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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.

18 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.

    1. Re:Why are we even arguing about it? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It is absolutely not that simple. Since Trump or at least congress can craft the regulations with whatever exemptions they see fit. Giving "common carriers" their cake and letting them eat it.

    2. Re:Why are we even arguing about it? by rtb61 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Cough, cough, like corporate censorship is no their wet dream, even in personal one on one digital transmissions, "sorry the statement you just made is illegal and you have been cut off, penalty for the message is a 72 hour cooling off period during which your service will be disconnected, this is your third warning any additional infraction will result in an extended disconnection of three months, have a nice day". Your plan sucks big time, you are giving them exactly what they want. Net neutrality is a privacy right, those who attack our right to privacy should be punished, severely.

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      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    3. Re:Why are we even arguing about it? by Calydor · · Score: 4, Funny

      Well, some Youtube comments do give you cancer, so maybe that's why!

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      -=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
    4. Re:Why are we even arguing about it? by Joce640k · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Trump or at least congress can craft the regulations with whatever exemptions they see fit.

      Donald calls this process "Draining the Swamp".

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      No sig today...
    5. Re:Why are we even arguing about it? by AmiMoJo · · Score: 5, Insightful

      He only wants to drain it so he can build his own sewage works there. The first thing he has done is appoint his friends and family to his administration, scumbags the lot of them.

      --
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  2. Re:I feel sorry for you guys. No joke. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Personally, just saying fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck over and over again in my head.

  3. Re:I feel sorry for you guys. No joke. by Charcharodon · · Score: 5, Funny
    I did consider doing all of those things.....and then Hillary lost.

    Now I'm just back to worrying about zombies.

  4. Re:This is a good thing by bmo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I find that those who oppose any kind of societal safety net have never had to use the resources of one.

    And they never expect to.

    This.... is delusional. You will age. You /will/ fall ill. Be it 6 months out of work for a septic knee (like what Tom Brady had), or full disability because nobody wants to hire someone who has to go to doctors' appointments 1/4 of the days out of a month on a regular basis. BAD SHIT IS GOING TO HAPPEN TO YOU SOMETIME IN YOUR LIFE THAT YOU WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO PLAN FOR.

    I don't like wishing bad things on people. I don't need to. Because they happen anyway.

    Against the safety net? Good luck to you. You'll need it.

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    BMO

  5. Re:Brexified! [Re:I feel sorry for you guys. No jo by grcumb · · Score: 5, Funny

    Looking across the pond and seeing what's going on in the US right now is so patently absurd

    Look who's lecturing us: YOUR country Brexited your asses into recession.

    That should give you an idea just how fucked you really are. When even Boris Johnson is all like, 'what a muppet!' you should probably take note.

    --
    Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.
  6. 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.

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  7. 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
  8. Re:I still want short distance & long distance by ArhcAngel · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You mean like a CDN?
    ISP's have been playing games with content providers and backbone internet companies for years. Netflix offered to install a FREE CDN on all the ISP's networks that would have decreased their network traffic to the backbone by over 50% but they refused because they wanted Netflix to pay to get to their customers. Ultimately Netflix caved and paid the toll and raised their rates to compensate. Net Neutrality would make this type of extortion illegal. Right now AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, et al own the last mile AND competing VOD services. This is a complete conflict of interest.

    --
    "A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
  9. 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.

  10. 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.

  11. 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.

  12. 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.

  13. 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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