the government the power to "order the disconnection" of certain networks or Web sites.

Re:Take Control?

[Lunix Nutcase]

A few months ago Congress did pass a law giving the sitting president power to "kill switch" the internet

No they didn't. The bill hasn't even gone to a vote of the full Senate. What you were reading about was a Senate panel passing it. The two aren't synonymous.

Re:Take Control?

[Floody]

The problem is, how did the market become "uncompetitive" in the first place?

Oh yeah, Government interference. First by creating and enforcing local monopolies rather than simply selling right of way space to anyone that wanted it, and second by scooping up several billion in taxpayer money and just GIVING it to the big telcos to create and infrastructure.

Nice attempt at revisionist history. Ma Bell became a regulated monopoly after they were sued under antitrust law in 1913. They were sued because AT&T started buying up all the competition in 1907. They became "uncompetitive" all by themselves by functionally eliminating competition and purchasing as much right-of-way as possible to prevent new competitors from entering the market.

Re:Take Control?

[Red Flayer]

Oh yeah, Government interference. First by creating and enforcing local monopolies rather than simply selling right of way space to anyone that wanted it

Why do you insist on repeating this as if it were truth? Do you still not recognize the existence of natural monopolies? Even the Austrians recognize the existence of natural monopolies.

and second by scooping up several billion in taxpayer money and just GIVING it to the big telcos to create and infrastructure.

That has little to do with the creation or reason for existence of the telco monopolies. They existed prior to that, and would exist even without it. Massive fixed costs for providing telco service ensure the existence of those monopolies.

If the government had just stayed the hell out, we wouldn't be having this discussion today as the Internet would likely already be far more built-out and with way more players in the market, each of them significantly smaller than the giant megacorps we have involved right now.

That is just about the funniest thing I've read today. Market actors consolidate due to economies of scale, in any market where economies of scale exist.

The BEST thing the government can do is to eliminate local monopoly legislation,(along with any other regulation making the barrier to entry so damned high)

The elephant in the middle of the room you so clumsily step around is that the massive capital required to achieve economies of scale in the telco world is a bigger barrier to market for would-be entrants than anything the government adds. Without the guaranty of monopoly, there wouldn't *be* a telco provider in a lot of areas. No one wants to sink millions in up-front costs when they can't be sure of having customers.

Unelected bureaucrats should not be allowed to create regulation and any regulation created by them should be summarily deleted from the record. PERIOD.

That's a recipe for disaster. The people writing the regs would have even less understanding of the industries they are regulating. So we'd have even MORE regulations written by lobbyists for the industries that are supposed to be regulated.