3 ISPs Have Spent $572 Million To Kill Net Neutrality Since 2008 (dslreports.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from DSLReports: A study by Maplight indicates that for every one comment submitted to the FCC on net neutrality (and there have been roughly 5 million so far), the telecom industry has spent $100 in lobbying to crush the open internet. The group found that Comcast, AT&T, Verizon and the National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA) have spent $572 million on attempts to influence the FCC and other government agencies since 2008. "The FCC's decision, slated to be announced later this summer, will be a clear indicator of the power of corporate cash in a Trump administration," notes the report. "Public sentiment is on the side of keeping the Obama administration's net neutrality policies, which prevented internet companies from blocking, slowing or giving priority to different websites." Congressional lobbying forms indicate that Comcast alone has spent nearly $4 million on lobbying Congress on net neutrality issues from the end of 2014 through the first quarter of 2017.

Comments

The interesting part

[sarbonn]

For me, what I find most interesting is the amount of attention at least two of those entities have paid to trying to convince people that they're not for gutting the rules, yet are waging huge campaigns with their own money to do exactly that.

Re:The interesting part

[geekmux]

For me, what I find most interesting is the amount of attention at least two of those entities have paid to trying to convince people that they're not for gutting the rules, yet are waging huge campaigns with their own money to do exactly that.

There's nothing interesting with organizations demonstrating just how fucking stupid and ignorant the average consumer really is.

It's actually rather sad and pathetic.

Re:The interesting part

[crashumbc]

That a poor analogy.

A more correct one would be "You can't drive on our toll road because you are driving a chevy"

the IS NOT about paying for faster access, This is about them choosing what you can download/watch/stream/play

Re:The interesting part

[oh_my_080980980]

"If the internet is analogous to a network of roads"

It's not. Next question.

Re:The interesting part

[drinkypoo]

the IS NOT about paying for faster access, This is about them choosing what you can download/watch/stream/play

It's both. They will charge for faster access to sites that aren't in their network, but the plebes won't pay for that, so they'll consume what they are told while the people with money won't even notice that there's a problem.

Re: The interesting part

[dgatwood]

The agreed upon definition by pretty much everyone other than the ISPs is that net neutrality means making a reasonable best effort to never prioritize traffic based on its eventual destination out on the Internet. The speed of the traffic should be roughly the lesser of the speed that either end is paying for, and should not be throttled by ISP A because ISP B's customer isn't paying them out-of-band for access to ISP A's users, and should not be throttled by ISP B because ISP A's users aren't paying them extra money for access to ISP B's content providers. This definition is simple, straightforward, and achieves all of the goals of net neutrality advocates.

More importantly, this definition necessarily includes both explicit prioritization (through traffic shaping that penalizes a particular destination, such as Netflix) and de facto prioritization (through not buying enough bandwidth to Netflix's ISP, thus providing inadequate service for Netflix users, but conveniently having your own video-on-demand service that's inside your network, and thus unaffected by the inadequate outbound bandwidth).

All other definitions are deliberately flawed in ways that would harm consumers, and are straw men put forth by the ISP industry in a very deliberate and malicious effort to confuse users and government officials about what net neutrality is, thus making it easier to later convince them that net neutrality is somehow harmful to consumers.

This says two things to me

[H3lldr0p]

First is that being a mega ISP is certainly a profitable business.

Second is that we really need better regulations of that business because that is money which should have been more difficult for them to spend. ie, Economically speaking there should have been a place within the business where that money would have had a much higher return on investment. eg Competitive infrastructure upgrades, R&D, etc. Lobbying/bribing is a poor investment in a competitive environment. Therefore, the environment isn't competitive enough.

Re:This says two things to me

[RavenLrD20k]

You haven't said anything that negates the parent's comment. The theory is that if the environment were more competitive, R&D would have a better ROI than lobbying. The current environment of ISPs in the US is a distinct lack of competition, so there's a greater ROI in lobbying than there is in R&D... because in the current state, building out better infrastructure isn't going to get them many more customers, and in many markets there aren't any other options for customers to move to, so they won't lose anything by letting their current infrastructure age and stagnate. In this case it makes more sense to lobby to build more walls against competition.

So, to reiterate: Parent didn't say that Lobbying/bribing is a poor investment in itself. He said it's a poor investment under the condition that the environment is competitive; and the fact that lobbying/bribing is currently creating a better ROI than R&D would correlates to the fact that there's not nearly enough competition in the ISP market.

Re:This says two things to me

[aicrules]

lobbying is paying your own lawyers and other type people to go to the government and spend time selling them on whatever idea it is the company wants. They can pay those people all they want.

Re:This says two things to me

[Mr D from 63]

First is that being a mega ISP is certainly a profitable business.

Second is that we really need better regulations of that business because that is money which should have been more difficult for them to spend. ie, Economically speaking there should have been a place within the business where that money would have had a much higher return on investment. eg Competitive infrastructure upgrades, R&D, etc. Lobbying/bribing is a poor investment in a competitive environment. Therefore, the environment isn't competitive enough.

Lack of true competition is the key driver for the need for net neutrality rules to begin with. I'd love to see more work on fostering true competition and consumer choice instead of only focusing on treating the symptoms.

Re:This says two things to me

[RavenLrD20k]

Suppose Congress decided that all ISPs should be taxed at a 95% rate...

Strawman. Of course spending on lobbying on this hypothetical and non-existant case makes sense and will protect an investment made in infrastructure. No one here has stated that money shouldn't be spent on lobbying to protect investments. We are arguing that money spent on lobbying shouldn't be an investment in itself, and in an actual competitive environment, it couldn't be.

Competition has nothing to do with this issue.

I disagree. Competition is everything to do with this issue. In addition to the Net Neutrality issue, ISP A has used lobbying to prevent a potential ISP B (municpal broadband) from building out their own infrastructure in A's jurisdiction. They have also used lobbying to ensure that other existing ISPs aren't able to encroach on eachother's territories to increase regional competition. Net Neutrality is in part ensuring that ISPs cannot give preference to traffic generated by their own content applications (i.e. Cox's contour service) over that of other content application/producers (i.e. Hulu, Youtube, Twitch, Netflix, etc). This is exactly an example of the ISPs lobbying against fair competition of content. so, yes, competition is the crux of this whole issue.

If the INDUSTRY, as a whole, had spent that money on routers instead, exactly how much money could the industry, as a whole, expect in return?

Given that the INDUSTRY as a whole has made a climate against competition in the ISP marketplace through their lobbying efforts, they can't expect any real return on investment in any of their infrastructure. Take away the regional monopoly structure and introduce REAL competition in the ISP marketplace, returns on router and technology upgrades would be exponential.

Why spend money unless you hope to make it back ..

[Alain Williams]

So where do these ISPs hope to get a return on the ''investment'' in lobbying ? Answer: charging their customers more to access certain services; or having some services pay to get fast access to their customers. Either way this will not be to the advantage of those who the ISPs provide a connection to the Internet.

Oh, and they take action against competition.

shithouse headline as usual.

[gravewax]

I know this is Slashdot but for fucks sake "3 ISPs Have Spent $572 Million To Kill Net Neutrality Since 2008" NO THEY HAVEN'T. They have spent 572 million on lobbying part of which was spent on net neutrality, the amount spent on lobbying is disgusting, but slashdots inability to present basic fakes without twisting them is almost as sickening.

Not the best headline

[randomErr]

The original title is:

For Every 1 Net Neutrality Comment, Internet & Cable Providers Spent $100 on Lobbying Over Decade

These companies are not trying to kill Net Neutrality, They're altering it. They've positioned themselves now to were all outside traffic will come in at the same rate on the same pipe. While their proprietary services are on their intranet and not subject to same rules.

For example: Go90 will not be under the same rules as Netflix, Hulu, or YouTube. Verizon will not have to cap Go90 will not charge data rates for this service. But Netflix, Hulu, and YouTube cannot buy priority access. Over time the external streaming service will degrade and customers will start turning to Go90.

I know its not a popular view but when you make everyone the equal, the services that produce most of the consumed content is punished. So the viewers are also punished.

They should use that money for something productiv

[wardrich86]

ISPs will forever piss me off. Instead of using the money to improve infrastructure and services to actually become appealing companies, they fucking piss it all into a pot to destroy the very service they're trying to deliver.

They obviously feel its worth it

[onyxruby]

The only reason to spend half a billion dollars is if you think you can get more than that in return. Think of it as a way to show much they stand to gain at the public expense if network neutrality is defeated.

Re:Wasted resources

[ArhcAngel]

Not if they lost control of the pipes. They are playing the long game. They have gotten into the content delivery game and as such compete against Netflix and Amazon for the same customers. Without NN Netflix can be gouged to be allowed to access the ISP's customers. Netflix has to raise their rates to cover the cost and now they aren't as competitive as the ISP's offering.

Re:How can joe average compete with that?

[houghi]

So in the end it is only about who has the deepest pockets. If only there where a system that would work for the people and was done by the people.

Re:Lobbying!

[orgelspieler]

Lobbying is guaranteed by the First Amendment. Individuals should always have the right to redress grievances with their representatives. Now whether businesses have protections under the bill of rights is one for the constitutional lawyers, but it seems like bullshit to me.

Re:Misleading headline is misleading

[oh_my_080980980]

LMOL yeah ok Potsy

"The term was coined by Columbia University media law professor Tim Wu in 2003, as an extension of the longstanding concept of a common carrier, which was used to describe the role of telephone systems." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

If they're willing to spend this kind of money..

[nightfire-unique]

.. consider what grotesque plans they must have in store to recoup those costs, shoudl they win the day.

Re:"Net Neutrality" lie

[dgatwood]

There is almost precisely the same amount of competition in the POTS/Voice-Over-Cable business as in the ISP business. (And yes, you really have to count voice-over-cable, as it replaces POTS for a high percentage of customers.) And the reason there is the same amount of competition (very little) is that it takes decades to recover the infrastructure cost, which means any incumbent (which has already paid for most of those costs) can easily undercut any new competitor until they go out of business, buy the upgraded infrastructure in a fire sale for pennies on the dollar, and then raise prices back up to higher than they were before the competition entered the market to make up the loss.

It is fundamentally infeasible to have any real competition in wire-line providers, and the only reason we even (sometimes) have two options is that cable TV and telephone were originally not competing with one another. Otherwise, we would have only one.