Slashdot Mirror
Silicon Valley Kicks Off Fight On Net Neutrality (cnn.com)
Web companies met with FCC Ajit Pai on Tuesday and urged him not to gut the net neutrality rules that protect their traffic, a week after he met with broadband providers that have tried to kill the Obama-era regulations. From a report: The Internet Association, a trade group representing companies like Facebook, Google, and Amazon, stressed the importance of defending current net neutrality rules in a meeting with Federal Communications Commission chairman Ajit Pai on Tuesday. "The internet industry is uniform in its belief that net neutrality preserves the consumer experience, competition and innovation online," the group said in the meeting, according to a filing with the FCC. "Existing net neutrality rules should be enforced and kept in tact." The net neutrality rules, approved by the FCC in 2015, are intended to keep the internet open and fair. The rules prevent internet providers from playing favorites by deliberately speeding up or slowing down traffic from specific websites and apps. This is the first face-to-face encounter between the tech association and the new FCC head. It comes on the heels of reports Pai met with the telecom industry to discuss changing how the rules are enforced, potentially weakening them.
Customers want walled gardens! Just look at cable bundles, it is clearly that bundles is the most popular choice by far. Also, customers want more commercials - just look at how popular are Super Bowl commercials are. It follows that Internet access should be bundled walled garden with auto-play video commercials inserted into browsing. This is what consumers want! Other internet is for dirty pirates and darknet hackers.
/sarcasm
You got Trumped!
A government of the corporations, by the corporations, for the corporations, shall not perish from the earth!
Corporations are people too, my friends
So If I agree to slow lanes they will build a lane to my house?
I can't pay extra for priority if I can't get a lane.
Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
If I pay for internet i want my packets sent to me without any type of priority based on source or destination. I would be moderately interested in enabling classes of service for TYPES of traffic, but not based on their source. That would be something an ISP should do out of a best practice. My point is that if I pay for 10Mbit, give me 10 Mbit and leave my traffic alone. THAT is net neutrality. Anything else is just not neutral.
As a mostly libertarian person, I see this as a reason for the government to have control of the communication system in the same model as they have roadways. Want to connect to the roads (by driving your car on it), then you have to meet specific standards meant to protect everyone else, but other than that you are free to connect and go where you want. You pay for your usage (through gas taxes...a model that is currently in flux due to electric vehicles), but other than that, no one tells you how much you can use or where you can go.
In fact, anything that requires the power of eminent domain should be handled this way. Electric grid owned by government. Anyone can produce and sell through it, as long as they meet the safety requirements.
If the cable companies want to throttle traffic depending on where it comes from, at the least they would need to lose common carrier status.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
I say they should go ahead and get rid of net neutrality. This will, by definition mean that the various ISPs are actively curating their services, and therefor are responsible if anything bad happens (DOS attacks, viruses, etc) because they are now responsible for the traffic going through their networks.
You don't get to take control of something and then wave away any responsibility. You want control? They you have to take the responsibility too. Don't want the responsibility? Then don't take control.
This is precisely what also pisses me off about Windows 10. Microsoft has taken control away from the operating system, but they refuse to also take responsibility. The end result is that Windows 10 is quickly becoming the most despised Windows in history.
Unfortunately most people don't have a choice in ISPs, so what options do people have, besides lawsuits?
Do you use facebook? It would sure be a shame if suddenly you had to pay a $10/month premium to access it.
Want to watch Netflix without waiting 60 minutes for the show to buffer? That'll be another $20/month please.
Want to use Google? That's an extra 50 cents per search, paid to your ISP.
If you are unable to see how incredibly anti-consumer this move is, and how badly it will directly hurt *everyone* except ISP shareholders, then you are not qualified to have an opinion. If you really think that this is nothing more than some political game of playing favorites, then you are an idiot. Now go sit down and let the adults talk.
No, friend, you don't understand how this works. The ISPs will charge Danegeld to content providers that want faster service (on top of what they pay for their basic connectivity), while you also pay the ISPs Danegeld for your connection to the Internet (as well as paying for access to the content providers). The amount of the Danegeld is always going up, too. So the ISPs get you and them coming and going. Under the Trump administration, this is called 'good business' and it's 'good for America'. You should pay with a smile on your face, and thank them for the privilege of helping to Make America Great Again </sarcasm>.
Hold on there Citizen, that attitude is not going to Make America Great Again, and I think you know that! You have to pay, and pay, and PAY if you want greatness, because only Big Corporations and the Trump Administration can give you that! You should pay with a smile on your face, and thank them for the privilege of helping to Make America Great Again </sarcasm>.
It's also a copy&pasted troll story older than the hills, just FYI.
Quite frankly, if what you just outlined came to be reality, I'd dump the Internet entirely, and I think many other people would, too, which is why I'm starting to wonder if part of the 'Make America Great Again' plan is to destroy the Internet in the U.S.
Wait, it's 2017 and you've never heard of Linux or the GPL? Also, how is this net neutrality? This is a licensing problem you have and not net neutrality. Let me tell you what net neutrality is: Say Microsoft had an interest in all other OS downloads, they convince the ISPs to limit the speed/access to sites they dictate and/or redirect OS searches to their site instead. Thus preventing access to their competitors. Now MS starts an entertainment business and further convinces the ISPs to limit/redirect Youtube, Netflix, Amazon Streaming, Pandora, etc, etc to encourage consumers to use their FAST HD entertainment. So the ISPs decide to set up a business model to allow the other companies to compete for more access/speeds benefiting only them leaving little option for the consumer. OR they did with cable and offer tiered access to specific sites at various prices. They will go far further hurting the consumer then they ever did with bundling cable. Also, why do you feel justified in taking a community code without contributing back? I know capitalism is capitalism, but linux is for a better overall community not for a single profiteer. Make your own shit if you want that.
forget net neutrality - lets have a real open market for access - stop cutting subsoity checks to ATT/Verizon/Comcast and CUT THE RED TAPE TO GET ACCESS TO EXISTING INFRASTRUCTURE! Force the telcos to sell access to polls the same way FRAND patents have to be shared - no denials and reasonable terms. This is more than fair because the telcos use eminent domain to have the polls in the first place, and thats fine so long as its a community resource.
Google will just happily pay extra. It's the rest of them that are screwed.
CALPERS and other giant employee retirement funds need to start making noises about dumping Telco stocks if network neutrality is killed. It's a kleptocracy and that's the only defense real people now have.
Then with all the extra profit they will actually run fiber,dsl,cable or something else fast to my house? Yay! /s
Oh that's not the way it works either is it?
Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
but the real argument against NN is that there's a lot of competition in the world of ISPs. Which is true if you include dial up & cell phone providers. Heck the cell phones even count as broadband by the legal definition of it.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Nice editing CNN.
Yet. Exactly. And that powerful position is exactly why things like Net Neutrality are necessary. It's not a matter of "if" they abuse their position, but "when". You know they will fuck over literally every single person they possibly can. It's just a matter of time, and how quickly they build up their hubris.
Early mobile phone providers are a great example. They literally nickle and dimed you for every conceivable thing. For every service you wanted to access. Now, they still try to, but it just doesn't seem as bad because almost everything people use is over the internet that the provider is unable to control. Removing Net Neutrality will return you to exactly the state we were in before.
You want to use twitter? Sure, just go through our portal that conveniently charges you 5 cents per post written or read. It *will* happen, because it's been done before, and the ISPs will have no incentive to *not* do that. (Oh? You want to change ISPs? Too bad! We sued all the other players in your area to the point where we are the only option!)
Do you think companies like YouTube, Facebook, etc. campaign for net neutrality out of the goodness of their hearts? Of course not. They are lobbying for their financial interests, which do not coincide with yours.
Internet service in the US is such an unholy mess of regulations, rent seeking, government-granted privileges, restrictions, political interests, big money, and clueless techies that it is hard to know what any particular regulation does. I strongly doubt, however, that "net neutrality" will accomplish what people promise for it. Most likely (and given who is lobbying for it), it will simply cement the role of politically powerful and well-connected corporations.
Instead of imposing even more regulations in the form of net neutrality, it would probably be better if the federal government got rid of regulations, and perhaps also forced local governments to allow more competition.
It depends. Is your house on $TELCO executive's brand new yacht?
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Google, Facebook, and Amazon have razor-thin margins and huge volumes. If they had to pay for access, their business models might be in big trouble. Cloud computing might get more costly relative to local computing as well. So, no, they don't do this out of selflessness, they do it because it matters to their bottom line, big time.
In contrast, smaller players tend to have bigger margins, so they can more easily pay for this out of those margins. But ISPs are probably not going to bother with trying to charge small players anyway because it's a lot of effort for little revenue, and they'd much rather have the small players grow to be big, at which point they can then charge them.
Wait, it's 2017 and you've never heard of Linux or the GPL?
The thing about people who get played is that it looks even worse if they start their reply with the very thing that should've made it obvious that they're getting played.
"Old man yells at systemd"
Amazing that people can't spot themselves about to be played from a mile away.
"Old man yells at systemd"
Google, Facebook, and Amazon are information incumbents....
For them support NN is a real comment on how important it is to the network.
Or is it a real comment on how the real purpose of NN is in fact to keep new kids unable to compete with the incumbents?
In fact you'll find this is the effect of most regulations, keep the largest players fat and happy and free of sky "competition".
Regulations support corporatism, not capitalism.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Quite frankly, if what you just outlined came to be reality, I'd dump the Internet entirely, and I think many other people would, too, which is why I'm starting to wonder if part of the 'Make America Great Again' plan is to destroy the Internet in the U.S.
Ha. You think tehre's a plan.
The Trump administration makes the underpants gnomes look detail oriented.
Nope not even near water.
Have they ever considered putting their yacht in a pond?
Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
A government of the corporations, by the corporations, for the corporations
Hey you seem to have forgotten that Hillary wasn't the one elected.
Instead we elected Trump - what reason does he have to support the corporations? Unlike Hillary he did not take millions in "charitable donations" from them. Unlike Obama he is not owned by Goldman Sachs.
In fact the most logical thing is for Trump to actually work AGAINST corporate interests, because they would be competing against Trump's own businesses!
Trump is the first president in a LONG TIME who is actually not beholden to, nor seemingly in direct support of, corporatism.
We would have got the same effect electing Sanders also - which is why the Democrats made sure he would never be the candidate.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
If you are unable to see how incredibly anti-consumer this move is, and how badly it will directly hurt *everyone* except ISP shareholders,
I have a friend who lives for every word Rush Limbaugh spouts. He knows nothing how the Internet works or what net neutrality is other than it's big government squashing the common man and as soon as net neutrality is abolished his cable rates will go down. You can't argue with people like that and Limbaugh has legions of followers who truly believe this. If killing net neutrality brings a dystopian Internet perhaps that will be enough to break up these ISP monopolies like what happened with AT&T in 1984. That could be a silver lining. There is no need for net neutrality regulation with a truly competitive ISP marketplace.
This idiot troll is posting everywhere. I guess it gets paid by-the-post, with no basis on the quality or originality of the work. Same body, "more relevant" subject line. The troll's sponsor apparently could not afford to pay for mod points so it is living in a well-deserved "-1" oblivion, I wish there was a -10, cause this one deserves it based on its mendacity and laziness.
Only I can judge you.
Please don't be so harsh to SuperKendall, he's a moron and an idiot.
Only I can judge you.
what are "underpants gnomes"? Are they very vague and fuzzy creatures?
Only I can judge you.
tangent much?
I get that you have a drum to bang but, could you do it somewhere more appropriate? Like on the walls of your Mom's basement instead of the interwebs? Your use of bolding is impressive, it is great to see you now have some command of using HTML tags. Great job!
Only I can judge you.
Or prevent it by supporting net neutrality, you dumbfucktard.
Only I can judge you.
I can't tell if you're serious or not, but...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnomes_(South_Park)#Plot
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
I was definitely serious. Thanks!
South Park is not in my regular rotation, not my style. I watched a few episodes but just couldn't get into it, my life doesn't feel that impoverished for having deleted that from my viewing habits.
Only I can judge you.
If it's going to be that unpopular -- and I'm sure they know it will be -- how about... not trying it in the first place because you're supposed to represent me and not corporations? They're going to either start a smear campaign over Net Neutrality as it gets closer or be as quiet about it as possible, but only because I'm pretty sure they know they have to convince people that removing it is not the worst thing to hit the Internet since fake news.
This is such a prime example of how much power companies have over the American population at large and it's pretty disgusting. Am I a dirty liberal? Probably, but I don't see why expecting representatives to represent the opinions of the majority of the country, instead of a very rich few -- sorry, vocal few; campaign donations are free speech now -- is so difficult. There's a good reason why Congress' approval rating has been so low for so long.
"Corporations are people, too." I hope Mitt Romney is never given the chance to forget he uttered that filth.
Or more simply: all streaming video metered at $10/GB, except if you use your ISP's own streaming video service -- meaning that becomes pretty much impossible for the next netflix-style company to disrupt the existing market and offer something better since it's extremely hard to reach a critical mass of users that way.
"Urging" means nothing against the army of telcos and their huge donations with sights set on burring kill Net Neutrality.
Plus the telcos claim it "hurts jobs", Trump got the champion kill to lead the Department.
Nope, if Silicon Valley want's to save NN, those tech billionaires break need to break out the war chest check books, it's time to "go to the mattresses".
Very excellent points. I'd mod you up if I could.
I'm OK with the Danegeld if they make it legal for a bunch of us to put on helmets and pick up swords and attack the corporate offices. That's the traditional way to deal with Danegeld.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
I Pay my ISP to provide that infrastructure.
I pay 40% more than I used to, for the same speed.
It looks like I am indeed Paying to increase the total bandwidth I (not Netflix, it is me making the request) use.
How is Netflix adding to their cost, is Netflix running stuff over their Network just for fun, or is it to their customers that are requesting it?
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg