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

So, regulation haters...

[Pojut]

...how's that "let companies police themselves" stance on net neutrality working out for you?

Re:So, regulation haters...

[HangingChad]

"let companies police themselves"

Almost as well as letting banks and investment companies police themselves.

Or oil companies policing themselves.

Or government contractors with automatic weapons police themselves.

And the deregulated airline industry has done wonders for air travel.

Government bad, corporate self-regulation good. Just stick to that line and ignore any evidence to the contrary.

Re:So, regulation haters...

[ceejayoz]

If Verizon owns the bandwidth lines leading to your community (or to the specific site you're attempting to access), it doesn't matter who your end ISP winds up being.

Re:So, regulation haters...

[BarryJacobsen]

Pretty well seeing as I can just switch to someone who isn't Verizon if I don't like it. That's a lot easier than trying to pick a new government.

Really? I takes you four years to get a new government, and it seems like it'll be a cold day in hell before I can choose between more than the one broadband provider in my area.

Re:So, regulation haters...

[Kaboom13]

Deep packet inspection of large amounts of traffic was not possible until fairly recently. The technology did not exist to allow ISP's to treat traffic differently. The peering agreements between providers were born out of the difficulty of accurately accounting and billing for traffic. It was cheaper for everyone with roughly similar amounts of traffic to agree to pass each others traffic for free then to spend millions on systems to try to figure out who was owed what. The only reason this hasn't been an issue until now is purely technical in nature. Because of the huge investment to enter the market, plus the network effect and economies of scale inherent, plus the corruption of politicians, make the telecom industry a natural oligopoly, if not a natural monopoly. WIthout regulation, they will abuse their customers to the maximum extent possible, because their customers have little if any choice. Choosing an ISP is like choosing between getting in a cage with a hungry lion or a hungry bear, either way the outcome is unpleasant, just in slightly different ways. There is no avoiding it in the current environment, every business in this situation is going to act this way. The only solution is to either artificially break them up into small pieces, or to artificially regulate their behavior. I'm willing to bet the companies involved would prefer the latter to the former.

Re:So, regulation haters...

[HeckRuler]

We've always had network neutrality. At least to a certain extent. There was peering and a "gentleman's agreement", back when there was more then a handful of gentlemen. Now single providers HAVE ALREADY monopolized huge areas. What you fear has already happened. And guess what? Now that they have power over regions, they're starting to break down the time-honored rules of a neutral internet. And they're doing so to make a buck. Fuck 'em. Regulate them. Or bust them up.

But seriously people, stop modding up cowards who are probably verizon astroturfers.

Who decides what is "lawful"?

[cjonslashdot]

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.

Re:Who decides what is "lawful"?

[butlerm]

You are making a mountain out of a mole hill. "Lawful" means "not illegal". ISPs have no desire to police what is lawful or not, it just creates more work for them. ISPs do have an obligation not to aid and abet illegal activity if they have actual knowledge of the same.

This obligation applies primarily to hosting providers. ISPs are not held legally accountable if traffic pertaining to illegal activity traverses their networks, for the same reason that common carriers like telephone companies are not held accountable if two people discuss a bank robbery over the phone.

"Lawful" arises in the context of net neutrality merely by stating that _end users_ should have the right to engage in lawful communications with anyone they want, without ISPs blocking or purposely degrading communication with some sites in a discriminatory manner (i.e. for economic advantage).

ISPs (and common carriers in general) are not _required_ to pass traffic generated by illegal activity. They just have no incentive to even attempt to make that determination, especially since if treated like common carriers the may find themselves at the end of a lawsuit if they make that determination incorrectly.

Anyone else?

[HeckRuler]

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.

Re:Anyone else?

[rajafarian]

I'm not sure how old you are, young man, but, corporations (through lawyers, of course) have been writing some of our laws for quite some time. For a current example, see the DMCA; for an old example, we can see that Du Pont appears to be responsible for making marijuana illegal in this country.

But I do find it odd that they are now doing it so blatantly, right in front of our eyes!

Re:Anyone else?

[jim_v2000]

>And having two giants acting like they can simply write legislature is balls to the walls wron

They didn't write any legislation. They wrote up some suggestions that the FCC and the Congress are free to use or discard. They have every right to do that.