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...

[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: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.