EFF Reviews the Verizon-Google Net Neutrality Deal

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "The EFF has written an analysis of the Net Neutrality deal brokered between Verizon and Google. While the EFF agrees with substantial portions of it, such as giving the FCC only enough authority to investigate complaints, rather than giving them a blank check to create regulations, there are a number of troubling issues with the agreement. In particular, they're concerned that what constitutes 'reasonable' network management is in the eye of the beholder and they don't like giving a free pass to anyone who claims they're attempting to block unlawful content, even when doing so in such a way that they interfere with lawful activities. On balance, while there are some good ideas about how to get Net Neutrality with minimal government involvement, there are serious flaws in the agreement that would allow ISPs to interfere with any service they wanted to because there is no algorithm that can correctly determine which numbers are currently illegal."

Comments

How is this "insightful?"

[MikeRT]

But who decides what is "lawful"?

Oh, I don't know, slick. Maybe Verizon's legal counsel might come up with a list of suggestions based on, you know, statutes, case law, stuff like that. For example, if a web site advocates the blatant overthrow of the United States Government or is dedicated to the distribution of child pornography or warez, they might tell their technical staff to take it out of Verizon's DNS or throttle it down to uselessness.

Realistically, you have two choices: either Verizon jealously guards its prerogative or you will get the law enforcement authorities in this country using the FCC to ram down a f#$%-you-up-the-@$$ set of restrictions like they did to telecoms via CALEA. At least in the former, they have the freedom to unblock content based on user feedback without worrying about the feds.