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

Posted by BeauHD on from the end-of-net-neutrality dept.

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.

3 of 395 comments (clear)

  1. Why are we even arguing about it? by Anon-Admin · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This is simple. They are ether common carriers or they are not.

    If they are common carriers then they can not inspect the content they carry and as such are not liable for that content.

    If they are NOT common carriers then they can inspect the content and charge what they like. However, they are liable for the content they carry. Thus if they choose to not be common carriers and someone is transmitting Child porn, threats, selling drugs, pirated music and movies,etc. Then they are liable for the transport of that data and we should prosecute them for it.

    Do it just a few times and all the ISP's will be on board with becoming common carriers.

  2. Re:I feel sorry for you guys. No joke. by Dutch+Gun · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Rational adults don't pack up and move to Canada when an election doesn't go their way, nor do they build a bunker, collecting guns and freeze-dried food in preparation for some sort of Armageddon. Donald Trump may be an arrogant bastard who thinks of attractive women as trophies to fondle, but he's not Anti-Christ-Hitler-Stalin-Pol-Pot. The fringe right also said a lot of idiotic things when Obama was elected, only the mainstream press was having a collective liberalgasm over electing our first black President, and so probably didn't care as much about reporting it.

    Any law passed can also be repealed, and the President can be ousted every four years if he gets to be too unpopular. In truth, very little can be done to significantly change things without Congress' approval (you know, that "balance of powers" thing), and the Republicans have a *very* slim majority in the Senate.

    A year from now, when the country hasn't actually imploded, all this angst is going to look a bit silly in retrospect.

    --
    Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
  3. Re:I still want short distance & long distance by Solandri · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Thing is, there are two ways to skin this cat.
    • Allow AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, et al to maintain local monopolies over the last mile. Implement net neutrality to keep Internet access a level playing field.
    • Or drop net neutrality because it's government meddling in the marketplace. But also prohibit the local monopolies granted to AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, et al because that's also government meddling in the marketplace. If you have competition for the last mile, then you don't need net neutrality. The customers will vote with their dollars - any ISP who intentionally tries to degrade Netflix service as a strategy to promote their own VOD service will simply be handing all their customers who use Netflix to a competitor.

    So killing net neutrality is not necessarily a bad thing if it's coupled with forcing local governments to allow competition in the last mile.