Cloudflare Might Be Exploring a Way To Slow Down FCC Chairman Ajit Pai's Home Internet Speeds (twitter.com)

Late Wednesday night, TechCrunch reporter Josh Constine pleaded to tech billionaires to purchase local ISPs near FCC chairman Ajit Pai's home and slow down his Internet speeds. One of the responders to that tweet was Matthew Prince, co-founder and chief executive of Cloudflare, who said: I could do this in a different, but equally effective, way. Sent note to our GC to see if we can without breaking any laws. In a statement to Slashdot, Mr. Prince said: Probably the easiest thing would be to slow down requests from the FCC's IP ranges. Or put up an interstitial whenever someone from those IPs visits a site behind us. I think it's less likely we'd do it across the board ourselves, more likely we'd implement it as an option our customers could opt in to. Basically taking this a step further.

Comments

Good job guys

[Anonymous Coward]

The public is already complaining that internet access is monopolistic, and now the company is stating it will take puntative action against a citizen. That's a fast way to get yourself regulated like a public utility, by the one guy who has the power to do it.

Protecting Net Neutrality

[sinij]

I like my Internet free, but recent article in The Atlantic made me second-guess this.

Key idea is as follows:

A public darling during the Obama years, when net neutrality won out, the tech industry has effectively become Big Tech, an aggressor industry along the lines of pharmaceuticals, oil, or tobacco. It’s true that one set of giant internet companies, like Comcast and Verizon, can’t currently mess with what people read, watch, and explore online. But another faction of giant internet companies can and do exert that power and control. Google, Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, and others manage access to most of the content created and delivered via broadband and wireless networks.

Isn't that just targetted harassement ?

[RedK]

I for one will enjoy the civil suit that follows. Of course we know this is just a bunch of kids throwing a tantrum. Nevermind the fact that they are of adult age.

Re:Unconvincing Tantrum

[JoshuaZ]

Net neutrality did win on the idea front already, as demonstrated by the massive number of FCC comments in favor of it, and demonstrated by the sort of shady tactics used by the anti-net neutrality groups like posting millions of fake comments. The ideas won. Unfortunately we have a government where what ideas have won doesn't actually matter, and that situation is far, far worse under the current administration than it was under any of the last four at least.