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SEC Decides Telcos Must Give Shareholders a Vote On Net Neutrality
suraj.sun writes with a link about a SEC decision that telecommunications companies must give shareholders an annual vote on wireless net-neutrality resolutions. "The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has told AT&T and other telecommunications companies they must include a resolution supporting wireless net-neutrality in annual shareholder votes. In a letter posted on the SEC website, the agency asserted that net neutrality — the idea that Internet service providers must treat traffic equally — has become a significant policy consideration and can no longer be excluded from shareholder ballots. AT&T, Verizon and Sprint Nextel must now grant shareholder requests for votes this year on resolutions that would support net neutrality. In view of the sustained public debate over the last several years concerning net neutrality and the Internet and the increasing recognition that the issue raises significant policy considerations, we do not believe that AT&T may omit the proposal from its proxy materials, the SEC said in the Feb. 10 letter."
Shareholders will vote for what the company tells them will make the most money. This decision should not be left up to them or the telcos.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
Strictly enforcing the Constitution.
Not necessarily. A lot of this hubbub surrounds Mike D of Beastie Boys fame, who's an AT&T shareholder.
http://boingboing.net/2012/02/15/mike-d-for-net-neutrality.html
Shareholders have a ... vote, and on .. Net Neutrality???? How preposterous! Where does the SEC get things like this ? ... in the USSR? Its like saying that USA citizens have an equal vote for President of the USA, which they most definitely do not!. What is this country coming to.
Shareholders will vote for what the company tells them will make the most money. This decision should not be left up to them or the telcos.
We could all buy one share of stock...
It's a trial balloon. If the shareholders say "yes" then the government can point to shareholder support for their talking points. If the shareholders say "no" then the government can pull out the standard anti-business talking points.
Either way, it polarizes the issue and gives the politicians another opportunity for a self-serving speech.
Well, that is one out of the top 500 shareholders. Good luck convincing the other 499 Chauvinist pigs of what is the correct way. Almost every single one shareholder in history has voted for short time profits when given the option. That won't change soon; or at all...
-- no sig today
Yes, shareholders should have a say in the policy of companies they own, but net neutrality should most certainly not be left to shareholders. If shareholders were allowed to set the minimum wage a company will pay, they have a financial interest in voting for $0.
In a democracy, the government should work to ensure that the interests of the people are served. Net neutrality should be enforced by legislation.
Facts have a liberal bias.
You're adorable!
If every man, woman, and child in the United States, and Canada, and the UK, and Germany, and France, and Italy, and Spain, and Poland, and Switzerland, and Norway, and Sweden, and Denmark, and Japan, and South Korea, and Australia, and New Zealand (sorry if I left your country out!), we'd have about a billion shares.
AKA 30% ownership.
AKA less than the combined shares of just the top twenty shareholders. The #1 shareholder alone holds more shares than the adult population of the United States.
Sorry to disillusion you, but people really need to understand just how little power the 99% has.
Regular old representative democracy has had a hard time enshrining network neutrality in law. It will be telling if shareholders manage to secure it through "corporate democracy".
Whether a push for network neutrality through shareholder activism succeeds or fails, however, this appeal to shareholders on such a basic social issue is just a symptom of the creeping corporatization of American politics. The surrender to corporations of the right to make decisions on matters of fundamental social importance is frightening, but hey - corporations are people, right, and AT&T's just this guy who means well, you know?
The problem isn't treating everything the same.
The problem is that the ISPs want to charge twice for the same traffic.
They want to charge the subscriber for the traffic, and the party they're communicating with.
Basically, they set up there pricing structure before video over the net really took off, and now they're looking for some way to raise prices while not scaring away the customers.
Telcos have to be ripping their guts out over Skype and items like Magic Jack. They want more money for every bit of communications and newer technologies are offering them no money at all.
We have as much business supporting telcos as we do backing buggy whip and musket factories. The telephone will go the way of the typewriter rather quickly.
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well, then we all need to buy 2 shares. Then we'd have 60% ownership.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
>Shareholders will vote for what the company tells them will make the most money. This decision should not be left up to them or the telcos
My first thought is: Just change ISPs once this happens.
My second thought is: Most of us don't have another option than one broadband provider.
God spoke to me
Well I hope Mike D shuts them down because we all know that "like Ma 'Bell he's got the Ill Communication". Since you know he can't, and he won't and he don't stop.
I wish I knew what that would really mean...
Seriously? This sounds like something the telco's would have lobbied for.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
Oh please. You're watch too many indie "documentaries".
If all the shareholders in public companies were willing to sink the company for short term gains, companies wouldn't stay listed for more than a year. I think you'll find that generally isn't the case.
Terrible decision. Network neutrality (or lack there of) is a technical decision. Don't need people who don't understand the technical details and the impact of such a policy make those decisions. This is nothing more than lobbying and politics being played with the SEC which is a body that should remain politic free.
the government can pull out the standard anti-business talking points
Only in right-wing-nutball-land can a policy designed to ensure that all players have equal access to the information infrastructure be called "anti-business." For that matter, the idea that the US government is in any way, shape, or form "anti-business" is also strictly in wingnut territory.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
It's a trial balloon. If the shareholders say "yes" then the government can point to shareholder support for their talking points. If the shareholders say "no" then the government can pull out the standard anti-business talking points.
Either way, it polarizes the issue and gives the politicians another opportunity for a self-serving speech.
Its pretty clear that the Telco's can word it in such a way that Tim Berners-Lee would vote the wrong way 8 times out of ten. I've seen many such proposals forced onto shareholders ballots which were worded in such a way that the reader was certain only Satan himself would vote for the proposal.
Besides that, given the hijacking of the term "net neutrality" over the last couple years its not safe to say you support Net Neutrality without a clarifying definition, because some companies have managed to twist the definition to the point that it means exactly the opposite of what you think.
Even Google fell off the bandwagon when they said this in the space of two sentences:
There is widespread agreement among all parties that outright blocking, impairing, or degrading Internet traffic should not be tolerated. Beyond that, we also believe that broadband carriers should have the flexibility to engage in a whole host of activities, including:
...
Prioritizing all applications of a certain general type, such as streaming video;
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
prioritizing is not "blocking, impairing, or degrading Internet traffic". If I have VOIP service I want it giving higher priority then smtp.
If I rely on smtp, I want higher priority than your voip.
You really can't have it both ways.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
I think you're on to something there! If we each buy 4 shares, we'll have 120% ownership. That way, even if half of us don't support net neutrality, we'll still have a 60% majority in favor!
Incorrect. The political system defines the framework for corporations to work within. We still have one man one vote though the Supreme Court has damaged that with Citizens United. We have to hold the political system to its fiduciary duty to safeguard citizens against exploitation by the economic system.
The FCC is misguided in trying to solve this within the economic system. The political system ought to take its responsibility. However a combination of "free market ideology" (actually either a failure to grasp the relation and checks and balances between the political and the economic system or an an outright grab for power) and the hijacking the political system through bribery is hampering the required regulation.
Sorry to disillusion you, but people really need to understand just how little power the 99% has.
That's redundant, during the entire history, a very small amount of people had the most power. Only kids(of all ages) and communists dream about equal rights and/or power. They go kill the rich guys, take their money, and take their places as the new rich guys. It happened a milion times in history. Nothing new here.
Since when does the SEC decide whether or not to relegate decisions regarding net neutrality to anyone? That should fall under the domain of the FCC, not a bunch of dipshit shareholders who's only interest is the next quarter return. Fuck them.
Sorry to disillusion you, but people really need to understand just how little power the 99% has.
Wait till they get rid of net neutrality. Comments like that will take a loooong time to reach the server.
Yeah, that must be why it'S impossible to open a new factory in America these days - rampant pro-business attitudes among permit-granters. Anyone who disagrees MUST be crazy, as there is only one correct way to think and heretics are not allowed.
One definition of madness is doing again and again and again what failed first and hoping that the results will be different "this time"
One definition of evil is doing something, seeing that it is bad for people, and doing it again and again and again...
Having a "public authority" asking the shareholder to vote on what would be in effect an element of "self regulation" is either mad or evil, probably both.
It is worth while to read: ( http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/reviews/2010/12/ars-book-review-the-master-switch-by-tim-wu.ars ) The master switch
to learn about how again, and again the government supported the creation of private monopolies, and stronger business control on public expression and opinion.
The only justification for this would be if there would be some way to make the shareholder liable for the crimes of the management.
If the SEC would seriously think that the FCC might for a nationalisation or a breakup of the operators if they do not garanty network neutrality, then asking the Shareholder about their opinion would be somehow justified.
By the way this should not be an issue since the operators are supposedly liable for defaulting on their "common carrier" responsibilities, so asking the shareholder is basically: do you want us to comit a crime to make a lot of cash for you ? or would you prefer us to be honest.
(not that the PR agency would let them ask the question that way of course...)
Net neutrality should be decided by the people it affects, not shareholders of companies the lack of it will benefit ...
Puteulanus fenestra mortis
Since when should foreign stakeholders get a vote as to how laws are built in the U.S.? Another problem with the SEC overstepping their bounds.
Not necessarily as there are a lot of tech stock owners that might be of a different mind than a profit oriented CEO / board.
blindly antisocialist = antisocial
the idea that Internet service providers must treat traffic equally
The trouble is that when people treat QoS the sme as Net Neutrality they then believe invalid arguments like bittorrent will swamp VOIP or somesuch nonsense.
Net neutrality is not about treating all traffic equally.
Net neutrality is about not discriminating based on source/destination.
Entirely different. In fact, being all IP, 4G networks will make heavy use of QoS ( http://4gwirelessjobs.com/articles/article-detail.php?QOS-over-4G-networks&Arid=MTU2&Auid=MTIy) to prioritise voice. That doesn't mean that htey nobble google because they haven't been given a huge kickback.
If it's done properly, you could do P2P transfers over VOIP QoS, though it would be eye-wateringly expensive.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Oh please. You're watch too many indie "documentaries".
If all the shareholders in public companies were willing to sink the company for short term gains, companies wouldn't stay listed for more than a year. I think you'll find that generally isn't the case.
That's naive. And something went wrong with your short term memory (hint: banking crisis). Shareholder often keep their shares for only (fractions of) seconds - so what's preventing someone from buying lots of them, voting then selling off? Some shareholders even bet against themselves to limit their own risk...
Power to the People
Well that us the problem bless the queues are empty at every interface you can't prioritize anything without degrading something else. What we really need to talk about is classification without regard to source. Ie you treat everyone's smtp the same and everyone's VoIP the same, etc. If you prioritize VoIP traffic for your service then you do it for google voice and vonage as well.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
If at least one will adopt net neutrality, then the users will have a choice. Prioritising internet traffic is not necessarily bad, giving services that require low lag, such as voip priority over, for example downloads is a useful that can save costs and enhance user experience, until the infrastructure is built up properly. The problem is when, intead of prioritisation, some ISPs simply throttle or ban some type of traffic, or even worse use their infrastructure to provide unfair advantage to other services they offer. Having an alternative ISP will ensure that the others won't abuse their powers, because in that case they would risk losing their userbase. Of course, this requires at least one company to become neutral, which is not guaranteed.
ahh but then the other half would also have a 60% majority and i'm just not sure the universe could handle that.
i spent five minutes thinking and all i got was this crappy sig
What would the point be to buy shares, vote and then sell them? Why would someone do that? Your understanding of financial markets is weak, to say the least.
Who owns those shares? Penson plans, 401(ks), Endowments, IRAs, etc. It's not all just Scrooge McDuck. I swear, the level of knowledge of some Slashdotters when it comes to dealings in the financial markets is laughable. Stick to flogging Linux.
washing their hands of the decision so they can blame the shareholders for the choices they make...
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
In the late-Apartheid era, in South Africa, activists bought (barely, if I remember correctly) enough GM stock to get into meetings and vote. And propose votes. They got a vote on equal working conditions for 'whites' and 'nie-blankes'.
GM shareholders voted overwhelmingly in mainting apartheid in the office, factories and - mainly - on factory floors. The difference between corporate shareholders in general and nazi slaveholders is well nigh nonexistent. Not bait, not trolll. Truth. Verified. Verifiable. Consistent. Reincident. Generalized.
The same goes for cluster-bombs, mines, poison-gas ... the works.
What would the point be to buy shares, vote and then sell them? Why would someone do that?
Because they own stock in a competing company?
Or a nation wanting to destabilize an enemy's markets?
Or someone wanting to drive the price down so they can buy it again, or force the company to accept a buyout/takeover?
The above are just some layman's guesses, I'm sure there are rules in place to prevent this behavior though - otherwise, it's a good thing I'm not a billionaire.
Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if someone would do it for the lulz.
Well for example, you could buy shares when they're cheap, vote for the company to do something that will generate a short spike in share value, and sell when you think the spike is topped out. Or short the stock and do the opposite.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Nobody's stopping you from opening a new factory, just China's ultra-cheap labor and near-lack of environmental regulations will stop it from being relatively profitable. In fact you could say it's *because* the US government is so insanely pro-business that they encouraged outsourcing, gutting their own country for short-term stock gains for the wealthy few.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
What would the point be to buy shares, vote and then sell them? Why would someone do that?
Vote for free. A vote against net neutrality for those who want it. Without any long term interest in the company.
Your understanding of financial markets is weak, to say the least.
The Dunning–Kruger effect begs to differ
Just make sure to do it on the same day so I can buy 10,000 shares the day before and sell them back to you guys, with 60% of shares being bought I'll have my own island by lunch.
because fund managers vote the shares in the funds they run
as Carly Fiorino proved at HP, all you have to do is lean on a handful of fund managers and you get the votes for whatever bad idea you have
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What, no shout out to Mike D of the BEastie Boys pushing this through the SEC?!? For shame...
First, the SEC has some limited governing control over publically traded corporations, but not those that are not.
Second, SEC has control over securities, but not over communications which would be directly impacted by this.
Finally, Law makers have determined that it is the FCC that will decide on net neutrality, not the SEC.
Sorry SEC, but you have no say in the matter.
Have Individual Taxpayers instruct government as to where their taxes are to be spent?
Of course if you don't trust the tax payers then rig the elections... Right!?
Maybe the same can apply to the telcos and with reduced traffic.... how will the investors respond.... Oh I know, raise prices and drive more away... yeah that will work.
There is also another telcos issue of the past.... they participated in violating the privacy rights of americans and were taken t0 cort byt those who hired them to do so (the government) let them off. Perhaps the share holders can vote on spying issues too?
The fact that you have to hold the stock for several days before the vote?
If the shareholders say "no" then the government can pull out the standard anti-business talking points.
The problems of capitalism arise when there aren't enough capitalists.
Consolidation and concentration restrict competition and destroy market dynamics where there are plenty of buyers and sellers. Net neutrality levels the playing field and helps raise competition.
If at least one will adopt net neutrality, then the users will have a choice.
I wish it worked that way, but there are two problems: firstly in many places there are only one or two available ISPs, and secondly most people will not care unless their Netflix starts cutting out all the time. Sometimes free market ideals just do not work.
I see this as a brazen shift from public policy matters being handled by the elected government of the people, to policy being determined by corporate entities, and therefore only by the propertied owner.
Which would finally return us to the grand old system of the landed property owner exclusively having a vote.
But this is worse. In a stockholder scenario, those with more property have a proportionally greater vote, rather than an equal vote like the landed property owner model.
So, what we are telling people is re: net neutrality, your government representation vote does not matter. You must buy stock to have a vote on the matter, and your vote is proportional to the amount you can spend on the stock, and the company's stock-issuance policies, for that matter.
This is a bad precedent. Governmental policy decisions should never be handed over to a stockholder vote. Ever. You can forget about American democracy if they are. If this is the result of obstruction in Congress, the obstructionists have won.
The US is pro business the same way the Mafia is pro business.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Next time you're overseas, especially in a competitive area, check out what the U.S. embassies are doing. They spend a lot of time and money pushing U.S. business. And if you think about why, say, the U.S. Navy has ships all over the world, making the seas safe for U.S. business is explicitly part of the reason. Taxpayers spend billions promoting U.S. business, which is why the idea of a flat tax is so laughable. People who own businesses (or shares) benefit more from the actions of government than the rest of us do. But you won't see many people bringing up that point.
firstly in many places there are only one or two available ISPs
I guess this is the problem. Here in Europe there is little need for a net neutrality legislation, because there are enough ISPs to choose from, some of them being neutral. Also, it helps a lot that any throttling has to be done transparently, so you know what you sign up for.
And who votes the shares in a 401(k) or any other managed investment? The fund manager, who is obligated to vote in whatever way he thinks will make the most money.
If you're going to accuse me of not knowing what I'm talking about, you really ought to at least know what proxy voting is.
We have to hold the political system to its fiduciary duty to safeguard citizens against exploitation by the economic system.
Where is that duty spelled out?
Define "exploitation".
Describe what are the limits "the political system" is not allowed to cross in its efforts with regard to "the economic system".
Hollywood, Television, has become the dream machine. We need to take that back; each of us is a Dream Machine
Those businesses and their goods/services don't exist in a vacuum. Are you suggesting that nobody except the super-rich elite class benefits from cheap, secure, and reliable freight/shipping/transportation?
Hollywood, Television, has become the dream machine. We need to take that back; each of us is a Dream Machine
The super-rich elite are the ones making a profit because of that cheap, secure and reliable transport.
All the while whining about wanting the government that makes it possible to get off the backs of business.
Kinda like the "Keep your government hands off of my Medicare" "Morans".
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
To make money? Your understanding of how humans work is weak, to say the least.
And who runs those shares? And who takes voting power away from the people who do have Pensions, 401ks, etc?
The manager running the fund. And odds are he doesn't give two shits about Net Neutrality, and only cares about spiking AT&T's stock price.
Except you'd need money to do that, which the 1% controls.
ahh but then the other half would also have a 60% majority and i'm just not sure the universe could handle that.
Wouldn't 10% of each side just annihilate each other? Or, you know... everything?
Nobody's stopping you from opening your new factory. Many localities would welcome it.
Oh wait, you want to pay the people next to nothing, not give a damn about their safety inside the factory, and be free to belch your toxic shit all over the environment. Yeah, no. You can't do that. But to have the laughable notion that these things are somehow "anti-business" shows that you shouldn't even be managing the night shift at a Denny's.
Are you suggesting that the super-rich are not the primary beneficiaries of such shenanigans?
Then you can do so at your router. But why should any of your traffic get higher priority than mine?
"Profit" is just the special term we apply to the leftover revenue when a seller receives more money than was spent to produce something. "Savings" or "discount" or "bargain" is the special term we apply to the leftover disposable income when a buyer spends less capacity (money) than the value required to produce something themselves. But they are flip sides of the same thing -- getting more out of a transaction than you would have in a strictly equalized interaction.
Do you not feel that it is possible for both the "super-rich elite" to realize a benefit in the form of profit from selling you something, while at the same time you realize a benefit in the form of savings when you purchase that thing?
That is, the company realizes a savings because they had to spend less of their capacity (money) to produce something and bring it to market, and you the buyer realizes a profit because you sold the company an amount of dollars and received something that you value more than the total of that dollar amount.
Hollywood, Television, has become the dream machine. We need to take that back; each of us is a Dream Machine
Thanks for playing, but this isn't subjective. There's three kinds of Internet traffic - high-bandwidth high-latency, low-bandwidth low-latency, and somewhere in the middle. Examples would be VoIP, FTP, and SMTP respectively. Your SMTP traffic delayed by a couple dozen milliseconds is objectively less bad than having the VoIP traffic delayed. Same with file-sharing - the low-bandwidth queue (which might be limited to a few hundred kbps) is objectively worse than waiting multiple hundreds of ms for each packet but at a high rate.
The problem with net neutrality is when this is done improperly, specifically for non-technical reasons. Prioritizing one's own VoIP or streaming video service is the problem, not prioritizing VoIP over streaming video over BitTorrent.
I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
Shareholder often keep their shares for only (fractions of) seconds
The advent of higher and higher speed trading has diluted the word "shareholder" and "stockholder". A person who owns the share for a very short period of time is not really a shareholder, although they meet the dictionary definition. They are a speculator. Someone who holds the share over a long time period is a shareholder. Such persons should want the company making long-term decisions that benefit the company both now and in the future
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
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and secondly most people will not care unless their Netflix starts cutting out all the time.
If you are on comcrap, this already happens. They intentionally degrade Netflix to make their own streaming service more attractive.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?