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Trump Names Two Opponents of Net Neutrality To Oversee FCC Transition Team (gizmodo.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Gizmodo: President-elect Donald Trump has appointed two new advisers to his transition team that will oversee his FCC and telecommunications policy agenda. Both of the new advisers are staunch opponents of net neutrality regulations. Jeff Eisenach, one of the two newly appointed advisers, is an economist who has previously worked as a consultant for Verizon and its trade association. In September 2014, Eisenach testified before a Senate Judiciary Committee and said, "Net neutrality would not improve consumer welfare or protect the public interest." He has also worked for the conservative think-tank American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and in a blog post wrote, "Net neutrality is crony capitalism pure and simple." Mark Jamison, the other newly appointed adviser, also has a long history of battling against net neutrality oversight. Jamison formerly worked on Sprint's lobbying team and now leads the University of Florida's Public Utility Research Center. Both Eisenach and Jamison are considered leading adversaries of net neutrality who worked hard to prevent the rules from being passed last year. For the uninitiated, the rules passed last year prevent companies internet providers from discriminating against any online content or services. For example, without net neutrality rules, internet providers like Comcast and Verizon could charge internet subscribers more for using sites like Netflix. The FCC's net neutrality rules would protect consumers from paying exorbitant fees for internet use.

10 of 395 comments (clear)

  1. Net neutrality isn't by mveloso · · Score: 3, Informative

    For those of you who believe that the net neutrality regulations that the FCC are trying to impose actually is what you believe it to be, you should actually go ahead and read the regulations.

    Your understanding of what "net neutrality" means and what the FCC is actually doing are different. By reading the regulations you might actually understand why what the FCC is proposing is, well, bad.

    It's 2016. You can go read the stuff yourself. Even the preamble to the regulations is full of inaccuracies, half-truths, and outright lies. For example, the FCC tries to say that its current regulations are what made the Internet great - except that the FCC's attempts at regulating the internet have never actually taken effect. Then it gets better.

    1. Re:Net neutrality isn't by Izaak · · Score: 3, Informative

      Yes, I've actually read the regulations, and frankly their only real problem is that they don't go far enough. I used to be half owner of an ISP in the mid 90's. I was there for the ending of NSFNet, the birth of the commercial backbone, the rise of independent ISPs, and then telecom deregulation and subsiquent consolidation. I know what it meant to be a CLEC when big telecom was handed whatever they want. Net Neutrality is what made the Internet what it is. Walking away from it know, even as patchwork and incomplete as the current regulations are, will be a disaster for consumer. Period.

  2. Re:Looking in the mirror are you? by quantaman · · Score: 5, Informative

    America is doing just fine thanks. Trump just released a video saying what he will be doing, so you don't have to wonder or believe what a bunch of media guys who detest him CLAIM he will do.

    Among them:

    TPP cancelled. Enjoy whatever country you are in joining that!

    Maybe a good thing, maybe a bad thing. Depends what takes its place.

    More shale production - vast reduction in CO2. We are doing our part, how about your nation?

    Natural gas is fine but shale oil isn't exactly environmentally friendly, if I recall it takes a lot of processing to turn into usable oil.

    And it's funny how you left out the "clean coal" part just after that. Trump is going to try to bring back coal, the worst energy source we have for CO2, it doesn't mean he'll succeed but he'll try.

    Two regulations have to be removed for every new one created - while you strangle as regulations pile up.

    And if you don't have enough you get the 2008 financial crisis. If you do it well sure that's good, but that sounds a bit like a spin on the classic "I'll reduce government waste!" promise, it ignores the factors that created that waste in the first place.

    Ethics reform - five year ban on administration officials becoming lobbyists, can never lobby for foreign nations. I wonder how cozy corporations are to YOUR government...

    Sounds good, but Trump's transition team is already loaded with lobbyists and corporate bigwigs, so I'm skeptical of its sincerity.

    Investigation of visa program abuses (read: companies bringing in lots of foreign programmers and then severely underpaying them as they hold the green card over them).

    Sounds good.

    Energy grid to be hardened against attacks. As your countries power grid fails over the coming decade you can think back on this as you are sitting in the cold with a flashlight...

    A good idea... but why would you assume no one else is hardening their energy and network infrastructure?

    The funny thing is many of these items (like TPP being cancelled, or visa abuse) were once darlings of the Slashdot liberals. But now that Trump supports them... well I guess they decided fascism is better than Trump? Oh well.

    He's not being criticized for the things he said above, hell, half the things he said above are pretty much things he's emphasizing for the first time.

    The problem is all of the things he said and promised on the campaign trail. The problem is all the alt-right figures he's bringing into the white house that have literal white nationalists rejoicing. The problem is the fact that he's already using his position as president-elect to increase his personal wealth.

    --
    I stole this Sig
  3. Typical Political mis-labeling by s.petry · · Score: 3, Informative

    Net Neutrality as proposed is like saying your State has "Right to Work" laws. If you believe those laws give workers Rights, you are grossly mistaken. As GP stated, read what is being proposed and then make up your mind.

    If you want another example, what exactly Patriotic about the "Patriot Act"? Yeah, this is not a new political trick.

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    -The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.

  4. Trump the divider as uniter? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Informative

    Trump can't even unite his own transition team, many have resigned, others have been sacked. So you wonder why he doesn't unite America?

    No surprise really. He got fewer votes. America spoke and they REJECTED him, Putin hacker spoke and they put him in power. That's what getting fewer votes means, it means more people tell you to fuck off than to go to the Whitehouse.

    Why should they unite around Putin's choice of candidate?

    He's held his first press conference, he told the press they're all liars and crooks, naming them one by one and telling them how nasty they are, nasty nasty people. They were very polite and didn't tell him to grow up. Are they sane people?

    He can't even put together the basics of government. GOP might have to appoint an interim President for this idiot.

  5. Re:Looking in the mirror are you? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Given he's already backed away from multiple campaign promises within days of winning, it's incredibly cute you think he will actually follow through.

    Just look at the incompetents he's considering or selecting. He doesn't know what he's doing, and his handlers are simply indulging themselves in punishing the disloyal and rewarding the ever dwindling supply of "loyalists." Plus, the man has displayed the attention span of a gerbil for anything that is not directly tied to his making money or his pride.

    This is going to be a long 4-8 years.

  6. Re:Looking in the mirror are you? by nine-times · · Score: 4, Informative

    Ethics reform - five year ban on administration officials becoming lobbyists, can never lobby for foreign nations. I wonder how cozy corporations are to YOUR government...

    You want to talk about corporations being cozy with government?

    1) Trump is trying to get his children positions in the White House while they're operating the non-blind "blind trust"
    2) Trump is having one of those children attend his political meetings
    3) Trump is also continuing to attend his company's business meetings alongside that same child

    I don't see him as being credible in terms of ethics reform. If he wants to "drain the swamp", he should start by removing his own conflicts of interest.

  7. Offer the ISPs a deal by jonwil · · Score: 4, Informative

    Tell the ISPs (Comcast, Verizon, AT&T etc) that all the regulations they dont like will go away but in return all the laws, agreements, regulations and other things all over the USA (at all levels of government) that restrict competition also have to go away.

    They get to do whatever they want on their own networks but they dont get the right to prevent someone else from comming in and competing with them.

    Here in Australia we have a competitive market for broadband in most parts of the country and because of that, very few (if any) ISPs do the kind of crap they do in the USA.

  8. Re:Looking in the mirror are you? by LostInTaiwan · · Score: 3, Informative

    Yes, we can clearly see where Trump's conflict of interest are, and thanks to his blind supporters, he doesn't care either. Trump's questionable business ethics is legendary.

    http://www.nationalreview.com/...

    I don't have problems with technocrats, some are career politicians. As long if they are honest and competent, why not. However, Trump is neither honest nor competent. Trump is just a self promoter who is good at selling his brand. Over the years, his year of hustling for a quick buck has gradually diminished his technical skills. Let's not forget, Trump is one of the loudest birthers. Trumps lives in his own grandiose narcissistic TV reality world. Too bad for us, he just pulled off his biggest con. His world is now our reality. Fuck!!!

  9. Re:I still want short distance & long distance by hairyfeet · · Score: 5, Informative

    Uhhh the US taxpayers paid to the tune of 200 billion for a nationwide upgrade to our intertubes during Clinton and all we got for that money was a low res Goatse from the big corps.

    This is why we should give them 90 days to either provide what we paid for, give us back every cent with interest, or we nationalize the whole thing and open it up to competition like we did when we first broke up Ma Bell. If they want exclusives in an area? Let them run 100mbps FIOS to the door and we'll be happy to give them a 15 years exclusivity deal but as it is now? They owe us a shitload of money and we should demand we get what we paid for!

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    ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.