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FCC Announces Plan To Repeal Net Neutrality (nytimes.com)
FCC on Tuesday said it plans to dismantle landmark regulations that ensure equal access to the internet, clearing the way for companies to charge more and block access to some websites. From a report on the New York Times: The proposal, put forward by the F.C.C. chairman, Ajit Pai, is a sweeping repeal of rules put in place by the Obama administration that prohibited high-speed internet service providers from blocking or slowing down the delivery of websites, or charging extra fees for the best quality of streaming and other internet services for their subscribers. The clear winners from the move would be telecom giants like AT&T and Comcast that have lobbied for years against regulations of broadband and will now have more control over the online experiences of American consumers. The losers could be internet sites that will have to answer to telecom firms to get their content in front of consumers. And consumers may see their bills increase for the best quality of internet service. Note from the editor: the aforementioned link could be paywalled; consider the alternative sources: NPR, ArsTechnica, Associated Press, BBC, Axios, Reuters, TechCrunch, and Slate.
FTC Commissioner Terrell McSweeny criticized the move. She said, "So many things wrong here, like even if FCC does this FTC still won't have jurisdiction. But even if we did, most discriminatory conduct by ISPs will be perfectly legal. This won't hurt tech titans with deep pockets. They can afford to pay all the trolls under the bridge. But the entrepreneurs and innovators who truly make the Internet great won't be so lucky. It will be harder for them to compete. The FCC is upending the Internet as we know it, not saving it."
This is what the internet looks like when there is no net neutrality. Earlier today, news outlet Motherboard suggested we should build our own internet if we want to safeguard the essence of open internet.
In a statement, EFF said: It is worth reflecting on just how wildly unsupported by the public and wrong the FCC is on its effort to end an Open Internet. More than 1000 small businesses, investors, and technology startups in all 50 states have publicly opposed the proposal. More than 900 online video creators that produce content for more than 240 million viewers oppose the FCC plan. Over 200 international businesses and organizations have weighed in opposition. Fifty-two racial justice, civil rights, and human rights organizations have filed in support of the current rules. Dozens of ISPs across the country have told the FCC to leave the rules in place. Libraries, around 120,000 in total, from across the United States support retaining the Open Internet Order. Privacy organizations have told the FCC that its proposal would further degrade broadband user privacy and therefore oppose the proposal. State Attorneys General from Illinois, California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Iowa, Maine and Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Oregon, Vermont, Washington and DC support retaining the existing consumer protections. Sixty Mayors across the country have filed their opposition to the FCC plan. The National Association of Realtors expressed their support for keeping a legally enforceable Open Internet rule. And 1.52 million unique comments (as in people navigating the cumbersome FCC website directly to submit a statement rather than use a form letter website) were submitted in support of Title II and Network Neutrality versus only 23,000 supporting the FCC. A recent poll has found that 77 percent of Americans support retaining the current Network Neutrality rules (the poll broke it down to 73 percent of Republican voters, 80 percent of Democratic voters, and 76 percent of independents). The numbers are even higher when Americans are asked whether they support privacy protections, such as requiring ISPs to obtain consent from users before monetizing with third parties (85 percent Republicans, 82 percent Democrats, and 78 percent independents). So if the public and virtually every facet of Internet culture (including ISPs) oppose the FCC's plan, then why are we even going down this path? To put it simply: the FCC is not serving the public interest, but rather is serving the interests of the very few but massive vertically integrated ISPs that support the current agency's agenda.
FTC Commissioner Terrell McSweeny criticized the move. She said, "So many things wrong here, like even if FCC does this FTC still won't have jurisdiction. But even if we did, most discriminatory conduct by ISPs will be perfectly legal. This won't hurt tech titans with deep pockets. They can afford to pay all the trolls under the bridge. But the entrepreneurs and innovators who truly make the Internet great won't be so lucky. It will be harder for them to compete. The FCC is upending the Internet as we know it, not saving it."
This is what the internet looks like when there is no net neutrality. Earlier today, news outlet Motherboard suggested we should build our own internet if we want to safeguard the essence of open internet.
In a statement, EFF said: It is worth reflecting on just how wildly unsupported by the public and wrong the FCC is on its effort to end an Open Internet. More than 1000 small businesses, investors, and technology startups in all 50 states have publicly opposed the proposal. More than 900 online video creators that produce content for more than 240 million viewers oppose the FCC plan. Over 200 international businesses and organizations have weighed in opposition. Fifty-two racial justice, civil rights, and human rights organizations have filed in support of the current rules. Dozens of ISPs across the country have told the FCC to leave the rules in place. Libraries, around 120,000 in total, from across the United States support retaining the Open Internet Order. Privacy organizations have told the FCC that its proposal would further degrade broadband user privacy and therefore oppose the proposal. State Attorneys General from Illinois, California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Iowa, Maine and Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Oregon, Vermont, Washington and DC support retaining the existing consumer protections. Sixty Mayors across the country have filed their opposition to the FCC plan. The National Association of Realtors expressed their support for keeping a legally enforceable Open Internet rule. And 1.52 million unique comments (as in people navigating the cumbersome FCC website directly to submit a statement rather than use a form letter website) were submitted in support of Title II and Network Neutrality versus only 23,000 supporting the FCC. A recent poll has found that 77 percent of Americans support retaining the current Network Neutrality rules (the poll broke it down to 73 percent of Republican voters, 80 percent of Democratic voters, and 76 percent of independents). The numbers are even higher when Americans are asked whether they support privacy protections, such as requiring ISPs to obtain consent from users before monetizing with third parties (85 percent Republicans, 82 percent Democrats, and 78 percent independents). So if the public and virtually every facet of Internet culture (including ISPs) oppose the FCC's plan, then why are we even going down this path? To put it simply: the FCC is not serving the public interest, but rather is serving the interests of the very few but massive vertically integrated ISPs that support the current agency's agenda.
Ironic that the source link is paywalled.
The article saying that Net Neutrality is going to be dismantled is behind a paywall. This is the Internet 2017.
I wish the U.S. had a healthy government. Let's work toward that goal.
https://techcrunch.com/2017/11/21/the-fccs-craven-net-neutrality-vote-announcement-makes-no-mention-of-the-22-million-comments-filed/
MAGA
all sites are paywalled
www.RacquetUp.org - Helping Detroit Youth
Hope that the EFF's and ACLU's inevitable lawsuits are successful. Otherwise, good luck getting people to vote in the right people to enshrine into law some feasible NN protection.
I'm the Company. I do charge for:
1) (End-user) Giving "faster" access to more part of the Web.
2) (Websites) For adding them to the "faster" list.
It's a Win-Win! Thank you very much Trump (and start paying me right now you thieves [aka "users"])!
Because that's what is actually happening. Rules that even the Obama appointed FCC chairman said were overreaching and would stiffle Internet growth, while not doing what Net Neutrality proponents were even asking for.
"Not to mention all the idiots who use words like boxen."
Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04, @06:49PM
MAGA?
In light of this tremendous achievement by Chairman Pai, I and many other Slashdotters will now begin the efficient and productive streamlining of our internet traffic so as to prioritize content and improve the internet experience.
These improvements include:
1: null-routing all known advertisement servers.
2: implementing our own caching DNS to avoid SRVFAIL redirection.
3: Installation of noscript, adblock, ssl everywhere and other script and advertising element blocking extensions to our browsers.
4: implementing open source VPN technology in our home networks
5: returning our wireless routers -- which are used by many providers to advertise public SSID's for other network subscribers to use -- and implementing secured open-source solutions.
Good people go to bed earlier.
As long as we have "news" outlets like Fox News misinforming people and people not willing to be skeptical, and the Republicans using Fox News to their advantage, we will continue to have this crap.
The tax bill that was passed by the House will screw us in the end (except if you are a 1+ percenter) and the Senate's isn't looking much better.
How did those people get elected? Because about half of our population believes in the non-sense that's spoon fed to them or vote on single (distraction) issues.
This will allow ISP's to increase their revenue and use that money to improve and expand their infrastructure.
I'm actually for reduced latency and increased bandwidth, unlike many here it seems.
I wonder if this can be achieved via HOST FILES. Anyone have any idea?
Yes this is completely on-topic. Read between the lines.
Having wild red-tape destroying parties that leave your place filthy (coal), with polluted air (more fossil fuels).
Also, they crank up the heat, and flood the basement.
They rip up the rules of peaceful, just co-habitation. You notice the place being occupied by bling-encrusted gang lords and thugs with guns.
You have to work really hard to kick them out at the first opportunity, before they completely trash the place beyond repair.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
So Title II: That's the thing that says Internet carriers are "telecommunications carriers". Right?
And by the way they shouldn't set up "highwayman" selective toll stations on their routes, and should just let all the legal traffic through without bias.
Yes. That sounds horrible. (sarcasm).
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
We've had Net Neutrality for a couple years now and yet the internet is an even worse place than it was several years ago when Net Neutrality wasn't even a thing.
I too am very interested in an efficient HOST FILES solution. So interested that I would be willing to pay a mite bit more than before. If only there were someone who could save us from having to implement this as an open source solution, someone who can defy all logic and use repetition effectively.
I love the free and open internet; so do virtually all of my fellow libertarians. There are many, many of us who believe that the BEST way to ensure a free, open, private internet is to repeal the net neutrality rules, and the reasons for this are largely economic.
https://reason.com/tags/net-neutrality
Net neutrality rules put greater control of the internet into the hands of the government and large, well-connected corporations like Google, Apple and Facebook. Do we really trust those entities?
https://fee.org/articles/net-neutrality-is-about-government-control-of-the-internet/
I would like to see genuine engagement with the economic issues at stake here and how they affect all of us. We do not need more government and corporate control over the net.
This Hillary Clinton sounds like a no-nonsense straight-up gangster.
/s
Too bad we're stuck with this ineffectual crybaby loser instead.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
2020 can't come soon enough to get Trump and these idiot Republicans out of the White house.
A core issue here is that net neutrality regulations center on greater government control of the internet. When you have government regulating the internet as a so-called public utility, you create the conditions for things like China and the Great Firewall.
It's content-free
Sig Follows: "Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself." -- Mark Twain
We've had Net Neutrality for a couple years now and yet the internet is an even worse place than it was several years ago when Net Neutrality wasn't even a thing.
Ah, so carving content up into basic, standard, and premium internet tiers will make that better, right? Because we all love how cable has fucked over content for the last quarter century.
Yes, the internet has gotten increasingly worse, but that's been going on for the last two fucking decades.
All is on course to screw the little guy and give the big companies more power, more money and less incentive to promote a healthy open internet.
It was fun while it lasted. Let the GREATNESS of ISP's dictating what we can access and how fast. Enjoy. Hope you guys got what you wanted.
How long before the ISP's in America start turning the screws and cutting off access to all but their approved sites list? Sigh. Is there any incentives for ISP's to keep things open? Sure is a lot of incentive now to closed the doors and tighten the screws and start nickle and diming us to death.
This honestly doesn't worry me too much. If the Trump admin can repeal the regulation so easily then the next democratic administration can re-institute it just as easily. The ISPs know this, so I doubt they'll invest too much in paid prioritization in the near future.
Had Google made a public effort for or against Net Neutrality?
This whole thing is like fucking Global Warming. There was way too many idiots and too much misinformation on all sides.
Net Neutrality is a good thing for regular people though. Just like the regulation of other public utilities. To think otherwise is beyond stupid.
Heavens, an unfettered internet, not run by Bolshevik idiots. What will happen to my free porn?
These are useful things, but there's something you can do which will also be helpful: Remember to vote in 2020 against the guy who appointed this, and before then help vote for pro-net neutrality candidates. In the very short-term you can donate to Doug Jones's campaign for senate https://dougjonesforsenate.com... .
Most people don't seem to realize it will take years to wind its way through court. Still Pai and his sponsors cares so little for democracy, that openly flaunting corporate evil is not out of the ordinary.
Finally, Comcast and Verizon will be able to make me a really great Internet Experience!
I'm never going to get tired of all this WINNING! MAGA!
The irony is that you are quoting Orwell but apparently have never actually READ Orwell, because his whole thesis is about the dangers of GOVERNMENT. Using Orwell to argue for more government is literally the 180 degree opposite of logic.
I see ... so NN is what is protecting the elections from being hijacked.
... oh wait! We're supposed to believe the Russians hijacked the elections while NN was in place!
Except
I am so dizzy trying to understand what we are supposed to believe.
not only the ones that paid the most to be above the law or put their cronies in office. The WSJ article has a decent writeup about the FCC imposing Title II on the internet under auspices of Net Neutrality. https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-the-fcc-can-save-the-open-internet-1511281099
"Encouraged by light-touch regulation, private companies invested over $1.5 trillion in nearly two decades to build out American communications networks. Without having to ask anyone’s permission, innovators everywhere used the internet’s open platform to start companies that have transformed how billions of people live and work.
But that changed in 2014. Just days after a poor midterm election result, President Obama publicly pressured the Federal Communications Commission to reject the longstanding consensus on a market-based approach to the internet. He instead urged the agency to impose upon internet service providers a creaky regulatory framework called “Title II,” which was designed in the 1930s to tame the Ma Bell telephone monopoly. A few months later, the FCC followed President Obama’s instructions on a party-line vote. I voted “no,” but the agency’s majority chose micromanagement over markets."
Ajit Pai (and his GOP-appointed counterpart) had their minds made up years ago, and his doggedly stubborn position feels like it's based in ideology instead of the facts presented by his opponents.
Just compare this PBS.org interview where Mr. Pai used the same selective dodging of the facts pointed out by NN advocates (especially John Oliver's piece on the subject back in the day) that don't support his point of view. Then watch John Oliver's simplistic but factually correct episodes from 2014 and 2017 - Part One and 2017 - Part Two on the issue.
Either John Oliver (and his writing/research staff) or Ajit Pai is an outright liar about this issue. Any bets on who's the fibber? It's either a left-leaning comedian, or a former Verizon Wireless lawyer. (TIP: Don't bet the farm on this being a bad John Oliver joke...)
You must have studied at the Hillary Clinton Academy for English Illiterature.
https://www.infowars.com/hillary-clinton-thinks-orwells-1984-was-about-the-need-to-trust-authority/
I can see why you're experiencing dizziness, seeing that you're making no sense at all.
NN is only an issue because there is no competition. And there is no competition mostly because only the big ISPs are allowed to do last mile service. A small mom and pop ISP could offer last mile internet to a LIMITED number of people. Just as a mom and pop sandwich shop can offer less coverage than McDonalds.
Fiber is cheap. The backbone providers are happy to connect ANYONE to the backbone that gets to them.
So why can't we run fiber? Because the big ISPs have exclusive franchise licenses that preclude anyone else from competing against them.
And if you try... you will get arrested.
THAT is the issue. Not NN.
We could all have gigabit fiber. The backbone is happy to supply the bandwidth at a price so low it isn't even worth treating like it exists. its all but nothing in your monthly ISP bill.
ISPs will not improve service or care about you without competition.
So no, do not treat it like a government utility.
Equality sounds nice unless you understand how Soviet and grim "equality" can get. I don't want equality. I want choices and excellence.
I want freedom to choose.
Isn't this America? I thought this was America?
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
The more the Americans take it up their collective ass the better. There comes a point when even the most die hard ass loving fucker says enough is enough. The question is when ? When are the Americans going to have a collective epiphany and vote the Republicans out of office for a couple of hundred years at least ?
So after this gets implemented, how long do we have to wait for Internet doomsday to happen? If all the predictions and stories about Internet doomsday come true, I will personally apologize for doubting them. Just specify the day and describe exactly how we will all be doomed by that time.
In turn, I will be expecting to see your apologies should doom not arrive as predicted.
Get ready for the carriers to impose rents on access from the last mile to the connection points to pay off the lobbyists and politicians. The con man skim for all.
"With the advent of the Internet, prompt disclosure of expenditures can provide shareholders and citizens with the information needed to hold corporations and elected officials accountable for their positions and supporters."
And now these same corporations have been given the freedom to control what you can see on the Internet.
Oops!
Most people don't seem to realize it will take years to wind its way through court.
That could be a plus. If the EFF/ACLU can get an injunction preserving the current structure until the resolution of the case, we might be able to run out the clock and make elections a referendum on NN, forcing Trump or successor to preserve the protections.
The problem with ideology is that the only way to remove it from someone is to displace it with a 30.06 round.
It's better option to just put this loser (Ajit Pai, of course) out to pasture with a groping scandal or something and let him live out the rest of his frustrated, ineffectual days ranting about what might have been.
TL;DR: Convincing him to change his ways won't work. Just fire him, even if you have to make something up. Once the damage is done, he won't be back.
Once the poor are back to read-only and providers consolidate the internet can finally become the great profit generator it has always hinted at being.
Yes, the government is an oligarchy.
The government consists of a gang of men exactly like you and me. They have, taking one with another, no special talent for the business of government; they have only a talent for getting and holding office.
-H.L. Mencken
Everyone always wants to talk about whether we should have big government or big business, not realizing that they are the SAME. Big corporations control the political regulatory state to their advantage, crushing upstart competitors.
Unfortunately, these lousy telcos wield immense power on account of their government-protected monopoly status. But as Murray Rothbard rightly argued, the only real monopolies are government-backed:
https://mises.org/library/myth-natural-monopoly
So if we want to break up the oligarchs in telecom, do not give more powerful to government; REMOVE the monopoly protections granted to the telcos.
Coming soon....
Your future choice of water utility:-
1. Deluxe water - $500 per month - filtered plus just the right amount of minerals
2. Superior water - $400 - average filtration - its clean and healthy
3. Economy water - $350 - probably healthy, maybe the occasional interruption in service
4. Trickle-down water - $100 - Recycled deluxe water (from the sewage outlet of your nearest "deluxe water" neighbor)
What exactly the fuck are their arguments supposed to be? It was totally legal for the Obama admin to reclassify the internet, but totally illegal for the Trump administration to reclassify the internet?
Please try to keep in mind that virtually everything you ever loved or hated about the internet came about in the total absence of these so-called net neutrality rules. Returning to the status quo ante 2015 isn't a tragedy.
I would submit the 1st step is to alter how elections are funded. Removed the umbilical cord linking politicians to corporations.
Just like Ma Bell right? /s
Kinda ironic you quote a man that lived in the century where one of the most notorious telco monopolies existed and was broken up by *gasp* guberment.
Really? Some of you are so afraid to have a real discussion that you have to downvote any position that honestly disagrees with yours?
it's cute that you think your ISP will still allow VPNs after Net Neutrality is gone.
i could live a little longer in this prison
Your comment has literally nothing to do with the economic argument about the fundamental nature of monopolies as consisting of government-protected firms which in turn control the political process.
Fire up those VPNs, you'll need them after this passes. I have been VPNing 100% of the traffic going though my Charter connection since this was being announced and the stories about how ISPs could sniff your traffic for marketing purposes. Got all the kinks worked out of the setup now, so I'm ready. Bring it on!
I use Private Internet Access as my VPN provider with my 10/100 Charter connection, I see about 10/50 using 256bit encryption. All of the encryption is done on my router, so it doesn't matter what devices are on my LAN it all goes through the tunnel.
It's funny the Govt bitches about encryption, but they are doing all they can in their power to encourage more of it's use. Will be funny if at some point the whole internet becomes encrypted VPNs or TOR, with all the uneducated stuck out in the cesspool of the unencrypted tolled internet.
It could potentially be the return of the likes of AOL, Compuserve, Prodigy, etc.
Table-ized A.I.
Any ISPs that block VPNs will probably quickly go out of business. Considering how much they are used in the corporate world. I guarantee that will be nixed the 1st time Charter's CEO can't send out a memo from his yacht about reducing toilet paper usage in the corporate offices
Ah, so carving content up into basic, standard, and premium internet tiers will make that better, right? Because we all love how cable has fucked over content for the last quarter century.
You mean the same way Sling has carved it's content up into tiers? Seems like a consistent business model, even for a company that is billing itself as "ala-carte".
No, actually consumer choice operating on the law of supply and demand is what causes the market to regulate without the state:
https://mises.org/library/law-without-state
Not then, not now.
Comically, she is still speaking and touring as if anybody cares.
Hillary should watch Jurassic Park and learn from Dodgson.
Hillary! We got Hillary here! ...See, nobody cares.
John Oliver is a twat. Does his position align with Time-Warner?
Yes, it can
Good people go to bed earlier.
When has anyone ever said that net neutrality had anything to do with Russia?
Answer: you, just now.
And I have a thought as to where you pulled that idea from...
Are you kidding? That is literally the only way to interpret it.
https://mises.org/blog/net-neutrality-strengthens-monopolies-invites-corruption
Your comment is the exact opppsite of reality.
Ma Bell is an excellent example of why government intervention CREATES monopolies, and real competition tears them down.
https://fee.org/articles/ma-bell-suppressed-innovation-for-thirty-grueling-years/
Ah, so carving content up into basic, standard, and premium internet tiers will make that better, right? Because we all love how cable has fucked over content for the last quarter century.
You mean the same way Sling has carved it's content up into tiers? Seems like a consistent business model, even for a company that is billing itself as "ala-carte".
I don't give a shit what Sling or any other greedy cable provider calls their services; keep that fucked business model away from the internet.
I don't give a shit what Sling or any other greedy cable provider calls their services; keep that fucked business model away from the internet.
You might want to google for "sling TV" or just go to their website. They are not a cable provider. They are on the internet. They are content providers, carving up their content into tiers.
It's too late. That business model is already here. You can't keep it away.
You have to say his name 3 times to summon him...
You can't have a discussion with ACs, it's like shouting into the darkness.
Please try to keep in mind that virtually everything you ever loved or hated about the internet came about in the total absence of these so-called net neutrality rules.
That's because the internet largely operated based on neutrality principles until recently, when some companies started "innovating".
We need the rules now to enforce the status quo of the last several decades.
Basically, we didn't need rules until people started stepping out of line. They're stepping now, so they need to be put back in line ASAP.
Ajit Pai has no ideology. His mind was made up that if he did this, he could leave government and work at some telecom for a salary the rest of us can only dream about. He's merely an industry tool.
What do you think Google, Facebook, Apple, etc. are if not powerful elites pulling the strings of government (which gives it a veil of supposed legitimacy)?
Comment goes here. Something smart I hope.
It would actually be quite funny if this whole thing backfires and #1 happened to alot of the advertising and media companies by a few of the well meaning ISPs that might still exist. Maybe there are still a few well meaning backbone providers out there that can make this happen on a wider scale?
https://supporters.eff.org/don...
Political opinions aside, the EFF has been pretty solid in standing up for the People in opposition to corporate greed.
When the king heard the words of the Book of the Law he tore his robes.2Kings22:11
SAD.
Remember to vote in 2020 against the guy who appointed this
I don't think Obama can run for president in 2020
You're comparing apples to oranges. Sling is a *content provider* not a *service provider* so they don't have to follow the same rules as they would if they were an ISP.
I can understand how it may be confusing when a lot of the service providers also serve content however the two can be (and are) regulated separately. When a company is acting as a content provider they may sell their content in any way, shape or form that they wish (subject to contracts for any content they are paying other companies for) because it is theirs to distribute or sell. When a company is acting as a service provider they are subject to regulation by the government regarding their delivery of the service because they are not transmitting content they own (in most cases). This is similar whether the service is home phone, cell phone, water, gas, internet, etc.
Rolling back Title II on internet service to me seems fairly absurd. Why should it be regulated differently than your phone line (which in many cases is the same line)?
Internet providers have been using lack of regulation to push their own services, double-charge (the customer and provider), and perform other abuses of their captive customer base all the while using regulations that they pushed in to keep other players out of their market.
Luckily I'm not located in the US however I feel for the people who are subjected to misbehaving ISPs.
Haha your gonna have to pay for that extra vpn, enryption package. And that ad block wont work when they slipstream code into your session and mitm your cert chain.
I think you need to listen to Orwell expert David Ramsay Steele talk about the philosophy of Orwell:
http://tomwoods.com/ep-970-the-real-george-orwell/
Everyone assumes that without neutrality regulations the big guys - chiefly Google and Amazon will get priority. But I would expect Comcast to put search out for bids. Whoever bid the most would be authorized to supply search services, and that might be Bing, or much worse. The loser wouldn't get private peering, and might even be subject to unfortunate drop outs. Google might think that Comcast wouldn't dare throttle their link, but Google would be mistaken. In these restricted choice situations the authorized supplier is typically a vendor specializing in situations where the buyer/user has no choice.
john oliver has been lying from day 1.
it's entertainment. not news. not facts. entertainment.
you stupid fuck.
Trump and GOP have been trying to stack deck against fairness and democracy here ever since you lot voted him in. He has already been stuffing the judiciary with his cronies. He is 'fixing' the us census to bias the next election Now for the media! Now for example he can get ISPS to give him the names of those critical to him and sue them or put pressure on the likes of google to remove shows like "The young Turks" etc. from you tube. Want access to the 'Failing New York Times' or the BBC or any liberal media? Sorry, not allowed in this state or prohibitively expensive All hail the beloved Trump great leader and dictator for life! The internet will just be in the end just like cable tv. IT is the job of government to protect its citizens against rapacious big business.
Okay, so the first thing I will say is for he history of how the original telco monopoly came to be and why, take a look at this 1994 piece from Cato Journal:
https://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/serials/files/cato-journal/1994/11/cj14n2-6.pdf
The core problem with telecom is that it is regulated as a public utility or the so-called natural monopoly problem, and yes, government has done this with other industries. One notable example is railroads:
https://mises.org/library/crony-capitalism-and-transcontinental-railroads
Another was airlines:
http://www.independent.org/pdf/tir/tir_19_01_06_brown.pdf
Yet another was commercial trucking:
https://fee.org/articles/deregulation-of-trucking/
And of course the U.S. Postal Service:
https://fee.org/articles/the-postal-monopoly/
These are just a few examples. The core problem here is that government spending, because it has no price signals, is unable to effectively allocate resources. Prices are the input/output variables that tell us how much of something the market needs, where it needs to go, and when. Government spending is price-free (or price manipulated) and thereby is intrinsically a less efficient resource allocator than private sector entities. This is the core reason why socialism has always imploded in every country it has been tried: eventually the government cannot keep up with a lack of price signals and it leads to shortages and economic collapse.
Remember to vote in 2020 against the guy who appointed this
Obama isn't in office anymore.
donate too
Ahh, a shill. Isn't advertising in the comments against slashdot TOS?
Oops my ISP proxy says this is blocked Apparently, these people are SOCIALISTS!
Any ISPs that block VPNs will probably quickly go out of business.
ISPs won't block VPNs, they'll just require you to buy their (much more expensive) "professional" package to use them. And it won't negatively impact on any ISP's bottom-line since they'll all do it.
you'd have done that anyway. And besides, they don't care. You're gonna hurt a few advertisers, but unless you stop consuming content (particularly video) then your ISP is about to get a cut of everything you do online. Heck, even if you just shop they'll probably get a cut.
If you want to do something that matters vote against the Republican party, because it's _always_ the Republicans that do this crap. Then show up at your party's primary (Libertarian, Democrat, Green, Monster Loony, whatever) and _vote_ or the folks who run the Republicans will just take over whatever party you defected to to get away from them like they did with the Democrats. Right now there's a movement called Justice Democrats trying to take back the Dems. Libs and green are still too small to matter.
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I don't get the legalization of a content service provider determining what they will slow down and speed up, considering that most of that content they don't own. They are just there to provide service of data to from one point to the next and back. Period. What or who gave them that right?
Explain to me the lack of serious abuses as manifest in the reality-rewriting nature of ISPs being perceived as legally able to commercially traffic in your metadata, unlike how phone operators are actually not allowed to sell your metadata to the highest bidding Magnum P.I.?
The most serious abuse I see is the server-prohibition terms of service present in all residential ISP contracts. While not 'blocking on the wire' so to speak, it is effectively blocking a lot of traffic from people who have the ethical standards to obey the contracts they enter into. If servers were not considered some kind of hand-wavy dangerous thing, and "just another f'n device on the net talking tcp/ip", the level of rapid innovation over a couple years would make you look back and recharacterize the current situation as "an environment of serious abuses".
https://supporters.eff.org/don...
Political opinions aside, the EFF has been pretty solid in standing up for the People in opposition to corporate greed.
I'm still really pissed about how this article only uses the term 'net neutrality' once. I think if the EFF was 'solid' we'd be able to run servers without violating ToS, due precisely to Net Neutrality. In fact, their update fails to highlight how the 'non-commercial' angle is absolutely damning to the position that Google is doing anything other than the kind of evil talked about elsewhere in this discussion. Namely trying to leverage their position as ISP to take tribute/tax from the most $$ valuable subscriber use of bandwidth.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/08/google-fiber-continues-awful-isp-tradition-banning-servers
Say what you want about the EFF, and I admit few other sources were as supporting of my complaint, but if the EFF had been "solid" on net neutrality, we'd be allowed to operate home servers in this day and age. That we can't, makes me pretty ambivalent about the rest of net neutrality possibly getting discarded (though my bet is on 'tradition' prevailing. Establishment wins again, sigh.)
The problem is not that your one single ISP might throttle data -- you are watching the magician's wrong hand; look at the other hand for the real problem.
The problem is that in most places in the US you have a corrupt local government that has made deals for rights-of-way that enable only one high speed internet provider. This means that you have no competition and therefore the free market does not work and you are stuck as the victim of a monopoly. Net Neutrality does absolutely nothing to free you from this monopoloy -- it just pretends to make your victimhood more affordable and perhaps slightly more tolerable at the whims of an unelected bureaucrat in Washington DC who might or might not choose to do something, but who will certainly implement many rules and regulations covering all sorts of stuff you never imagined and the he/she never previously had authority over.
WORK TO GET YOUR LOCAL GOVERNMENT TO ALLOW (or better yet even encourage) MULTIPLE HIGH SPEED INTERNET PROVIDERS INTO YOUR COMMUNITY. Fix the monopoly ISP problem and you will not need some jerks in Washington overseeing the net.
I would submit the 1st step is to alter how elections are funded. Removed the umbilical cord linking politicians to corporations.
I have a narrative to try and sell you on. My theory is that the best way to accomplish what it is I think you want to accomplish, is not to deny politicians their existing mechanism of gathering money and using it for massive propaganda campaigns. The best way is to leverage the game changing technology that is the internet, to make it so that extra money doesn't really stretch as far as it did pre-good-internet. To do this, the internet must have something to do with Free Speech, in a well defined way. My definition includes the ability of all ISP subscribers to host their own content with servers if they so choose. Instead of being forced to partner with a megacorp gatekeeper operating servers 'in the cloud'. Disagree if you will, but that is my narrative. I tend to believe in the liberty to spend your money on propaganda campaigns. I genuinely think the cost per effect of such campaigns would increase dramatically if such a precise protection of the minimum required mechanisms for Free Speech was enforced.
Or the problem is that someone doesn't remember their junior high econ, as market consolidation would leave you with a single provider, even if you live in a mythical county with four cable companies and three dsl providers wiring each and every house. Thus the deal for right-of-ways in return for regulation.
There is no doubt that internet data is required for fair market competition throughout our economy.
Given that the legitimate public concern is over private sector dominance against the public good, unfair data discrimination should be treated as an antitrust violation.
Antitrust laws were put in place to stop monopolies and such, so it makes sense.
Net neutrality law is on path to fall, but antitrust law likely will not.
Sines of Impending Sines
I don't give a shit what Sling or any other greedy cable provider calls their services; keep that fucked business model away from the internet.
You might want to google for "sling TV" or just go to their website. They are not a cable provider. They are on the internet. They are content providers, carving up their content into tiers.
It's too late. That business model is already here. You can't keep it away.
Verizon delivers "cable" service over fiber. DirectTV delivers "cable" service via satellite. SlingTV delivers "cable" service via streaming. Therefore, they are a cable provider. The term "cable" in this sense no longer refers to the physical medium; it's merely the residual moniker.
Regardless, the rest of the internet sure as hell doesn't need to follow that greedy model.
My driveway interconnects with roads that interconnect interstate highways or "transit backbones" which are owned and operated BY THE STATE/FEDERAL GOVERNMENT(s). Comparing Internet as an "interstate transit system" is rubbish. I am allowed to have a highway and my community is ALLOWED to build/manage their own roads. Internet SHOULD be the same way, so the road paradigm doesn't fit.
(like a clock chiming at the hour) - Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! ,Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! Wrong!
Get rid of the Shit weasel pai
A level playing field, eh? By making everyone poor and helpless? Take a look at Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea and see how that level playing field is working out.
At long last, internet socialism is dead, says Jeffrey Tucker:
https://fee.org/articles/goodbye-net-neutrality-hello-competition/
SlingTV delivers "cable" service via streaming.
No, they deliver video services via streaming.
Regardless, the rest of the internet sure as hell doesn't need to follow that greedy model.
You missed the news. Sling isn't the greedy model, it's the way things are supposed to be. Ala carte.
Hope that the EFF's and ACLU's inevitable lawsuits are successful. Otherwise, good luck getting people to vote in the right people to enshrine into law some feasible NN protection.
Who is this "EFF" and "ACLU"? I cannot find their online presence.
You realise voting AGAINST the people responsible for is how you got Trump in fhe first place. Right? You keep voting against people and you can watch your country go further down the drain.
Does this mean that an ISP can outright zero-connect all advertising servers? I think I'd have a selling point for my ISP; service-level adblocking.
And how do you propose to do that in a way that does not violate the 1st Amendment?