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AT&T, Verizon Tell FCC To Back Off On Net Neutrality Complaints (theverge.com)
ATT and Verizon have responded to the FCC's letters that argued the way the two companies handle the practice of exempting their own video apps from data caps on customers' smartphones can hurt competition and consumers. The Verge reports: The companies defended the programs, which allow select data sources to not count toward customers' data plans through a process known as zero-rating. Although it did not explicitly ban them in new net neutrality rules laid out last year, the FCC has been critical of such programs, arguing that they can be used to hurt competition by unfairly favoring some data, creating an uneven playing field for businesses. In a noticeably pointed response, ATT takes a similar line to the position it's held all along: programs like Data Free TV, which allows customers to use data from ATT-owned DirecTV without it counting toward a plan, are not anticompetitive, but are simply a perk consumers enjoy. Verizon, in its response, makes similar arguments defending its FreeBee data program, which allows data from Verizon-owned Go90 to not count toward a data plan. "FreeBee data provides tangible benefits to consumers by increasing the amount of what they can do and watch online, at no cost to them," the company's response says.
Makes no difference anyway. Ajit Pai is gonna invalidate all these rules anyway.
Good to know that Trump wasn't gonna be beholden to special interests, lobbyists and donors. LOL @ the retards who actually believed that.
They wouldn't be doing this if they didn't know that Trump was going to come down the pipe and back them up.
The FCC may as well give up at this point. I mean, hell, ALL US regulatory commissions may as well give up at this point, since he's gonna gut and destroy anything that prevents profits from being made, regardless of the impact that will have on health, the environment, or the well-being of US citizens.
If the government owned and ran the internet (wires) then net neutrality would not be an issue. Having a for profit entity own critical infrastructure without serious regulation is a barrier to free market capitalism in the same way that the landline phone monopoly (prior to breakup) blocked companies from offering modems, fax machines, and other goods and services.