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Landlords, ISPs Team Up To Rip Off Tenants On Broadband (backchannel.com)
"Network operators like Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and ATT, in cahoots with [real estate] developers and landlords, routinely use a breathtaking array of kickbacks, lawyerly games of Twister, blunt threats, and downright illegal activities to lock up buildings in exclusive arrangements," reports Harvard Law Professor Susan Crawford.
itwbennett writes: Eight years ago, the FCC issued an order banning exclusive agreements between landlords and ISPs, but a loophole is being exploited, leaving many tenants in apartment buildings with only one choice of broadband service provider. The loophole works like this: Instead of having an exclusive agreement with one provider, the landlords refuse to let any other companies than their chosen providers access their properties...
"This astounding, enormous, decentralized payola scheme affects millions of American lives," Crawford writes, revealing Comcast's revenue-sharing proposals for property owners and urging cities (and national lawmakers) to require broadband neutrality in residential buildings. Other loopholes are also being exploited, Crawford writes, and "it's why commercial tenants in NYC pay through the nose for awful Internet access service in the fanciest of commercial buildings... We've got to take landlords out of the equation -- all they're doing is looking for payments and deals...and the giant telecom providers in our country are more than happy to pay up."
"This astounding, enormous, decentralized payola scheme affects millions of American lives," Crawford writes, revealing Comcast's revenue-sharing proposals for property owners and urging cities (and national lawmakers) to require broadband neutrality in residential buildings. Other loopholes are also being exploited, Crawford writes, and "it's why commercial tenants in NYC pay through the nose for awful Internet access service in the fanciest of commercial buildings... We've got to take landlords out of the equation -- all they're doing is looking for payments and deals...and the giant telecom providers in our country are more than happy to pay up."
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Slashdot survives on readers' submission and over the years I have done my share of submissions
Whenever I submit an article, I submit articles that I think is interesting, something which is related to 'tech', something for the geeks to enjoy, as the geeks make up a large part of the Slashdot reader base
Something must have happened in Slashdot recently, however --- All 3 of my most recent submissions have been tagged as "SPAM"
I am putting up the links to the 3 "spam submissions". You guys decide if they are spam, or not
FYI, I never expect all my submission to be adopted
I recognize that the editors have the final say on which submission to use, which to reject
Anyway, anyone else experience the same treatment?
I am posting as AC because they have locked up my account and not letting me to use it to post comment any more
Info of my account is at https://slashdot.org/~Taco+Cow...
Just in case you need to know if any of my submissions were ever accepted, here are a few examples
https://hardware.slashdot.org/...
https://slashdot.org/story/16/...
https://news.slashdot.org/stor...
And yes, in my account, my karma is still rated as *EXCELLENT*