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Congresswoman Writes On Broadband, Net Neutrality
An anonymous reader writes "Anna G. Eshoo, a California Democrat representing parts of Silicon Valley, has written an op-ed defending net neutrality and pushing the administration to take more steps to speed up US broadband. From the article: 'A climate of openness and innovation has been the hallmark of the Internet. A decade ago, it's what allowed a startup named Google to compete with better-funded, less technologically advanced competitors. Today, Congress has the responsibility to preserve this climate for the next Google, and for the consumers and the economy that will benefit from its success.'"
Can we opt out?
Seriously, OPT-ed? WTF? If you don't know what it is, anonymous knucklehead contributor, don't USE the term...
with the occupant of the White House acting AGAINST net neutrality, this is nothing more than lip service as any meaningful bill has zero chance of reaching the White House, and even if by some wild chance that it does, it has little chance of being signed.
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
Op-ed...duh! Epic Fail!
To begin talking about Net Neutrality, it helps to clarify what the internet is. It’s simply data sent via TCP/IP (the protocol for sending data through routers). Some people host web sites, others connect to their company e-mail, others do other things - it’s all the internet.
Understanding that the internet is just a connection using TCP/IP, then Net Neutrality is simple, too. Net Neutrality simply means that your ISP may not interfere with the internet. They may not censor your packets (the data that is sent via TCP/IP). This means they can’t censor your news, keep you off of Skype, or otherwise interfere with your TCP/IP communications.
Any compromise on this is wrong for two reasons: 1) Your ISP should not have the right to interfere with your free speech, and 2) ISPs should not be able to tax the value creation of the media industry.
ISPs should not be able to interfere with consumer access to media companies, nor tax those companies for access to consumers. ISPs should not be able to interfere with our speech or block our access to the speech of others.
ISPs are in the business of providing internet access, but they don't own the internet; any attempts to eliminate net neutrality would violate our consumer rights and hurt the economy.
Better to light a candle than complain about the darkness.
The internet has flourished precisely because the government regulators (aka nannies) have stayed out of it.
It has flourished because all the major players considered that neutrality was a good idea and just went along with it, making government involvement unnecessary. Now the major players believe that neutrality is no longer in their business interests.
The internet is going to be regulated. The only question is to what degree and by who.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
Nothing good, except consumer protection and penalizing anti-competitive tactics, yes.
I'm sorry, I would have loved to read your comment, but I wasn't able to. Comcast had throttled the speed at which your comment loaded, since its content was determined to not be in the best interest of Comcast-NBC. Maybe next time say something about 30rock or Outsourced at the end of your comment so it loads a little faster for me please.
Congress has a responsibility To support America's richest fatcat aristocracy from upstarts and mushrooms. Puppets work for those who pull their strings.
That is what it exists to do these days.
They don't want anymore Googles. They'd rather such things were strangled in their cribs.
"MIT betrayed all of its basic principles."
What are you smoking? The internet flourished specifically because of regulation. Look up some of the history of reciprocal comp for example, or the tarifs before cable/dsl were exempted from them, PSCs etc.
a handful of selfish greedy people are no match for millions of selfish, greedy people -u4ya
To be frank, you have no idea what you're talking about. This isn't about the government trying to control the internet, it's about the government telling the ISPs to STOP trying to control the internet. It takes extra equipment, extra staff, extra planning to control whos packets get which priority and keep track of billing. All of this will require and entirely new divisions inside ISPs. It's much simpler to just leave everything alone and stop dinking around with traffic shaping. The ISPs have been lying to and defrauding their customers about what bandwidth they can expect with their given package for about a decade. With the advent of recent high bandwidth services such as Netflix, youtube, etc... it's becoming increasing obvious to the average internet user that "something" is wrong. ISPs are trying to blame their customers or the services their customers are trying to use. But the fact of the matter is, the formula is fairly simple, If they are selling you 5mb/s service, you should be able to get that speed at 6pm on a Saturday night. But we all know how unlikely that really is. ISPs need to upgrade their infrastructure and are instead are trying to block their customers from accessing sites that would allow them to use the service they paid for.
Notice that the parent doesn't deal with any of the issues at hand. It's just talking points and ideological scary-talk (Oooh, "bureaucrats," "control," "clowns," "nannies!")
The next step is the government regulation of speech. Pretty soon they'll be passing a constitutional amendment requiring all public spaces to be "free speech zones" or something. For example, sidewalks will be required to give equal treatment to anyone distributing brochures there, and public parks will be forced to permit crazy people to peddle their political ideologies. It's all about the government exercising control over us, folks.
Obviously this is the road to a coddling nanny state.
If being a liberal means freedom on the internet rather than corporate fascism . . . well, count me in.
>>>Now the major players believe that neutrality is no longer in their business interests.
Since when? Have there been sites you could not access? I haven't noticed ANY change in how my ISP acts now, or five years ago, or even back in the beginning (1993).
Actually now that I think about it, the ISP were more closed at the beginning (the internet was walled off or limited), and have moved towards *more* openness not less.
Information wants to be expensive AND wants to be free. So you have Value vs. Cheap distribution fighting each other.
It's like the Gold Rush in California or Alaska. They figure, that if the Internet is open and free, that will cut into their profits. So anyone with money and influence looking to make a buck off the Internet will contact their "friends" in Washington. They want to control the flow of information. Just look at Rupert Murdoch's antics to see what I mean.
"People on this Internet thingie are stealing my news content . . . and not paying for it!"
Um, Mr. Murdoch, is it OK, if we steal your content, and pay for it?
I think some rough times are ahead for the Internet. I hope that some politicians are wise enough to recognize what is really good about the Internet. But, personally, I'm rather skeptical that that will happen.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Whom.
When you're afraid to download music illegally in your own home, then the terrorists have won!
...devalues Citizens United.
Orwell: "In a Time of Universal Deceit, telling the Truth is a Revolutionary Act"
Since when? Have there been sites you could not access? I haven't noticed ANY change in how my ISP acts now, or five years ago, or even back in the beginning (1993).
It didn't yet get to the point where it would be up in your face, such as pay to access certain websites. But major US ISPs have already stated that they'd like to see e.g. Google pay extra to have their content delivered to end user at the same speed as everyone else's, rather than being throttled down. The way it reflects upon you as a user is that Google might no longer be able to afford to offer some services for free that it does today, and there will be more ads on others.
Is there an apt for that?
The nannies are already involved. In most locations cable is the one technologically superior option, and the operators have been granted monopolies by the state (natural monopoly kind of thing).
Alternatives exist, but they have disadvantages. DSL is slower, WiMax/4G/etc. are nice but tend to have caps, Satellite is expensive and has major latency problems, and fiber is costly to deploy so doesn't have significant penetration.
If you consider the cable companies as agents of the state (since their monopolies are sanctioned by the state), then the enforcement of network neutrality is simply a codification of first amendment rights. If you consider them as monopolies than its a pre-emptive description of how anti-trust laws will be applied to ISPs.
I admit, I think Net Neutrality has its issues: it limits innovations in consumer-friendly QOS implementations, and who knows what else. However, I'd rather have that than let the cable companies stop new business models from growing on the internet (I'm sure Comcast is salivating to be able to legally crush Netflix through 'helpful' throttling). A better solution would be to treat internet providers as common carriers and enforce line-sharing, create a real market and let the invisible hand do its thing. But if we can't do that, net neutrality is the best way to keep the internet as the dynamic force it is today.
(Of course there's not.)
Women say and do stupid things when not kept in check by a cock...
Roissy, is that you?
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
We all payed for the physical lines and everything needed to run the internet one way or another. How much has our government "Us" given to theses cable company to run new lines upgrade lines. If we have subsidized theses company's in any way they shouldn't get full say on who can do what on the internet because they really don't "Own" the internet, we all do because we have all payed.
Jack of all trades,master of none
The internet has flourished precisely because the government regulators (aka nannies) have stayed out of it. Yes, there were some great engineers earning government paychecks through the military and universities who got it started - but the bureaucrats largely ignored it because they didn't know what it was, or how important it would become.
No good can come from the clowns in Washington "tweaking" the Internet. This is not about "openness" or whatever other word they want to use. This is about exerting top-down control, and the power that comes with that kind of control.
The funny thing is that the same politicians and commentators feeding you those lines are also in support of an "internet kill switch" for the president. They dislike net neutrality, which is government regulation limited to preventing preferential bandwidth based on business interests (maintaining the status quo that's only recently begun to shift), but they love the idea of giving government the power to shut down the internet to prevent political opposition. Oh, to prevent cyber attacks, you say? Excuse me while I unplug my sensitive systems from the internet and go about my merry way.
"I zero-index my hamsters" - Willtor (147206)
The Slippery Slope is a fallacy in which a person asserts that some event must inevitably follow from another without any argument for the inevitability of the event in question. In most cases, there are a series of steps or gradations between one event and the one in question and no reason is given as to why the intervening steps or gradations will simply be bypassed. This "argument" has the following form:
Event X has occurred (or will or might occur).
Therefore event Y will inevitably happen.
This sort of "reasoning" is fallacious because there is no reason to believe that one event must inevitably follow from another without an argument for such a claim. This is especially clear in cases in which there is a significant number of steps or gradations between one event and another.
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(Same AC)
You apparently missed the sarcasm in my previous post.
Oh no, my one true weakness! A bureaucratic, controlling clown nanny!
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
Yes, I did, and I'm sorry for replying without reading it all. For shame :|
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But as I understand Net Neutrality, the groups that support it don't want ISP to be able to charge higher fees for faster/better access to their networks, right? If so, how does that make other connections slower? It's like arguing that Priority Mail service makes First Class mail slower.
Just because something faster exists, it doesn't make everything else slower.
Now, making a competitors packets actually travel slower through your network IS wrong, and I get that, but everytime I hear the argument expressed, I hear the confusing, illogical definition I first presented (can't sell faster access because it makes everyone else slower)...
BTW - While "'a climate of openness and innovation" surely helped Google, I suspect butt-loads of Internet Bubble cash didn't hurt their chances for success...
Ken
ISPs are a utility, like a power company. A power company cannot choose to provide power to your branded toaster over a cheap Chinese 'counterfeit' toaster. Yet in the world of ISPs, this is what they want to do.
Enough is enough. ISPs forward packets to users. Meter the packets, heck, even limit the rate of packets to users that are using too many resources! But DO NOT tell me that one packet is better than another - ALL packets are created of equal bits and should be treated as such. Classification of which packet is more desirable than another is up the the end user, NOT the ISP.
ISPs must be regulated like utilities. They must provide advertised connectivity with advertised (total) bandwidth, be it caps or no caps. Either way, all packets much be treated as equal, and the sooner it is the law and enforced, the better.
She pandered to her constituents, and Slashdot dutifully picked up the story assuming it was a sincere effort to effect change in America...
You want to make the internet "fair" - fine, everyone can only have one datacenter. Why shoud some companies have a multi-site advantage just beciase they are better funded - what about the unfairness of Google being able to buy all the servers they want while my technologically advanced start-up* can not? Their success should be taxed, regulated and restrained to allow me the chance to compete, right? By setting regulations to "help the little guy" (me) you are hurting the "big guy" (Google)...
* I don't realy have a start-up.
Ken
The real fight, not the cosmetic fight over ISPs censoring content which they can't do anyways, is over the government setting peering and interconnect prices even though this has always been set by the free market. In this case, the hardline Net Neutrality proponents want to set ISP peering rates to zero, or at least heavily regulated by the ISPs. The FCC tried to compromise by putting out incoherent regulations that would outlaw paid prioritization but not outlaw paid peering which are essentially the same thing (see http://www.digitalsociety.org/2010/12/fccs-utter-incoherence-on-paid-prioritization/). The FCC thought that compromise rules wouldn't get them sued by the ISPs and slammed by most of congress, but that happened anyways.
This is /., man -- we don't apologize for not reading things!
The ISP's are unlikely to actually try to censor traffic; but the would like to be able to prioritize traffic; give better service to people/companies who are willing to pay more. Consider the airline industry; a seat is not just a seat; in fact the person sitting right next to you could have paid much more, or much less for his seat. So the ISP's will argue that not all data packets are created equal.
But the Internet is different from airlines in that all the networks are inter connected. So if one ISP starts charging for priority traffic, it could affect the sort of service that other ISP's and networks see.
And there is always the likely-hood that the ISP's will use economic means to 'help out' their friends who do want the internet censored. If Wall street can break the law as a favor to their good customers, you think the ISP's won't?
I hear many different definitions of net neutrality but it seems to come down to the internet should be free. That's all well and good but I also realize that it just ain't the way it works. I pay Cox a significant amount of money for internet access. Everyone who runs a connection to my house is looking for money. I believe Cox also charges if you go over a certain useage level. Soi we don't have net neutrality now and never have had. So will someone please tell me what the phrase really means?
The Slippery Slope is a fallacy in which a person asserts that some event must inevitably follow from another without any argument for the inevitability of the event in question. In most cases, there are a series of steps or gradations between one event and the one in question and no reason is given as to why the intervening steps or gradations will simply be bypassed. This "argument" has the following form:
Event X has occurred (or will or might occur). Therefore event Y will inevitably happen. This sort of "reasoning" is fallacious because there is no reason to believe that one event must inevitably follow from another without an argument for such a claim. This is especially clear in cases in which there is a significant number of steps or gradations between one event and another.
The Slippery Slope is a Fallacy argument, is a strawman. It mischaracterises the whole point of "slippery slope" as saying X must inevitably produce Y. In fact, what the slippery slope is, is the highlighting that X enables Y. Those that would object to Y, rightly point out that X is therefore dangerous because it makes Y easier to occur. This Slippery Slope Strawman is fallacious because it says Slippery Slope is only valid if X must lead to Y which is incorrect. It is akin to someone taking steps toward a dangerous cliff and with each step saying: "the next step is not inevitable". Indeed it is not, but when there are demonstrable forces pushing one toward the cliff, it can make a great deal more sense to resist that pressure earlier, rather than later. Especially when the initial steps themselves are already a negative outcome for us.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
fiber is costly to deploy so doesn't have significant penetration
Fiber Optics are already everywhere. Practically all major telecommunications lines run over FO at one point or another. The key ingredient at this point in time is the hardware to support the FO cabling; FO is cheaper than Copper cable in itself, but legacy hardware is cheaper than FO transceivers.
Services like FiOS take a good step toward bridging the gap and making fiber more easily available to consumers, but they're still only Fiber-to-Curb or Fiber-to-Doorstep. Once there is opportunity for reasonably priced intra-home Fiber networks to proliferate, we may see a huge difference in how bandwidth is handled. 5 or 10 Mb/sec or MB/sec is laughable via single-mode Fiber Optics, and a LAN can be easily run with multi-mode, provided the transceivers are equipped.
Should all this happen, bandwidth could increase dramatically and latency may reduce proportionally (network topology limiting, of course).
TLDR: Fiber good. Need more.
What else can happen when an unstoppable force collides with an immovable object?
To be frank, how can you be so blind, when you have all this talk of the government wanting a kill switch? and you willing give them more power??? And look at what happened in egypt.
BTW, if corporations have been lying and committing fraud, we already have laws about that sort of thing.
FCC gets net neutrality, how long until they need to start policing the content? We already have enough of that bs to deal with. The net has been run by corporations for quite awhile, and there's no major problems with it, and you guys just jump for joy at the thought of giving more power to the government.
And you don't find those word scary? excluding clowns.
One of the few topics in which I agree with most liberals.
Freedom is the only answer. Freedom is what made Google great. The ONLY thing the government is capable of doing is enacting force, which obviously takes someones freedom away. How can taking away freedom help the internet? US Government, stay out of my internet!
To be frank, how can you be so blind, when you have all this talk of the government wanting a kill switch? and you willing give them more power??? And look at what happened in egypt.
BTW, if corporations have been lying and committing fraud, we already have laws about that sort of thing.
FCC gets net neutrality, how long until they need to start policing the content? We already have enough of that bs to deal with. The net has been run by corporations for quite awhile, and there's no major problems with it, and you guys just jump for joy at the thought of giving more power to the government.
The Internet was born from the government and has always existed under regulations. Making some changes to those regulations to ensure that the large ISPs that control the infrastructure don't start making moves to line their pockets at everyone else's expense, just because they can, is not a bad thing. It's not giving the government more control over the Internet. It's telling those ISPs that they don't have the right to implement their own regulations over what can be sent over the net and at what speeds, just to generate more revenue for themselves. We need the net to remain open and content-agnostic rather than them turning it into another version of cable TV. The closer we are to dumb pipes the better.
And you don't find those word scary? excluding clowns.
Actually, I find clowns to be extremely creepy. Nannies are generally useful, and sometimes they're hot too! Bureaucrats vary wildly in their usefulness, but generally perform tasks that need to be done. You just have to keep your eye on them, lest they run amok. As for control, I'd actually prefer that it be balanced in the interest of preserving openness. This is in direct conflict with the wishes of the largest ISPs. I obviously can't depend on them to preserve it. They want to lock it down and monetize every possible avenue they can. That leaves the other major power as the only recourse. I don't advocate giving the government the power to micromanage the net, or to shut it down at will, but I do think that telling the ISPs what they can't do is a good idea, and in the interest of keeping the net open for innovation and progress.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Wikipedia:
Anna Georges Eshoo (born December 13, 1942) is the U.S. Representative for California's 14th congressional district, serving since 1993. She is a member of the Democratic Party. The district, which includes part of Silicon Valley, includes the cities of Redwood City, Sunnyvale and Palo Alto.
Education
* Associate of Arts degree, English, Cañada College, 1975
* Honorary doctorate, Humane Letters, Menlo College
Question: Is this the best Silicon Valley can do?
I believe in net neutrality but key to internet sustainability is to charge by usage.
Usage based fees/taxes are definitely the fair way to proceed forward.
There is no such thing as a free lunch.
: )
To be frank, how can you be so blind, when you have all this talk of the government wanting a kill switch? and you willing give them more power??? And look at what happened in egypt.
BTW, if corporations have been lying and committing fraud, we already have laws about that sort of thing.
Joe Frickin' Lieberman's internet kill switch is a completely separate bill from Net Neutrality regulation. One is a mandate that ISPs essentially hand control of the internet over to a government military organization; the other is a series of regulations forbidding companies from shaping their customers' internet traffic to pad their own profits. In fact, they're about as different as a military spending bill is from civil rights legislation; the only thing they have in common is that they both apply to the internet.
FCC gets net neutrality, how long until they need to start policing the content? We already have enough of that bs to deal with. The net has been run by corporations for quite awhile, and there's no major problems with it, and you guys just jump for joy at the thought of giving more power to the government.
Oh good, another slippery slope fallacy. Net Neutrality and some sort of Internet Fairness Doctrine are, again, totally separate issues. The only people I have heard even talk about an Internet Fairness Doctrine are right-wing nutjobs trying to fearmonger the Net Neutrality debate, just like they started shouting Terrorism back when people were questioning Iraq.
Well I'm not buying it. Net Neutrality is a worthy goal, and its worth the long-shot future potential of having to fight a new Fairness Doctrine, if by some weird twist of fate we end up with so many Democrats in office for so long that they can't find anything better to do than try to shoot themselves in the face trying to regulate free speech over the internet.
Regardless of whether you like the law or not, ours is a Constitutional Representative Republic and we ignore the precedent set by FCC's action at our peril and move another step towards an absolute executive (bear in mind, that the president will likely be from the other party before long). The FCC is saying Fuck the constitution, we know best: this IS high crimes...any executive branch official who thinks he can get away with it needs to be trotted in front of Congress, in irons.
Of course to the true Progressive, this is all fine and dandy, since the Constitution is an impediment to their goals anyway; to which they pay lip-service when necessary and ignore when they can.
Never had comcast I take it...
Nannies are generally useful, and sometimes they're hot too!
for children, sure. But I should not be forced into having a nanny to protect myself. I'm an adult.
Bureaucrats vary wildly in their usefulness, but generally perform tasks that need to be done.
Sure, some of their tasks need to be done, but the vast majority of it is just bullshit. If you don't agree, then you better get on explaining how the endless piles of laws is useful, when our constitution was a whole couple of pages long.
As for control, I'd actually prefer that it be balanced in the interest of preserving openness
This idea, of forcing freedom, i think is an oxymoron.
I obviously can't depend on them to preserve it.
as opposed to depending on the government who has enough trouble defending our first and second amendments.
They want to lock it down and monetize every possible avenue they can.
And if they keep providing me with a valueable service that i am willing to pay for, so what. BUt then, why haven't these things happened?
I don't advocate giving the government the power to micromanage the net, or to shut it down at will, but I do think that telling the ISPs what they can't do is a good idea
that's quite a contradiction in my eye. And what do you think will happen in a few years, when something else happens and the government wants more power? you think they'll jsut say, nah we can't do that? Nope, they'll just do it, after all it's for the good of the people.
So if some corporation wants to steal money from you, but some other department, wants to legit business, you're gonna do business with them? I imagine not, why would the government be any different?
Oh good, another slippery slope fallacy.
Oh, it's a fallacy? you think, if you hand them power they'll not demand more? are you serious? it's not a fallacy it's a fact. "The natural progress of things is liberty to yield and government gain ground" ~ Thomas Jefferson.
Well I'm not buying it. Net Neutrality is a worthy goal
freedom is worthy goal. Control is not. Doesn't matter that it's only control of people you don't like. (for now)
The Internet was born from the government and has always existed under regulations
That's true, to an extent. But the reality is, the internet has been pretty much unregulated.
Making some changes to those regulations to ensure that the large ISPs that control the infrastructure don't start making moves to line their pockets at everyone else's expense, just because they can, is not a bad thing
It's a very bad thing. Just like price controls are bad. just like communism is bad. What is good, is this thing call freedom. Which means freedom for everyone, even those you don't like.
It's not giving the government more control over the Internet.
They get the power to enforce 'fairness', and that's not giving them power?
It's telling those ISPs that they don't have the right to implement their own regulations over what can be sent over the net and at what speeds, just to generate more revenue for themselves.
Why shouldn't they be able to? because you don't like it? I don't like the fact a porsche costs too much money, so let's regulate them too. And btw, where's teh great examples of this happening? we haven't had the internet long enough for it to happen?
Sure, some of their tasks need to be done, but the vast majority of it is just bullshit. If you don't agree, then you better get on explaining how the endless piles of laws is useful, when our constitution was a whole couple of pages long.
Because the Constitution serves as a boundary for the laws that the government can make. It certainly wasn't intended to be the last word on law in this country. It's vague in many ways and we need specifics. Hence the laws. I'm not claiming that they're all useful. I'm sure there are tons that should be done away with, but someone believe they were useful at some point. I'd be glad to see some serious housecleaning when it comes to the laws on the books already. That doesn't mean that I think they're all useless or that we don't need regulation and enforcement.
This idea, of forcing freedom, i think is an oxymoron.
The idea that the Internet will remain free if left in the hands of corporations free of regulation is absolutely insane though.
as opposed to depending on the government who has enough trouble defending our first and second amendments.
I'm fully in favor of defending all our rights under the Constitution and its amendments. That certainly doesn't mean I trust the government, but we have more influence over the government than we do over the mega-ISPs that own the Internet infrastructure, and the government is more likely to pursue a path that will maintain the freedom for small companies to innovate, while the large companies have every incentive to lock it down as much as possible.
And if they keep providing me with a valueable service that i am willing to pay for, so what. BUt then, why haven't these things happened?
They're already trying to double and triple charge for data. You may be fine with paying more while they add nothing of value, but I'm not.
that's quite a contradiction in my eye. And what do you think will happen in a few years, when something else happens and the government wants more power? you think they'll jsut say, nah we can't do that? Nope, they'll just do it, after all it's for the good of the people.
If they can just do that, then what's to stop them from doing it now? That doesn't make sense.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
So if some corporation wants to steal money from you, but some other department, wants to legit business, you're gonna do business with them? I imagine not, why would the government be any different?
Because a corporation, even a publicly-owned one, is a dictatorship. The US government is a representative democratic republic, meaning that at any one time there will be many different people making decisions, some of which you can agree with, others which you may not. Saying that you don't want to do business with the entire government based on the views or actions of a small section of it is like saying that you refuse to do business with anyone listed on the New York Stock Exchange because Microsoft screwed you over once.
Well I'm not buying it. Net Neutrality is a worthy goal
freedom is worthy goal. Control is not. Doesn't matter that it's only control of people you don't like. (for now)
Exactly, which is why I support Net Neutrality and not an internet kill switch.
Because a corporation, even a publicly-owned one, is a dictatorship. The US government is a representative democratic republic, meaning that at any one time there will be many different people making decisions, some of which you can agree with, others which you may not.
for the purposes of this argument, that's huge distinction without a difference. You could swap 'corporation' and 'us government' in your sentences and it changes nothing. And furthermore, you think congress doesn't have influence over the FCC? you think the FCC wouldn't cave, when think of the children types are whining about something?
Saying that you don't want to do business with the entire government based on the views or actions of a small section of it is like saying that you refuse to do business with anyone listed on the New York Stock Exchange because Microsoft screwed you over once.
the NYSE and MS are very different entities. different parts of the federal government, not quite so much.
Exactly, which is why I support Net Neutrality and not an internet kill switch.
net neutrality is control. it's just control, you happen to agree with.
Because the Constitution serves as a boundary for the laws that the government can make. It certainly wasn't intended to be the last word on law in this country. It's vague in many ways and we need specifics. Hence the laws. I'm not claiming that they're all useful. I'm sure there are tons that should be done away with, but someone believe they were useful at some point. I'd be glad to see some serious housecleaning when it comes to the laws on the books already. That doesn't mean that I think they're all useless or that we don't need regulation and enforcement
I really can't see how mounds and mounds of laws that only a very few people have even read, let alone understand is a good thing. And that's just the federal level.
The idea that the Internet will remain free if left in the hands of corporations free of regulation is absolutely insane though.
but that's what freedom is. freedom does not guarantee everything you want in life, but it's the best way to get most of what you want. Freedom is people doing what they want, with themselves and their property, so long as others involved are all consenting. the corps own a lot of the base of the internet, they should be able to do what they want with it. and they have a much more powerful method to determine whether something is good than voting, profit. What they can't do, is defraud you. which we already have laws for, no need for new ones.
but we have more influence over the government than we do over the mega-ISPs that own the Internet infrastructure, and the government is more likely to pursue a path that will maintain the freedom for small companies to innovate, while the large companies have every incentive to lock it down as much as possible.
Not really. I can discontinue my service with my isp or with toyota or whomever. "The nature of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground" paraphrasing Thomas Jefferson. The government will not pursue a path to maintain freedom. They will pass more regulations that will hurt small companies far more than the big ones.
They're already trying to double and triple charge for data. You may be fine with paying more while they add nothing of value, but I'm not.
and what if ms charges 50k for windows.
If they can just do that, then what's to stop them from doing it now? That doesn't make sense.
because they don't have their foot in the door at this point. But, i'm sure they will get the power to do what you want.
god damnit, where are my italics! lol
You put an awful lot of faith in the "free market". History tells us that it doesn't remain free for long without regulation. As a democracy, we should be regulating in the interests of long-term prosperity and the maintenance of the free market. Free markets sound great in principle, as does your idea that we can influence them by choosing what to buy and who to buy from. That idea depends upon people having accurate and complete information upon which to make those decisions. That is so far from the way things actually are that it's a fantasy.
People don't have time to learn what the implications of any given purchase will be. They can't influence the market that way. They don't know what a company is doing with it's money, or what the highest paid executives at the top do with their money. They can't make the kinds of informed decisions you seem to think they can make because they don't have the necessary information, and they never will.
Even if all the information that was published was absolutely true and complete, we would be utterly overwhelmed by it. Of course it's not that way. It's both overwhelming and full of misinformation and outright lies, as well as gaping holes where we have no information at all. Depending on markets to solve everything is a complete fantasy. I wish people would stop acting like they're the solution to every problem.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
That's true, to an extent. But the reality is, the internet has been pretty much unregulated.
Just put the period after the word "true" and you'd have it right. As it stands, you're wrong.
It's a very bad thing. Just like price controls are bad. just like communism is bad. What is good, is this thing call freedom. Which means freedom for everyone, even those you don't like.
Glenn Beck, is that you? Nice bit of false equivalence there. Regulating ISPs to ensure that they don't start blocking off sections of the net or blocking certain applications or types of traffic, especially in cases where they are a direct competitor or partner to a competitor, is hardly communism. It's not price controls either. It's ensuring that people have freedom to access what they want, which is important, because people have damn few choices when it comes to internet access. If this kind of legislation doesn't happen, they could end up having to choose between one set of sites and services or another set, just based on who their provider is. I guess you consider that freedom. I consider that a severely broken market.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer