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Ajit Pai Backs Out of Planned CES 2018 Appearance (techcrunch.com)
New submitter sdinfoserv writes: Ajit Pai, the most hated person in tech since Darl McBride, backed out of a speaking engagement at CES 2018. Apparently he lacks the spine to justify himself before the group of individuals his decisions affect most. Consumer Technology Association head Gary Shapiro announced: "Unfortunately, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai is unable to attend CES 2018. We look forward to our next opportunity to host a technology policy discussion with him before a public audience."
Prior to 2014 the FCC had the authority. Verizon spending a ton of money in court got the FCC's authority narrowed significantly because ISPs weren't common carriers. But that the FCC could reclassify ISPs under Title II, make them common carriers, and essentially gain back that authority.
Which is what they did. That has now be undone. There was only a brief window of 2014-2015 where ISPs weren't regulated. There is an extensive history of ISPs doing sketchy shit and getting taken to court by the FCC since the early 2000s to get it stopped. They no longer have this authority. This is a brand new world of unregulated internet and it's going to suck.
Or you just don't understand the far-reaching ramifications.
"Ajit Pai, the most hated person in tech since Darl McBride"
Evidence for this assertion? None.
No evidence? Millions of citizens voiced their disdain and advocated for him NOT to do the very thing he arrogantly went off and did after ignoring every damn one of them.
And then he rubbed it in by making an it's-all-good promotional video so vapidly stupid it makes reality TV look like a Nat Geo documentary.
If you can't see how he earned his moniker, you're as ignorant as he is.
I don't know a single tech person (I live in the bay area) who likes that fuck-wad.
yes, I truly do agree that he's the most hated guy in tech; maybe next to the orange one.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
But, under Obama, he was just a member and the head guy. He had no real say before...a puppet expressing GOP concerns. Nobody expected Hillary to lose and allow Trumpâ(TM)s ilk to dominate over common sense.
This is patently false. The FCC had in fact tried leaving well-enough alone, but, as it turns out, companies were going out of their way to screw their customers no matter how many times that they kept getting caught.
2005 seems packed but only because prior to this there wasn't really much investigating in that field at all. However, major telecoms had spent money they'd been paid for fiber and cable infrastructure - broken promises of fiber in half the homes of America by the early 2000s - on lobbying to deregulate and lower the standards. That's how you had fiber if anywhere at all somewhere in your connection it eventually became fiber, no matter your dialup speeds and broadband bill due to the bottlenecks.
Madison River in 2005. Comcast *SINCE* 2005 but only completely proven in 2007 by the AP and EFF. Telus in Canada blocking entire servers (with hundreds of different websites) just to snuff out leaks about a strike their workers were having. AT&T degrading and/or blocking VOIP traffic that competed with the service it was trying to push in 2007, continuing this practice when Google Voice appeared in '09. Windstream was using injection and browser hijacks on their customers to steal ad revenue from other search engines (a practice copied several times by other ISPs since then). AT&T, Sprint and Verizon vs Google Wallet. Verizon screwing with apps, AT&T as well both on phones and on PCs.
They never stopped. Every time they'd get caught, every time they'd bog down the legal system to keep any rulings from being achieved against them, and Wheeler only finally brought down the hammer with the classification after their lobbying had gotten every other bloody thing struck down, claiming all the while that there didn't need to be any rules on how they act because they were good companies.
The fact that the entire C-level of every last one of these companies hasn't faced the firing squad is a travesty of everything our country was founded on.