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The Republican Push To Repeal Net Neutrality Will Get Underway This Week (washingtonpost.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Washington Post: Federal regulators will move to roll back one of the Obama administration's signature Internet policies this week, launching a process to repeal the government's net neutrality rules that currently regulate how Internet providers may treat websites and their own customers. The vote on Thursday, led by Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai, will kick off consideration of a proposal to relax regulations on companies such as Comcast and AT&T. If approved by the 2-1 Republican-majority commission, it will be a significant step for the broadband industry as it seeks more leeway under government rules to develop new business models. For consumer advocates and tech companies, it will be a setback; those groups argue that looser regulations won't prevent those business models from harming Internet users and website owners. The current rules force Internet providers to behave much like their cousins in the legacy telephone business. Under the FCC's net neutrality policy, providers cannot block or slow down consumers' Internet traffic, or charge websites a fee in order to be displayed on consumers' screens. The net neutrality rules also empower the FCC to investigate ISP practices that risk harming competition. Internet providers have chafed at the stricter rules governing phone service, which they say were written for a bygone era. Pai's effort to roll back the rules has led to a highly politicized debate. Underlying it is a complex policy decision with major implications for the future of the Web.
You fools elected a nightmare scenario government. Decades of progress in human rights, science, and technology getting wiped out. Congratulations.
It's amazing that the Republicans are focusing rolling back old policy rather than making new policy with all the issues going on in the government right now!
Anyone else having fun yet?
I sure love being subject to an unaccountable GOP congress with their clueless voter base mainlining far-right news, egged on by degenerate basement dwellers who huff brietbart and jerk off to fascist fantasies.
Oh well. The internet was fun while it lasted. When the cable-ization of the internet becomes complete I'll probably not subscribe to the "full and unlimited internet" package required to access Slashdot's IP address. It's been real.
Trump: A loser president, supported by losers, elected by losers.
PS: Fuck you. We told you so. Fuck you once more for the road.
"Pai's effort to roll back the rules has led to a highly politicized debate. Underlying it is a complex policy decision with major implications for the future of the Web"
There is no debate here. This is an ISP cronie trying to repeal a policy shoved down government throats by the collective voices of most of the people in the country. R's whore for big business and D's sell out to tech and media companies. At best net neutrality is a wash for D's with as many policy buyers in the tech and media area willing to bribe them to do it as not.
That is what you call actual Democracy. When public support is so overwhelming that it forces the hands of politicians on the things which benefit us, which almost universally neither party supports. Net neutrality, castrating domestic wiretapping, protecting whistle blowers like Snowden, spreading military power among the states, actually enforcing parts of the constitution the limit federal power, redistricting in a way that reflects the 51-49% split between urban and rural population WITHOUT trying to lump any particular special interest or minority group together, making it illegal to accept jobs or money after leaving a public office for any entity that was under the authority of that office, including indirectly (i.e. the president can have no income source but his salary for life after office and the FCC chairman can't be paid by ISP's afterward).
* Price-gouge consumers for slow, unreliable service
..yeah, the GOP can shove it up their fat asses. If what they do fucks the internet worse than it already is, I'll just refuse to play anymore. I got along without it for decades, I can get along without it again if I have to. Bastards.
* Man-in-the-middle attacks to spy on all their web traffic, collect the data, sell it to advertisers so they can spam the fuck out of everyone
* Break into customer emails for the same reasons as the above
* Effectively break the Internet by crippling competing services
* Push consumers into walled gardens 'for their own good' (and for greater profit)
* Become both content creators and content providers, effectively creating a monopoly, raise prices even more
Given their druthers:
* Make all OTA broadcasts illegal, all content reception must be PAID for
Of course Trump will probably be arrested before the year is out, and in the next general election, Republicans will be run out of town on a rail, too, for fucking everything up, so it might take a while but everything might just get set right again before they manage to blow it all up.
The past was not as rosy as you believe, and innovation stifling monopolies in telecom are nothing new. I remember trying to negotiate a peering agreement with MCI/Worldcom/UUNet back in the 1990s: "We own 60% of the Internet, and as long as you also own 60% of the Internet, then peering is no problem. Otherwise, pay up."
Where road ownership will be privatized and each owner will get to set its own rules regarding who gets to drive on the roads, what brand of cars are allowed on the road, which destination you are allowed to go to when using said road, and where both the person driving the car and the owner of the destination where he is driving to will have to pay for the privilege of using the road.
What you meant to say was "once Netflix gave them more money, their problems went away"
There should be no double dipping. You shouldn't have to pay more to have your traffic flow thru the pipes you are already paying for. NN or not, what Comcast did was wrong.