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F.C.C., In Net Neutrality Turnaround, Plans To Allow Fast Lane

Posted by samzenpus on from the pay-to-play-the-movie dept.

Dega704 (1454673) writes in with news of the latest FCC plan which seems to put another dagger in the heart of net neutrality. "The Federal Communications Commission will propose new rules that allow Internet service providers to offer a faster lane through which to send video and other content to consumers, as long as a content company is willing to pay for it, according to people briefed on the proposals. The proposed rules are a complete turnaround for the F.C.C. on the subject of so-called net neutrality, the principle that Internet users should have equal ability to see any content they choose, and that no content providers should be discriminated against in providing their offerings to consumers."

49 of 410 comments (clear)

  1. Down the river... by towermac · · Score: 5, Insightful

    we are sold.

    1. Re:Down the river... by dstyle5 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      All that PAC money does make a difference after all.

    2. Re:Down the river... by dmbasso · · Score: 5, Informative

      And you can make a difference with this PAC: http://www.wolf-pac.com/

      --
      `echo $[0x853204FA81]|tr 0-9 ionbsdeaml`@gmail.com
    3. Re:Down the river... by _Sharp'r_ · · Score: 4, Funny

      It's a good thing we got the FCC involved in all this rule making about the internet. Just think where we'd be if it wasn't for the FCC enforcing net neutrality all these years....

      --
      The party of stupid and the party of evil get together and do something both stupid and evil, then call it bipartisan.
    4. Re:Down the river... by Karmashock · · Score: 3, Interesting

      FCC only embraced Net Neutrality to get control over internet content.

      They seriously thought they would have the kind of control over the internet that they do over radio and television.

      When it became clear that wasn't going to happen they didn't care anymore.

      its about power. And if they sell us down the river they'll at least get influence at the ISPs that will profit from the "fast lanes".

      That is why there is a pivot to the ISPs. Power. That is what the FCC wants. And the ISPs are willing to give it in exchange for no net neutrality.

      You tell me which is worse... FCC in control of internet content... or ISPs filtering content based on who paid more?

      --
      I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
    5. Re:Down the river... by rockout · · Score: 3, Informative

      I get the outrage over the FCC making this happen today, but where's the outrage over the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals basically forcing them to make this rule?

      Honest question from me (because maybe I'm missing something): Didn't the FCC attempt to block large service providers from blocking or "unreasonably discriminating" against online content? And then in January, the court smacked them down and said "you don't have the power to do that." Seems like the FCC are not the worst bad guys here.

      --
      I've learned that they're worthless, so I don't read AC comments anymore.
    6. Re:Down the river... by lgw · · Score: 5, Insightful

      There seems to be some kneejerk reaction on /. that saying "government isn't helping us" == "let the corporations win". That's the false dichotomy. With a government owned by the corporations, there's no "government or corporations" in play. There's no choice like that right now. The choice is "more corporation-run government" or "less corporation-run government".

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    7. Re:Down the river... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

      You got close.

      The events went something like this:

      1) The FCC said: "ISPS: Thou shalt be neutral"
      2) AT&T said fuck you, im going to court.
      3) The court said: FCC, You can only make rules about common carriers. Your rule is void.
                      (Addendum to 3) The FCC could classify AT&T as a common carrier. They will not.
      4) The FCC is planning to make a new rule! "ISPS: Thou shalt charge whatever you want, to whoever you want. Except you should try to offer free interconnections with common carriers, but you are under no obligation to spend any effort to do so".

      Basically; sometime between 1 [in 2010] and 4 [in 2014] the FCC decided net neutrality wasn't necessary.

    8. Re:Down the river... by rtb61 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Nope, the FCC was under the control of management that understood Net Neutrality. Uncle Tom Obama simply replaced that management with new political appointees with instructions to follow the orders of the incumbents, hence the change. Once and for all the is no such thing as the fast lane, that is a lie. You pay for bandwidth you either get that bandwidth or not. So they lie to you, sell you bandwidth and then do not provide it, now they want to further legalise the lie, sell you bandwidth, then not only specifically not provide that bandwidth but chuck you in the strangleband lane, where you traffic is slowed and slowed and slowed and slowed until they can extort extra payments from you. Current FCC management is quite simply supporting corrupt practices to allow the generation of extra profit based upon lies.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
  2. Just more bullshit by pitchpipe · · Score: 5, Funny

    The rich get more privileges. Nothing to see here my fellow Americans. We love this shit. Fast lanes for the job creators. After all, we wouldn't have all of these jobs if we started impeding them. /s

    --
    Look where all this talking got us, baby.
    1. Re:Just more bullshit by crioca · · Score: 5, Insightful
      No it's actually quite an accurate characterization; the established players ("the rich") are now able to leverage that position to raise barriers to new entrants. Being rich is being privileged in the most classical usage of the term.

      The Internet has acted as a great equalizer, removing many of the barriers that people without great wealth face when trying to make opportunities. Now we're putting those barriers back in place, by making it so that established players can use their wealth to hold a privileged position within the market.

      This can only serve to benefit the established players at the cost of consumers and new entrants.

    2. Re:Just more bullshit by ClickOnThis · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Mod parent insightful.

      The internet began as a communication medium. Slowly but surely, we're seeing it turn into a broadcast medium.

      It all began years ago, when cable companies started offering internet service with unbalanced bandwidth: outgoing speed was (and still is) a small fraction of the incoming speed. So began the process that has led to what we have today.

      Imagine your Telephone Company sold you a phone service that let you call only certain other parties, who wrote a check to the Telephone Company so you could have the privilege. What's more, the number of words in the conversation depends on the payment, and the telephone subscriber (you) can never say more than one word for every 10 to 100 words you hear.

      Welcome to the death of the internet.

      --
      If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
    3. Re:Just more bullshit by techno-vampire · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Asymmetrical bandwidth, or what you call "unbalanced bandwidth," isn't something the cable companies invented. After all, that's what the A in ADSL stands for, and it came out years before cable internet. And, if you stop and think about it, it makes sense for the average residential user: the vast majority of the data passing through the connection is incoming, with just a tiny fraction of it going out, and that's just as true for cable as for DSL.

      --
      Good, inexpensive web hosting
    4. Re:Just more bullshit by MtHuurne · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I don't think asymmetric bandwidth is the problem: even with user-generated content, there will be more downloads than uploads: you post on a forum, multiple people read it, you share a photo, multiple people see it. Unless you advocate everyone to run home servers or a massive switch from client-server to peer-to-peer, having asymmetric bandwidth is not a bad idea.

      One problem is that the big ISPs don't want to be in the business of moving network packets; they want to be in the content business, because they see more potential profit there. They see the internet as a way of delivering that content: like you said, as a broadcast medium.

      Another problem is closed services. For example, every social network has their own private/instance message system, instead of using standard protocols like IMAP and XMPP. This means you have to use the same service as your friends to be able to communicate with them. So even for non-broadcast use, power is becoming concentrated. The internet is moving further and further away from its decentralized roots.

  3. Nice Website You Have There... by CrazyDuke · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...shame if something where to happen to it...

    --
    Any sufficiently advanced influence is indistinguishable from control.
    1. Re:Nice Website You Have There... by InvalidError · · Score: 3, Interesting

      For most websites who serve relatively low-bandwidth content or a relatively small number of people, this probably won't have that much of an effect - it is only a tiny percentage of all websites that have aggregate peak bandwidth high enough for direct peering to make any sense bothering with and even the previous network neutrality bill would not have prevented that.

      Even the European Union which many look at for being more pro-consumer than almost anywhere else in the world has a network neutrality bill that allows direct peering deals to enhance performance, quality of service and reliability of popular online services as long as it does not interfere with or otherwise degrade other services.

      If you relied on VoIP, would you like the option to pay maybe $1/month extra to have a 1Mbps fully-QoS'd channel to guarantee that your VoIP traffic always gets through no matter how badly intermediate networks between your modem and VoIP provider might be? That's one of the use-cases the EUP offered as a justification for having to allow some degree of traffic prioritization.

      As long as ISPs are not allowed to intentionally degrade non-premium traffic on the back of direct-peering deals, I see no fundamental problem with it.

    2. Re:Nice Website You Have There... by n8_f · · Score: 5, Insightful

      As long as ISPs are not allowed to intentionally degrade non-premium traffic on the back of direct-peering deals, I see no fundamental problem with it.

      Non-premium traffic with be de-facto downgraded, because even if they don't actively do it, large monopoly ISPs will be incentivized to make non-premium traffic as unreliable as possible. So whether it is simply slashing the capital budget of non-premium infrastructure or not performing repairs in a timely manner or a hundred other small things, non-premium traffic has to suffer. How long before there are multiple tiers of premium traffic? The monopoly ISPs face no competition or regulation; now they simply have to figure out how to maximize their rents.

  4. I informed you thusly... by EmagGeek · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I hate to say it, but I told you so. I said it then, and I'll say it now. The moment Obama appointed yet... another... lobbyist to head the FCC, one who spent years as a cable company and telecom lobbyist:

    Net... Neutrality... Was DEAD... PERIOD.

    Need I remind all of you Obama-lovers of this little tid bit from no other website but ethics.change.gov:

    http://change.gov/agenda/ethic...

    "I am in this race to tell the corporate lobbyists that their days of setting the agenda in Washington are over. I have done more than any other candidate in this race to take on lobbyists â" and won. They have not funded my campaign, they will not run my White House, and they will not drown out the voices of the American people when I am president."

    -- Barack Obama, Speech in Des Moines, IA
    November 10, 2007

    I informed you thusly...

    1. Re:I informed you thusly... by AlphaWolf_HK · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Honestly this is a really bullshit line of thinking. Even if Romney wouldn't have been, then why on earth would you vote for either of them? Who cares if he would have been elected if Obama didn't? Look at the result: Instead of getting an unknown, you got the incumbent who you already know is bad.

      We don't have a two party system because the "system" or any laws dictate it. The reason we havee a two party system is because our culture as a whole thinks exactly as you just did.

      Voting for the lesser of two evils means you give that lesser evil your endorsement. There is no escaping that fact; you effectively went on the record as saying "I want this guy in office."

      Honestly I've never found a good reason for any of the third party candidates either (no fucking way I'd ever want Nader or Paul in office either.) My solution is just to not even vote on an office where I have no preferred candidate. That's right, I left the presidential box empty. Instead I just voted on a referendum (legalizing medicinal marijuana) and a few other things and left the rest of the ballot empty.

      I think voting for the wrong candidate, or not educating yourself on any of them first, is more harmful than not voting at all. This common message of "get out the vote" is bullshit and is the reason we're in the mess we are in today. People vote for shit they know nothing about.

      --
      Careful with names containing L slashdot.org/~AiphaWolf_HK slashdot.org/~AlphaWoif_HK slashdot.org/~AiphaWoif_HK
    2. Re:I informed you thusly... by MightyYar · · Score: 3, Funny

      At least write in Kodos.

      I voted Gary Johnson. My vote helped him carry zero states. I really can't blame people for voting strategically.

      --
      W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
    3. Re:I informed you thusly... by AlphaWolf_HK · · Score: 5, Interesting

      And a reminder of this:

      http://boingboing.net/2012/01/...

      Obama did eventually capitulate. He signed the ACTA treaty without anybody else having any say in it, because he (and Hollywood) knew full well that it would get shot down like SOPA did if the public was aware of it. The constitution requires a vote in the senate for any treaty to be ratified, but NOBODY (not even the public) was allowed to read it until Obama himself ratified it. His argument was that since our laws already comply with it, he can ratify it by himself.

      There is no precedent for that as it has never been done before (given the Constitution forbids it, it makes sense too.)

      Anyways, Obama HAS been purchased, and he IS a Manchurian candidate if there ever was one.

      --
      Careful with names containing L slashdot.org/~AiphaWolf_HK slashdot.org/~AlphaWoif_HK slashdot.org/~AiphaWoif_HK
    4. Re:I informed you thusly... by dccase · · Score: 3, Funny

      He would have certainly been worse in some ways, but he could not have pulled off crap like this without outcry.
      That's why every president's biggest policies are stuff the other party wants but can't get away with.

      EPA? Republican.
      NAFTA? Democrat.
      Medicare prescription drug benefit? Republican.
      Romneycare? Democrat.
      Financial deregulation? Well, everybody. You got me there,

    5. Re:I informed you thusly... by artor3 · · Score: 5, Informative

      The Democrats tried to pass net neutrality into law through an act of Congress, so that we wouldn't need to rely on the FCC-commissioner-of-the-moment. The Republicans blocked it. Obama then implemented a reduced version of net neutrality through execute order. The courts struck that down. The Democrats tried again to pass net neutrality through Congress. The Republicans again blocked it. Now net neutrality is dead and gone, and the Republicans are claiming its the Democrats' fault.

      I wish I could say this is unbelievably dishonest, but it's actually quite standard these days.

    6. Re:I informed you thusly... by Beeftopia · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Here's a good graphic showing the FCC heads revolving door.

      Obama nominated Thomas Wheeler as head of FCC in 2013: "Wheeler is currently the managing director at Core Capital Partners, a venture-capital firm based in Washington, D.C.. He has also been a top lobbyist for the wireless and cable industries. From 1979 to 1984, he served as president of the National Cable Television Association and before that he was CEO of the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association." -- http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2013/10/29/tom-wheeler-confirmed-fcc-chairman/3309333/

  5. Well, what did we expect? by Golgafrinchan · · Score: 5, Informative
    Tom Wheeler is Chairman of the FCC.

    From his Wikipedia page: "Prior to working at the FCC, Wheeler worked as a venture capitalist and lobbyist for the cable and wireless industry, with prior positions including President of the National Cable Television Association (NCTA) and CEO of the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association (CTIA)."

    When the FCC chairman used to be a lobbyist for the companies he's now regulating... well, what did we expect would happen? It shouldn't be surprising that he'd be in favor of pushing through regulations that are more favorable to his cronies.

    --
    My userid is prime!
    1. Re: Well, what did we expect? by davester666 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      First, you have already been paying the ISPs boatloads of money that they mark as "profit" and are paid out as bonuses to executives, and maybe even some of it as dividends. Remarkably little of it is marked for "upgrade network to even support new users".

      Second, You ALREADY pay your ISP to give you good enough speed to get stutter free video, they just aren't interested in actually providing you with what their ad said they will. Now, they will get paid again to deliver bits to you, and there is nothing to stop them from just using the same pipes, only reserve more of the pipe only for the 'fast laners'.

      This 'rule change' is basically saying you didn't pay to access the internet, you paid to access your ISP [like AOL way back]. Now everyone you want to connect to also has to pay to join your ISP.

      --
      Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
    2. Re: Well, what did we expect? by rk · · Score: 3, Interesting

      There are people who have built VPNs and proxies to Netflix in a data center host they control who got fine performance while using the VPN to their house, but would get crap performance when going direct over Comcast. I've said it before that the line between good traffic engineering and breaking net neutrality is a blurry one, so it's not a smoking gun by any means, but it's very interesting information nonetheless.

  6. Wrong battle. by ErikTheRed · · Score: 4, Informative

    The problem here isn't differentiated services - which can be valuable to a lot of us. The problem is that here in the US we have effective ISP monopolies or duopolies in nearly every region. Whenever your choice is so severely constrained you're going to get screwed at least a hundred different ways. Net neutrality isn't the worst of them - the crappy bandwidth levels are first in my personal book. The battle should be couched in terms of "we'll trade away net neutrality in exchange for getting rid of telecommunications and cable franchises." If I can get 18 different providers competing for my business, then some of them will offer net neutrality, some will offer more bandwidth, etc. Until there is competition we're always in the position of having to beg the government to not cave into the desires of megacorporations, which is always a losing battle in the long run.

    --

    Help save the critically endangered Blue Iguana
    1. Re:Wrong battle. by CRCulver · · Score: 4, Interesting

      For my flat in Romania, I have the choice of only two ISPs, a "duoply". And yet both have offered fiber to your door (200 or 300 megabit, I forget which plan I have) for about 10€/month for about a decade now. I see one company has just rolled out gigabit internet for 15€/month. And there's no throttling involved, you can torrent hundreds of gigabytes a month if you'd like.

      So while those who bemoan the high prices and shitty connections of the US often point to monopolies or duopolies, there's got to be more to the story. (And let's not bring up population density there, it suffices to compare my metropolitan areas to your metropolitan areas).

    2. Re:Wrong battle. by n8_f · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Still wrong battle. Franchises are simply agreements to use a city's rights-of-way. They've been non-exclusive since 1992. The problem is that building wireline infrastructure is extremely capital expensive and has severely diminishing returns in areas that are already saturated by a competitor. Your business plan is to sink a bunch of capital into a business and then compete on price with a company that has no capital costs? Good luck raising the billions you'll need for that.

      No, the solution here is municipal fiber networks that are managed as public utilities that sell wholesale to ISPs. Just like how we have multiple shipping companies that use public infrastructure to transport packages between customers. Then you can have as many different competitors as the market will bear with as many different business plans. In that situation, the Comcast-Netflix deal would never have happened, because the competing ISPs would have been begging Netflix to install hardware in their data centers to make their customers' experience as good as possible. An ISP trying to make Netflix slower would have lost every customer that cares about Netflix (which apparently is a lot of them).

  7. End of the Internet as we Know It by cosm · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It truly just became pay to play for actual content producers and hosts. Goodbye little guys. Right now, I get content from the internet pretty much as fast as I'm willing to pay for. Now, for the same amount of my money, does this mean the content I'm delivered is at the mercy of how much the companies serving it are willing to pay ISPs backbone peers?

    How long until consumers are offered tiered internet to these sites, pay X to get the FB + GOOG + AAPL package, etc etc, pay Y for gaming, pay Z for streaming, if you're caught in violation you'll be automatically charged at the overage level (like cell phone providers).

    --
    'We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.' RPF
  8. Stop complaining and do something about it by synthesizerpatel · · Score: 5, Informative

    The FCC has an open issue for this, 14-28 Protecting and Promoting the Open Internet

    You can see existing comments here:

    http://apps.fcc.gov/ecfs/comme...

    You can add your two cents here:

    http://apps.fcc.gov/ecfs/uploa...

  9. so... by deander2 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    me: "i just created a new 'horoscope by phone' startup, and it's really popular! woohoo!"

    at&t: "hey, we've noticed a lot of people are calling your new company. it would be a shame if 20% of your calls were to drop. would you like to pay us to not drop them?"

    me: "WTF? your customers are calling me! THEY paid YOU already for their phone service! you can't just threaten me, that's extortion and a violation of the common carrier law!"

    at&t: "oh yeah, nevermind. we'll wait until you start a website..."

    --
    http://kered.org
  10. Drop Netflix, Pirate Everything by Bob9113 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Only one reasonable response: Drop all your paid over-the-interent content subscriptions, and start pirating everything. Burn the media industry to the ground.

    --
    Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
  11. Think of real highways by EmperorOfCanada · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Can you imagine if some company bought all the highways in your area and then started charging higher fees in order to go in the passing lane but then started really gouging all the food deliveries to certain grocery stores?

    People might even try to defend this by saying that it was the free market but the reality would be just like the highways, the government gave these same companies nearly 100 years of subsidies to build these networks and the expertise to maintain them.

    Quite simply this infrastructure is quite simply a public good, the companies that are allowed to run it should only be able to run it at our pleasure. The moment they start to get greedy they should be thrown out and a the public good handed to another company to run properly.

    Net neutrality is a wonderfully level playing field which old zombie corporations hate and fast lanes are 100% anti consumer.

  12. Re:Meh, vote left. by josephtd · · Score: 5, Funny

    Do I vote for the Democrat that is going to blast me in the ass or the Republican that is blasting my ass?

  13. Court only pointed to the plain language of th law by raymorris · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I wouldn't even look to the court. The court merely read the law, which very plainly states that the FCC may not do what they tried to do. In essence, the law says:

    The FCC must regulate common carriers according to a, b, and c.
    The FCC may not regulate b or c in regard to anyone other than common carriers.

    The FCC wanted to do B without C, so they claimed "ISPs are not common carriers, so we don't have to do C. ISPs are common carriers, so we're going to do B". That's ridiculous, you can't say they ARE common carriers and NOT common carriers at the same time. Therefore, the FCC can't make up net neutrality laws.

    If and when we end up needing a net neutrality law, Congress will need to pass one. That should be pretty clear to anyone who has passed fourth grade civics, so I really don't see why the FCC tried to make up the law themselves in the first place. Any half-competent court would strike them down.

  14. Re:rotfl They want to outlaw themselves!?!? by dmbasso · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I see... you think "smart" means bringing a knife to a gun fight. Good for you.

    --
    `echo $[0x853204FA81]|tr 0-9 ionbsdeaml`@gmail.com
  15. Re:rotfl They want to outlaw themselves!?!? by green1 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Knowing how to work within the system to change the system seems brilliant to me.

  16. Re:rotfl They want to outlaw themselves!?!? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If your position is "super PACs are overly powerful, and have been made legal, we want to roll back the law allowing them," forming a super PAC is perfectly logical. Yes, if they win, they're disbanded - but they've accomplished their goal, so they're fine with being disbanded.

  17. The term is "regulatory capture" by Beeftopia · · Score: 5, Informative

    From the Wikipedia:

    "Regulatory capture is a form of political corruption that occurs when a regulatory agency, created to act in the public interest, instead advances the commercial or special concerns of interest groups that dominate the industry or sector it is charged with regulating. Regulatory capture is a form of government failure; it creates an opening for firms to behave in ways injurious to the public (e.g., producing negative externalities). The agencies are called "captured agencies".

    See also: "Exaggerated threat":
    1) "If we don't invade Iraq, they're going to bake the yellow cakes and explode a nuke in New York City."
    2) "If we don't bail out the financial sector, we're going to have a depression."
    3) "If we don't allow companies to favor content, the US technology sector will grind to a halt."

  18. Re: Meh, vote left. by spike+hay · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The problem with the internet, especially cable, is that it is a natural monopoly. It's like most utitilities that require infrastructure to the home. It would be stupid to have 10 competing water companies, right? That's because there would be large amounts of redundant infrastructure. Therefore, it is better to have a highly regulated monopoly with pricing set to prevent monopolistic rents.

    The current situation is that each cable company has a monopoly in most areas, with DSL providing a duopoly in some places. Obviously, monopolistic pricing occurs, with prices far above the free market rate for inferior service. But that isn't illegal! You have to show that they are acting in an anticompetitive manner, which is very difficult.

    Even in the case of oligopilies, price fixing is legal as long as it is implicit: A company can signal to another by unilaterally raising prices in a way that would be irrational if non-cooperative behavior is assumed. Then the other company will raise their prices as well, to acheive a cooperative outcome with both companies making more money. Again, this isn't illegal, unless there is an explicitly communicated price-fixing agreement.

    Thus, FTC antitrust stuff means fuck-all.

    --
    If you don't understand any of my sayings, come to me in private and I shall take you in my German mouth.
  19. Re:If super pacs are evil, and they are a super pa by Teun · · Score: 5, Insightful
    (as a foreigner) I am not fully aware of the possibilities of a PAC but I don't see it as a democratic problem when like-minded people band together to push a subject, compare it to starting a political party.

    What makes it bad and undemocratic is when the democratic principle of one-man one-vote is breached because some can contribute vastly more to 'their' PAC than others can to an opposing PAC.

    Using the means available is their lawful right.

    --
    "The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
  20. Re: Meh, vote left. by Teun · · Score: 3, Insightful
    That's why transport or infrastructure should be separated from media or content.

    Like I can chose from who I buy power or DSL, including TV and telphone, even though there is only one power line and one telephone or fiber cable to my house.

    But I live in a democracy mainly run by and for the people...

    --
    "The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
  21. Re:or 3. they are trying to mislead people by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    not sure if trolling...

    Our system is corrupt from the inside out, and the only way to affect change is through large amounts of money (e.g., this very story). In order to change that system, one must necessarily put together a PAC, even if the change you're going for is to take money out of the system.

  22. Re:rotfl They want to outlaw themselves!?!? by SeaFox · · Score: 3, Funny

    I see... you think "smart" means bringing a knife to a gun fight. Good for you.

    Bring a knife to a gun fight... ...stab them while they're laughing.

  23. Re:you sure? by mrchaotica · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "Left" means social authoritarianism. "Right" means corporate authoritarianism. Those of us who care in the slightest about freedom are fucked either way.

    --

    "[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz

  24. Re:Meh, vote left. by geminidomino · · Score: 4, Interesting

    "Left" doesn't mean "freedom from opression by the rich and powerful". Never has. It means "authoritarianism".

    Bullshit.It means "the other guys" to someone who self-identifies as "right," nothing more. ALL facets of the US political spectrum are high up on the "authoritarian" axis; even the libertarians who are too naive to know that their vaunted "unregulated paradise" would just be feudalism redux.

  25. Lie = Fraud by bigpat · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Basically the FCC is allowing fraud. Customers are paying for bandwidth and then the company is secretly throttling that bandwidth only for certain content.