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Leading Lobbying Group for Amazon, Facebook, Google and Other Tech Giants is Joining the Legal Battle To Restore Net Neutrality (recode.net)
A leading lobbying group for Amazon, Facebook, Google, Netflix, Twitter and other tech giants said Friday that it would be joining the coming legal crusade to restore the U.S. government's net neutrality rules. From a report: The Washington, D.C.-based Internet Association specifically plans to join a lawsuit as an intervening party, aiding the challenge to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai's vote in December to repeal regulations that required internet providers like AT&T and Comcast to treat all web traffic equally, its leader confirmed to Recode. Technically, the Internet Association isn't filing its own lawsuit. That task will fall to companies like Etsy, public advocates like Free Press and state attorneys general, all of which plan to contend they are most directly harmed by Pai's decision, as Recode first reported this week. As an intervener, though, the Internet Association still will play a crucial role, filing legal arguments in the coming case. And in formally participating, tech giants will have the right to appeal a judge's decision later if Silicon Valley comes out on the losing end. "The final version of Chairman Pai's rule, as expected, dismantles popular net neutrality protections for consumers," said the group's chief, Michael Beckerman, in a statement. "This rule defies the will of a bipartisan majority of Americans and fails to preserve a free and open internet."
Too many laws may be a problem, but it is not solved by eliminating the good ones.
It's a giant legal circle-jerk. Those filing the suit get to thump their chest, pose as The Great People's Champions of... something, tweet aphorisms, and pump up their resumes. The FCC, meanwhile, quietly warns the other side's lawyers to go away lest they be taunted further...
The quantity of laws and regulations is only an issue for know-nothings and demagogues. This issue is their quality, and that must be assessed on an individual basis.
The FCC did it for phones, who would you put in charge of inter-state communications technology practices?
Also no more of "up to speeds of 300mbts", they should not be allowed to advertise burst speeds, but only the steady state download speeds.
It was never just burst speeds. It was also in the absence of congestion at the first hop node (still inside of the last mile). There is no reason not to oversell bandwidth, provided you'll get relatively close most of the time. It only becomes a problem if you will usually not or never get the advertised speed. The same as it's OK that there isn't a 1:1 correlation between cell tower capacity and registered phones. If everyone dials 911 at the same time, calls will be dropped.
My workplace only has Verizon (now Frontier) as a choice for Internet. They are charging $35/mo for 768 kbps down / 128 kbps up DSL, $50/mo for 1.5 Mbps down / 256 kbps up, and it isn't even very reliable. My home Internet (Cox-only area) is $90/mo for 200 Mbps down / 10 Mbps up. Frankly I don't need 200 Mbps down, but could use more than 10 Mbps up (for when I VPN into my home network). Net neutrality doesn't fix ISPs charging you an arm and a leg because they have a government-granted monopoly in your area.
An AT&T rep knocked on my door a couple weeks ago to announce they were rolling out fiber to my area, and were expecting pricing to be around $45/mo. Competition fixes both abusive pricing and throttling. If my ISP decides to throttle Netflix for not paying them, and I have a choice of ISPs, all I have to do is switch ISPs to one which doesn't throttle Netflix. The problem net neutrality is trying to solve is entirely caused by these government-granted cable/phone monopolies. (AT&T is only able to offer broadband in my area because they're the local phone monopoly.)
So I would rather have the solution which eliminates both artificial throttling and abusing pricing - competition. The gas and power utilities even provide the model for doing this. You hire a company to build and maintain the distribution wires or pipes going to each home. That company is paid to maintain those lines/pipes, but is prohibited from selling service (gas, electricity, Internet) over them. Instead, they sell access rights to those lines/pipes (at a fixed price regulated by a Public Utilities Commission) to other companies which provide the service. This lets hundreds or even thousands of companies compete against each other to sell you gas, electricity, or Internet service. Thus insuring anyone trying to price gouge you or degrade your service as part of their petty extortion schemes simply puts themselves out of business.
Either way the bill is going up
But not because they didn't have the spare profit margin. But because it's made national news and everyone knows it costs money.
I would prefer the government agency that controls what words are allowed on television not be involved in regulating the internet.
Spectrum is limited. When it was divided up Americans agreed that it was in the public interest to have content that was acceptable to most Americans. What you might call censorship is really just selection - encouraging content providers to produce what people want. If this wasn't what Americans wanted, there would be more of a push to change that. And there are so many alternate sources for content, I don't see any reason why it needs to change.
However, the FCC is really better suited for the technical aspects. If there actually was another agency that was a better fit, I'm sure they'd love to delegate it.
It shouldn't have that effect. We need as few laws and regulations as possible. But as many as necessary.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
They are all owned by multi billionaires.
I doubt they are lobbying to save the consumer money.
we're all for corporate interests lobbying for laws ?
And Google and Facebook of all places lobbying for "Neutrality" of packets, while at the same time being biased in their handling of their user generated content platforms ?
The Slashdot crowd cheering for this really has lost it if they think any of this is in their best interest.
"Not to mention all the idiots who use words like boxen."
Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04, @06:49PM
Mobiles are under title 4, and carriers already have multiple speed (fast lane) tiers. T-Mobile offers free and unlimited with its binge on service. FCC is not stopping from fast lanes or unlimited services. T-Mobile is also offering netflix for its customers.
Mobiles and sat are not comparable to fiber and cable for FCC control, FCC handles the airwaves, local government handle the land. FCC mostly controlled local ISP's on regulation for services, not with access. ACCESS is the problem, we got monopolies at the local level. Sat and LTE4/5 is already having an impact, and by 2020 will help more rural communities than cable/dsl has even done. (After they took billions to do just that!)
Now that the FTC is in charge, they handle the monopoly issues, the customer complaints.
I'm not buying that Google, Amazon and other tech giants are into net neutrality, google scaled back its fiber with no planned future deployment, facebook is only selling Internet access to overseas companies, Amazon is a content provider and not a ISP. They are worried about competition coming up and taking their business, they fear competition.
They don't give a damn about uncensored internet, Facebook/Twitter and dozens of other companies are censoring Iran access, vpn access. How fucking dishonest these corporations are, claiming bo be pro net neutrality when they are the worst offenders of censorship.
I agree that we all will pay for the necessary network infrastructure.
I strongly disagree about getting rid of net neutrality. We NEED net neutrality. A neutral internet is what allows it to become the global economic engine that it is. Now ISPs want to erect troll booths and non neutral traffic.
Suppose AT&T goes to Netflix and strikes up an ugly smoke-filled back room deal where Netflix pays AT&T so that Netflix customers on AT&T get "zero rated" or "preferred" or whatever you want to call it. This increases Netflix's cost. That cost will go to ALL Netflix customers even Netflix customers who use Verizon instead of AT&T. Thus Netflix customers on Verizon are now subsidizing the improved service of Netflix customers on AT&T -- while those Netflix-Verizon customers continue to have the poorer service.
So now HBO strikes up a deal with Verizon so HBO gets "zero rated" service on Verizon. Similarly HBO customers using AT&T are now subsidizing HBO-Verizon customers.
How about this: BAN this practice. If the ISP needs to build more infrastructure to handle Netflix, then CHARGE ME THE CUSTOMER for how much internet bandwidth I use. I'm going to pay for it anyway. But make it simple. Make it fair. Stop making some users subsidize other users.
There is no such thing as "building fast lanes". That is just a euphemism for building SLOW lanes. If an ISP is building out its infrastructure, then that ISP's customers should pay for what they are using that requires that infrastructure.
Finally, this "fast lanes" approach also helps cement in the established players while making it difficult for new entrants into the market. Suppose a new obscure specialized video service emerged. One whose content is mostly about the mating practices of obese new jersey millennials. The small subscriber base for this particular video service may not be powerful enough to strike a crooked back room deal with AT&T, thus resulting in it getting unfair treatment -- even though their end subscribers pay the same local ISP bill as everyone else.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
Free and open internet is about routing of packets. Not about subjects discussed in online forums. Not about search engines.
If there is free and open routing of packets, then you are perfectly free to connect to (or even create!) an online forum whose echo chambers are more to your liking.
A free and open internet means that just because you create a small site that people are unable to reach it because you cannot afford to strike special "zero rated" deals with AT&T.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
Mobiles are under title 4, and carriers already have multiple speed (fast lane) tiers.
Speed tiers are NOT what Net Neutrality advocates are talking about when they refer to "fast lanes". When you purchase faster internet service, that speed applies to every bit that comes through the pipe. Fast lanes are about giving some bits priority over others based on source and content. Think Comcast slowing Netflix content because it competes with their own streaming service, or Century Link throttling Skype to give their own videocom service a competitive advantage.
There actually is a straightforward and appealing pro-market case to make here and it could attract many (R)s...
Only the one that is of the same magnitude as the forced breakup of Ma Bell. If the government decrees that last mile providers must be broken out of their current respective corporate ownership into fully independent organizations regulated like utilities that must accept all comers who want to provide the Internet part of Internet service, then yes, it's a straightforward and appealing pro-market case.
Which can not possibly attract any (R)s at all, because what massive incumbent corporations want is sacrosanct to the current Republican party. The tech giants in this case are not the incumbents, so their opinions aren't relevant even if they weren't based out of California, and therefore permanently suspect in the eyes of the Republican party.
I should say they voted to remove an administrative rule. You can't sue to put it back into place.
Yes you can. There are rules about rule-making, in order to prevent capricious, expensive changes. This change may not have been done according to the rules. Lawyers are arguing about it now, and it looks like they have a case, as it hasn't been dismissed by the judge yet.
There actually is a straightforward and appealing pro-market case to make here and it could attract many (R)s, but unfortunately our technology giants are so wrapped around their PC politics axle that courting an (R) to come over to their side is as yet unthinkable; they played hardball social issues politics for years and now they're in the cold.
It's worse than that Amazon, Facebook, Google, Netflix, Twitter all donate only to Democrats. And Comcast et al donate heavily to Republicans.
So the Republicans will say they oppose 'government regulation of the Internet'. However they Don't seem to mind the local regulations that gives Comcast a monopoly on selling high speed internet service.
Meanwhile the Democrats say they want a free and open Internet and Net Neutrality by which they mean 'title II regulation of ISPs'. However they're happy with Google and Amazon blocking each other's products on their platform and Youtube and Facebook censoring 'hate speech', aka 'speech Democrats hate'. And in fact even when the FCC was led by Wheeler who supported Net Neutrality he didn't have a problem with T Mobile zero rating services. Also Google and Facebook launched a non Net Neutral Free Basics service outside the USA.
I.e. no party in this bunfight has any principles at all - they're just doing what companies that contribute to them tell them to do. And all those companies care about is being able to shaft their complements who donate to the other side.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
The simple solution is to force a break up of the monopolies.
You can either be an ISP or a content provider, but not both. This will nip that whole conflict of interests thing right in the bud.
Start talking divestiture vs Net Neutrality and watch how fast the big boys back off and become NN champions.
You can't really break up natural monopolies, unfortunately. But your suggestion that you can be ISP or content provider, but not both, is a very good one. I don't think it's the full solution, but it certainly could be a big part.
NN has nothing to do with the law. That's the problem.
Seriously, let Net Neutrality die. Instead, CONgress needs to require that ALL states allow for muni networks as well as NO monopolies. Right now, all monopolies for coax, fiber, STP, etc are forced by state, local govs. If they were prevented from having gov. enforced monopolies, then as each ISP fucks with a locality, then either another ISP will compete, or the local gov can build out their own local much cheaper, much faster network.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
The quantity of laws and regulations is only an issue for know-nothings and demagogues.
This is not true at all when the legal system places responsibility for knowledge of the law on the people ("ignorance of the law is no excuse") but the number of laws are so immense that no single human could possibly know and be aware of every law or even the majority.
The US government itself has spent literally millions attempting to ascertain the number of just Federal laws alone, and failed. This doesn't even consider all the State, county, city, township, etc etc laws, ordinances, and regulations To expect the average man to know and be held responsible for obeying literally many tens of thousands of laws he has no practical way of being aware of empowers a tyranny of selective enforcement.
Cardinal Richelieu would have a field-day and be right at home in today's US legal system.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
sometimes the interests of an amazon (etc) can be the same as mine.
what I can say is that anything the R's want, is NOT what I want. they are doing all they can to fuck the common person over and if allying with an amazon will help fight the evil R's, fine.
I don't think for a minute amazon is my friend; but if they can do battle for something I believe in, fine. no one else in the gov is lifting a finger to help us out. I'll take the help when and where I can get it.
(OT: I kind of like referring to those companies as FANGs; facebook, amazon, netflix and google. they are the FANGs.)
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."