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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."
...how's that "let companies police themselves" stance on net neutrality working out for you?
Living With a Nerd
Limited FCC Jurisdiction — Good
Standard-Setting Bodies — Interesting
Reasonable Network management, Additional Online Services — Troubling
“Lawful” Content and Wireless Exclusions — Fail
One thing that seems good (mostly for content providers, but also consumers) and a few things that could be good for consumers, but still favor ISPs. Sounds like Verizon agreed, "We will let the FCC regulate on a case by case basis, as long as we get broad powers manipulate our other services, and block content we fear is unlawful." The standard setting body is iffy, since as the article points out, these groups tend not to be on the consumers side.
It will be interesting to see where this goes, but personally I am against the idea that they will throttle torrents, or downloads cause "they are consuming too much for it to be legal".
I'm a popular stranger, I'm nobody famous, I'm a famous nobody.
And the agreement states that "lawful" content will not be interfered with.
But who decides what is "lawful"?
Is this an invitation for the ISPs to take on a police role?
Is it a way for big telco and the media companies they have merged with to decide that someone's content might be unlawful, because it is politically subversive - only because it questions government policies that the telco and media companies support?
ISPs should not be in the business of deciding what is lawful content and what is not. I hope the agreement does not presume that they will be in that business. That is a job for the police and the courts. ISPs should only act on legitimate police requests (i.e., those with warrants or some other transparent or traceable due process) and court orders.
Anyone else think it's odd that we're reading an article about a group of lawyers commenting about two companies coming together to broker a deal about what the government should be allowed to do?
Isn't that a little backwards? I mean, I like the EFF. But the idea that we need lawyers to tell us what's good and what's bad seems odd.
And having two giants acting like they can simply write legislature is balls to the walls wrong. The FCC can do whatever the laws says they can do, Google and Verizon be damned. Who writes those laws? Those that We The People (tm) put in power.
AT&T and Verizon both own major Internet backbones. It doesn't matter if you use cellular or satellite your data is still extremely likely to run over their networks. That's the problem with the current Internet setup. If those 2 companies decide to charge for faster data (or rather charge to not slow your data down) then it doesn't matter what ISP you use, you are going to be affected.
It doesn't matter if you use cellular or satellite your data is still extremely likely to run over their networks.
Actually, in this day and age the Tier 1 networks aren't as important as they used to be. The bulk of my traffic on Roadrunner comes in on Time Warner's own (tbone) backbone. They have peering arrangements with most of the major content distribution networks. The only time I've seen traffic traceroute onto Level 3 is for oddball connections (torrents to European hosts and the like)
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Isn't this what people are talking about trying to prevent from happening?
No. That's not network neutrality.
If someone wants to setup servers near New York and San Francisco to give those areas better service, that's just great. If they want to pay someone else to setup the server and host it for them, they can do that too. Shipping companies place hubs in busy areas. Supermarkets pay more money for real estate on busy roads. Gas stations try to get intersections. This is all fine.
Akamai is not an ISP. What we are trying to prevent is ISPs from filtering, delaying, or modifying traffic. Using my supermarket analogy: it's fine for Super Fresh to build a supermarket on a busy road. But it isn't fine if roads have special high-speed lanes for Super Fresh customers. ISPs are in the position of being able to create dedicated lanes on the internet, or to add stop signs that only apply to some people. If you make the roads, you must let all traffic pass equally. If you make telephone wires, you must pass all traffic equally.