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Net Neutrality Repeal Is Official (cnet.com)
The Federal Communications Commission's repeal of net neutrality rules, which had required internet service providers to offer equal access to all web content, took effect on Monday. The rules, enacted by the administration of President Barack Obama in 2015, prohibited internet providers from charging more for certain content or from giving preferential treatment to certain websites. CNET: FCC Chairman Ajit Pai has called the Obama-era rules "heavy-handed" and "a mistake," and he's argued that they deterred innovation and depressed investment in building and expanding broadband networks. To set things right, he says, he's taking the FCC back to a "light touch" approach to regulation, a move that Republicans and internet service providers have applauded.
But supporters of net neutrality -- such as big tech companies like Google and Facebook, as well as consumer groups and pioneers of the internet like World Wide Web creator Tim Berners-Lee -- say the internet as we know it may not exist without these protections. "We need a referee on the field who can throw a flag," former FCC Chairman and Obama appointee Tom Wheeler said at MIT during a panel discussion in support of rules like those he championed. Wheeler was chairman when the rules passed three years ago. We expect to see some protests today as the tussle to convince House representatives to reinstate the regulations continues. Some members of Congress are still fighting to overturn the ruling, so there's hope for a net neutrality return if legislators agree to it.
Further reading: The Washington Post published an interview of Pai over the weekend. In the interview, Pai remained bullish that the FTC could stop abuses. He also criticized Senate Dems and others for spreading misinformation during net neutrality debate. Over at CNET, Ajit Pai has written an op-ed, in which ... he is defending his move. Fight for the Future: The FCC repeal of net neutrality goes into effect TODAY, but Congress can still stop it and save the Internet.
But supporters of net neutrality -- such as big tech companies like Google and Facebook, as well as consumer groups and pioneers of the internet like World Wide Web creator Tim Berners-Lee -- say the internet as we know it may not exist without these protections. "We need a referee on the field who can throw a flag," former FCC Chairman and Obama appointee Tom Wheeler said at MIT during a panel discussion in support of rules like those he championed. Wheeler was chairman when the rules passed three years ago. We expect to see some protests today as the tussle to convince House representatives to reinstate the regulations continues. Some members of Congress are still fighting to overturn the ruling, so there's hope for a net neutrality return if legislators agree to it.
Further reading: The Washington Post published an interview of Pai over the weekend. In the interview, Pai remained bullish that the FTC could stop abuses. He also criticized Senate Dems and others for spreading misinformation during net neutrality debate. Over at CNET, Ajit Pai has written an op-ed, in which ... he is defending his move. Fight for the Future: The FCC repeal of net neutrality goes into effect TODAY, but Congress can still stop it and save the Internet.
"He also criticized Senate Dems and others for spreading misinformation during net neutrality debate"
Like using bots to spam comments in your favor, or fake a DDoS attack to stop people petitioning against you?
And when the political power flips again in the future, the new administration will bring back the regulations.
This is why Internet regulation shouldn't be run by the FCC in the first place with their 5 votes. It's always going to flip flop based on which party controls the president.
I'd like to see congress pass some Internet regulations and let the FTC enforce it.
You say this as if there's some conspiracy going on. Anyone can read the laws. Google and Facebook are in favor of it because they don't want to be charged twice by ISPs.
What more do you think it is?
Agreed, the Constitution gives Congress the power to make law, not Ajit Pai. Pai's contention that the FCC doesn't have the authority to make NN laws isn't completely unfounded. There are arguments both ways, but any time it's unclear whether an unelected bureaucracy has the authority to do X, I'd rather them not do X. I get a chance to vote for or against my Congressman every two years. I don't get to vote on FCC commissioners.
I hope whatever does get passed, whenever that happens, has a lot of input from people who really understand carrier-grade networks. One draft bill proposed in Congress would have actually made it illegal to block spam. "Treat every packet the same" would be disastrous, making VoIP virtually impossible. Some of the goals related to NN are certainly good, and I'd like to see them happen, but writing a law will be tricky because the technical details are very complex.
"Cord cutting" is making the cable TV people, who are most of the Internet people, panick. So they are trying to sink their claws into what you pay Netflix (on top of what you pay them) or they will hamper the video service.
This makes their promise to you for a fixed speed a lie. Do you recall a line on your ISP contract that they will give slower service than what they state to Netflix or Hulu, unless Netflix or Hulu pay them a cut of what you pay Nerflix and Hulu?
It is fraud.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Agreed, the Constitution gives Congress the power to make law, not Ajit Pai.
You fail to understand how laws are actually made. There are in broad strokes three kinds of law. Statutes, regulations, and case law. Regulations ARE laws. Congress passes statutes which then delegates the authority to the administration (the FCC in this case) to make regulations which are the details about how the law is to be implemented and they have substantial discretion in doing this in most cases. Congress doesn't have the expertise to fill in all the details so they leave much of the heavy lifting up to the executive branch. Regulations ARE laws so the FCC has (within their mandate from Congress) the power to make law. Since Ajit Pai is in charge of that particular agency he has been delegated law making power from Congress.
Now a judge or Congress can constrain his actions through further statutes or case law, but otherwise the FCC absolutely can make laws and does so routinely every time they make a regulation.
Is that a joke? I mean everything was fine until 2015 when this whole concept took root, so you expect that it will rock along fine until November 2018 and then we are all dead?
I'm just guessing here.. But it seems to me that returning to a pre-NN regulation environment won't be a huge issue even then. Where I expect to see a problem or two that NN would have prevented, I don't see how they won't be effectively dealt with by the FCC as necessary.
Everything was not "just fine" prior to the 2015 ruling, otherwise we wouldn't have had the 2015 ruling. The FCC was handling cases of discriminatory service provision since 2003. The 2015 ruling was the end result of a long line of cases against various ISPs for pulling shady stuff like AT&T limiting access to FaceTime, one ISP restricting consumer access to Vonage VoIP service, Verizon throttling Netflix and Youtube, Comcast throttling/breaking VPN services, etc. Just because maybe you didn't experience any of the BS that was going on doesn't mean that it didn't affect plenty of other consumers. And since we don't have reasonable broadband competition in many markets (especially rural ones) consumers don't have a choice when it comes to broadband providers, so they need NN protections to keep from being extorted.
Uh, how do you figure that treating all traffic on the internet the same way locks out competitors?
Need to go back and get a refund on your education. We don't now, or ever have lived in a democracy. And, you better PRAY we never do!
You clearly don't know what you are talking about. Throttling was indeed a thing in areas with perfectly good pipes in the past. There were lawsuits by some, payoffs by others. Now that "rent seeking" behavior is all back on the table
> handled fine
In the case of Netflix vs. Comcast, nothing was "handled fine." Netflix ended up paying Comcast to stop throttling. This opened the door and soon every ISP would be extorting every content provider. If NN hadn't come in 2015 (in part because of this), we would be living in a much different, content restricted world. The ISPs need to replace the revenue stream from cord cutters. They will start extorting money from Netflix and others. Guess who will subsidize that?
https://consumerist.com/2014/02/23/netflix-agrees-to-pay-comcast-to-end-slowdown/index.html
I think the bigger problem is allowing local and state governments to block new entries to the market.
I see "patriots" forcing people to stand for the national anthem and pledge of allegiance. Forcing one to stand or kneel...whatever, it's basically the same thing.
Fuck the judicial "branch" and their rewriting of laws. They have no place and no value in our society. Lame ducks.
So let me get this straight. The judiciary is granted by the Constitution the power to interpret laws and decide between conflicting opinions regarding those interpretations. This is a vital part of the checks and balances in our government but you are uncomfortable with that fact. So you are effectively saying we should not have a Judiciary with the power to keep the Legislative and Executive branches in check or to correct Congress when they make laws that are contrary to the Constitution.
Yeah... let's just say I don't agree with you.
That's the way that comports with the Constitution. Congress makes laws, the executive *implements* the law passed by Congress. Which includes details of *how* the Congressional law is implemented. How, not *what* the law is.
That's a distinction without a difference. Any decision on a means of implementation (a regulation) de-facto IS a decision about what the law is. Congress delegated law making power. If Congress does not like a particular interpretation of the law they are empowered to pass legislation to clarify the powers they are delegating to the legislative branch or to give them further constraints. Congress is empowered to be as specific as they like with how they want a federal agency to behave. But in the absence of specificity from the Legislative branch federal agencies can and do write laws in the form of regulations on a daily basis within whatever mandate they are granted. Regulations ARE laws. Whether Congress writes a detailed law itself or delegates that authority to the Executive branch (which they do most of the time) has exactly the same effect at the end of the day. There is NO difference.
The Constitution, and common sense, disagree with you on this.
You would fail Constitutional Law 101 with that opinion. You're not arguing with my opinion and whether or not you think it sensible is irrelevant because that is how it works. I suggest you educate yourself on this point because it's important.
IF Congress passed a NN law, we could discuss at what level of detail Congress should act and what level the can legitimately leave to the FCC.
The FCC has already been granted powers by Congress. We can debate whether those powers extend to regulating Net Neutrality or not (the Judiciary has held that they do thus far) but the fact is that the FCC like all other federal agencies is granted substantial power to interpret the laws via regulations and to enforce those regulations. EVERY federal agency has the power to write laws via regulations. Regulations ARE laws whether you like it or not. That is how it works whether you like it or not.
In fact Congress chose NOT to make NN law.
That does not matter if the powers Congress already granted the FCC are broad enough to permit them to create (or remove) regulations surrounding Net Neutrality. It appears that the FCC does indeed have powers that broad as the Supreme Court has issued a ruling supporting the FCC's authority to write (or not) such regulations back in 2005. There have been other federal rulings that similarly affirm the FCC's authority to make such regulations under their existing authority. If Congress wishes to change this state of affairs they are empowered to do so.
Is that a joke? I mean everything was fine until 2015 when this whole concept took root, so you expect that it will rock along fine until November 2018 and then we are all dead?
2005 - Madison River Communications blocked VOIP services. The FCC put a stop to that.
2005 - Comcast denied access to p2p services without notifying customers.
2007 - AT&T blocked Skype and other VOIPs because they didn't like the competition for their cellphone services.
2011 - MetroPCS tried to block all streaming except YouTube. They actually sued the FCC over this.
2011 - AT&T, Sprint, and Verizon blocked access to tethering apps on the Android marketplace, with Google's help.
2011 - AT&T, Sprint, and Verizon blocked access to Google Wallet because it competed with their own payment apps.
2012 - Verizon demanded Google to block tethering apps on Android because it let owners avoid the $20 tethering fee. This was despite guaranteeing they wouldn't do it as part of a winning bid on a airwaves auction. They were fined 1.25 million over this.
2012 - AT&T tried to block access to FaceTime unless customers paid more money.
2013 - Verizon stated that the only thing stopping them from favoring some content providers over other providers were the Net Neutrality rules in place.
2016 - Comcast instituted a mandatory data cap on all services with a $50 fee to get unlimited data. This allowed them to slow the bleeding of cord cutters, trapping them with fees from trying services like Sling or DirecTV Now.
2017 - Time Warner Cable refused to upgrade their lines in order to get more money out of Riot Games (creators of League of Legends) and Netflix.
ISPs already have proven that without rules in place, they will behave in a way that can dictate how you use your internet connection.