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FCC Approves Net Neutrality Rules
muggs sends word that the U.S. Federal Communications Commission has voted 3-2 to approve an expansion of their ability to regulate ISPs by treating them as a public utility.
Under the rules, it will be illegal for companies such as Verizon or Cox Communications to slow down streaming videos, games and other online content traveling over their networks. They also will be prohibited from establishing "fast lanes" that speed up access to Web sites that pay an extra fee. And in an unprecedented move, the FCC could apply the rules to wireless carriers such as T-Mobile and Sprint -- a nod to the rapid rise of smartphones and the mobile Internet. ... The FCC opted to regulate the industry with the most aggressive rules possible: Title II of the Communications Act, which was written to regulate phone companies. The rules waive a number of provisions in the act, including parts of the law that empower the FCC to set retail prices — something Internet providers feared above all. However, the rules gives the FCC a variety of new powers, including the ability to: enforce consumer privacy rules; extract money from Internet providers to help subsidize services for rural Americans, educators and the poor; and make sure services such as Google Fiber can build new broadband pipes more easily.
What process has been in secret? He has been open from the start. Just because republicans state it has been a secret does not actually mean it has been, unless you watch Fox news.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
There is no what it "might do" it is what they have been actively doing, and trying to get money out of...Also there is nothing in this that allows the NSA to get taps on it.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
And like it did to the only other segment under title 2 right? I mean I just hate it every time I say a curse word on the phone and it is bleeped out...
When you cant win, ad hominem.
Your hatred of Comcast and fear of what it might do has lead to the biggest restrictions on freedom since the Patriot Act
Your sense of reality needs to be rebooted. "Might do?" They've been doing it openly, for a couple of years now, you twit. You're the one pissing your panties over imaginary "might do" and using bullshit conspiracy theorist "reasoning". Look up how much censorship power Title II gave over landlines, for starters.
Jesus Tapdancing Christ. You need your dosage upped.
We have a Conservative President. He is far more Conservative than Reagan or Bush Sr.
We only have Conservative parties at the moment. There is the just right of center Democrats, and the holy-shit-complete-nutbag so far to the right as to be off the fucking charts Republicans. And then we have the Tea Party subset that make THEM look sane.
Comcast is fighting against this tooth and nail and has promised to file lawsuits to stop it.
But don't let facts get in the way of your political bullshit.
It absolutely was an objection! I don't see how you could possibly read the EFF's letter and think anything else.
Snippets:
Our message has been clear from the beginning: the FCC has a role to play, but its role must be firmly bounded.
But we are deeply concerned that the FCC’s new rules will include a provision that sounds like a recipe for overreach and confusion: the so-called “general conduct rule.”
First, it suggests that the FCC believes it has broad authority to pursue any number of practices—hardly the narrow, light-touch approach we need to protect the open Internet.
We are days away from a final vote, and it appears that many of the proposed rules will make sense for the Internet. Based on what we know so far, however, the general conduct proposal may not. The FCC should rethink this one.
The EFF clearly has a problem with the general conduct rule. Leave the partisan group-mindedness behind--there are clearly some not-black and some not-white (grey, you might even say) shades here.
Exactly. Thank you.
As a Libertarian, I am often dismayed by other Libertarians saying "all regulation is bad". But that's not the actual Libertarian philosophy. Which is "the minimum regulation that works". Too many have seemed to forget those all-important last 2 words.
Clear back to Adam Smith, it was clear that free market forces could lead to monopoly or oligopoly. And that's where the government's role comes in: antitrust laws keep people playing within the rules of an open, free market.
But Congress has abdicated its responsibility in recent years, in regard to antitrust. It, and its regulators, have allowed mergers that would have been laughed at 20 years ago.
As a result: giant net providers like Comcast and Verizon. They have formed an oligopoly, not a free market. As such regulation is absolutely necessary. All these people shouting "no regulation of free markets" are off their nuts. There hasn't been one.
Given that this ideal world is completely imaginary, and the things that the free market is supposed to do in it never actually happen in the real world, why imagine a world where it's specifically free markets that have these magical powers? Why not an imaginary world where these things happen without free markets? Why not one where elves come in the middle of the night and solve everything?
Or, if this ideal world you've imagined doesn't map to the real one, why not try to imagine one that does?
I find it odd that there's the sort of idea that government regulation is somehow inherently anti-competitive in the US. If the government wants to be anti-competitive, they'll just say that business isn't allowed to do X and monopolize that function themselves.
If there were no limits to free market, the majority of the population would be morphine addicts, or possibly something even more addictive.
They literally did. The FCC tried to put into place weak rules that would have done nothing. Verizon sued (over the objections of the other major ISPs) and got the rules thrown out. However, the courts said if the FCC wanted to put network neutrality rules into place, they needed to use Title II.
So Verizon is either to blame or to thank (depending on which side of the debate that you're on) for these rules.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Rush Limbaugh remembers the days of the fairness doctrine. There are a handful of politicians who think it should make a comeback. I'm not a big fan of Mr. Limbaugh's but in his defense if you read what has been said by supporters of the Fairness Doctrine it would send shivers up your spine:
The shooting is cause for the country to rethink parameters on free speech, Clyburn said from his office, just blocks from the South Carolina Statehouse. He wants standards put in place to guarantee balanced media coverage with a reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine, in addition to calling on elected officials and media pundits to use 'better judgment.'
Most people, left or right would recoil whenever a politician starts talking about a need to rethink the "parameters of free speech."
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.