Internet Groups Urge US Court To Reinstate 'Net Neutrality' Rules (reuters.com)

A coalition of trade groups representing companies including Alphabet, Facebook Inc and Amazon.com, urged a U.S. appeals court to reinstate landmark "net neutrality" rules adopted in 2015 to guarantee an open internet. From a report: In a legal filing Monday, the Internet Association, Entertainment Software Association, Computer & Communications Industry Association, and Writers Guild of America West urged the reversal of the Trump administration decision to overturn the rules in December. "Rules regulating the conduct of (internet providers) continue to be needed to protect and promote an open internet," the groups wrote in a brief filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.

Comments

an "Open" internet

[Anonymous Coward]

an open internet that only we can censor, de-platform, shadow-ban, and control. We're "neutral" platforms after all.

Re:an "Open" internet

[DirkDaring]

And we'll do it all under the guise that your ISP is slowing down your Netflix.

Re:an "Open" internet

[Anonymous Coward]

Meanwhile, Netflix slows throttles your connection and blames the ISP because net neutrality.

Re:an "Open" internet

[Gravis Zero]

an open internet that only we can censor, de-platform, shadow-ban, and control. We're "neutral" platforms after all.

With or without network neutrality, all those problems still exist. In fact, without network neutrality all those problem become even worse because giant corps can afford to pay off ISPs while your tiny startup would easily flounder under the weight restricted networking.

You can create your own totally open platform and put the server on the internet but what you cannot do is force people to use it. It might surprise you but it's not your everyday decent folk that are flocking to "gab.io".

Re:an "Open" internet

[Lab Rat Jason]

Not trolling you... seriously, but do you have evidence of this? I'd love to see it.

Re: an "Open" internet

[Anonymous Coward]

Interesting accusation. I would be curious to know what hardware they are using to pull that off...

Re:an "Open" internet

[Anonymous Coward]

wait, you are not trolling the trolls?

why?

Re:an "Open" internet

[Anonymous Coward]

If the ISP's are forced to be neutral they cannot block anything. They must provide the open internet.

If you want to create a cheap website and fund it via ads there is nothing stopping you from doing that. It would be an investment that would pay for itself. You can promote it.

You can also host it on TOR so outside of a massive undertaking by the government it can nearly impossible to track and they censor nothing. God or bad it is completely neutral politically.

I'd argue net neutrality is an essential regulation to ensure for first amendment as proof the government cannot censor the airways via facist corporatism and at the same time corporations apart from one specific type is deregulated by their handling of speech giving them the freedom to cultivate any "aesthetic" that it wants.

Re:an "Open" internet

[Mashiki]

There's no proof of it. Netflix even provides localized caching server to ISP's at limited or no cost. On the other hand, there are plenty of ISP's who use sandvine boxes still and those can pick and choose what traffic to throttle.

Re:an "Open" internet

[Anonymous Coward]

"With or without network neutrality, all those problems still exist. In fact, without network neutrality all those problem become even worse because giant corps can afford to pay off ISPs while your tiny startup would easily flounder under the weight restricted networking.

You can create your own totally open platform and put the server on the internet but what you cannot do is force people to use it. It might surprise you but it's not your everyday decent folk that are flocking to "gab.io"."

You are conflating and comparing nothing. You might as well have said.."I like sugar in my coffee." then you follow it up with something that would make Captain Obvious envious.

Stop trading people for corporations. Either there are government rules that help people, or there are government rules that help corporations. There is government either way. Are you on the side of corporations or people?

Really?

[zippo01]

If the rule was arbitrarily passed by a committee, (which at the time admitted may be overstepping bounds) what legal argument do you have when they undo it? its inconvenient? I understand it is a popular position, but this should be handled long term with legislation as several states have done.

Re:Really?

[SirAstral]

Because it is okay when we do it, just not okay when those other guys do it. The cornerstone of the us vs them political party system.

I wish people would view political parties with the same disdain that racism should be viewed. At the end of the day, the entire purpose of a political party is to keep the us vs them mentality going under the guise of strength through unity. What good is that strength when those divides create war? People die instead, wiping out any benefits gained!

If you want unity, you have to get rid of identity entirely, especially group based identities. But the tribalism inherent to the nature of humans makes this nearly impossible.

Re:Really?

[cascadingstylesheet]

If the rule was arbitrarily passed by a committee, (which at the time admitted may be overstepping bounds) what legal argument do you have when they undo it? its inconvenient? I understand it is a popular position, but this should be handled long term with legislation as several states have done.

Yep.

If it's so popular, then implementing it with legislation should be a snap.

Re:Really?

[DaHat]

the entire purpose of a political party is to keep the us vs them mentality going under the guise of strength through unity

No... the entire purpose of a political party is to more easily differentiate candidates and their views and rally together for a common cause, as (unfortunately) most voters can't be bothered to verify individual things... what you describe is an unfortunate result from government having too much power and the incentivation to hold/wield power.

Re:Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

The fact that it was arbitrarily passed by committee is a valid reason for the courts to undo it. Regulatory agencies can't arbitrarily change regulations just because they're not politically popular with the boss. They have to have some reason for doing so. If we allowed for just capriciousness in the regulations, it would be chaos. Businesses and private citizens alike would be unable to plan for the future because they'd have no way of knowing what the regulations would look like after the next elections.

Which is why those deplorables being assigned to run agencies that they've been working to destroy is so damaging, they don't have to change the regulations, they can just choose to re-categorize them or just not enforce them. For example asigning Mick Mulvaney to oversee the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, refusing to request any funds to perform it's duty and firing all sorts of people that were supposed to be protecting us from abuses by corporate interests.

This in spite of the fact that he can't legally run the agency as he hasn't been confirmed, in fact nobody has been confirmed, so it's legally supposed to be the previous 2nd in command that's to run things until a replacement is nominated and confirmed.

Re:Really?

[SirAstral]

Guess you never heard of RINO's and DINO's.

"what you describe is an unfortunate result from government having too much power and the incentivation to hold/wield power."

You could not be more wrong. These things are never missing from any power structure and are inherent... though the excuse does make for a good scapegoat.

If the idea is democracy or republic, then a well informed and well intentioned electorate would demolish that problem. People can recall folks if they like, the problem is that everyone is too lazy to care and so socially weary and self defeating.

This is why democracy does not work. People would rather offload that responsibility than to tend to it. Why else do people like to call it victim blaming one someone wanders along and says... "it's your government, do something about it". We won't be doing anything about nothing... we are just going to vote on ideas, and no matter how many times the politicians lie, they remain secure in their seats... and THIS is why parties are there... to help keep those seats, because many would rather have a corrupt liar doing what they do like politically than risk having that other sides corrupt liar doing things they do not like politically. Parties keep this problem entrenched and difficult to solve.

Re:Really?

[ShanghaiBill]

If it's so popular, then implementing it with legislation should be a snap.

Not necessarily. Politicians do plenty of unpopular things if the money and/or passion are on the other side.

Would you vote for a politician based on NN, even if you disagree on other issues? Would you donate money? For nearly everyone, the answers are "no" and "hell no".

Re: Really?

[jd]

Network neutrality was assigned to the Internet under Title 2 at the point of origin. Not by committee, but by Congress. I assume you believe in the rule of law.

Re: Really?

[jd]

The Internet is Common Carrier, by act of Congress.

What legislation, exactly, is needed?

Re:Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

"you have to get rid of identity entirely"

No. That is a naive sentiment: you cannot remove all differences between people. Example: a few weeks ago people were othering each other on /. because of laptop stickers.

You have to teach empathy.

People will always always always have differences of identity and this will always cause natural us/them (othering). The key to unity is not making the othering so vitriolic that it leads to institutional oppression (e.g., laws that restrict certain groups based on benign differences, like color or gender). This can only be done through empathy. Empathy is extremely hard to teach because it is more sophisticated than fear; fear and anger can be triggered instantly in anyone, empathy is harder to invite.

So until we start becoming a more empathetic society, we will have these awful dichotomies.

Based on the toxic masculinity self-policing currently culture, even the word "empathy" means "pussy fag cuck libtard", so we've got centuries to go, if ever.

Re:Really?

[Rhipf]

If the rule was arbitrarily passed by a committee, (which at the time admitted may be overstepping bounds) what legal argument do you have when they undo it? its inconvenient? I understand it is a popular position, but this should be handled long term with legislation as several states have done.

It is fine for the states to come up with their own net neutrality rules but then Trump will just decide that the states don't have the authority to make those rules (as he has already done).

Re: Really?

[Rhipf]

This is actually the whole problem. Congress has not given the Internet common carrier status. When the Internet was primarily delivered over the telephone system (DSL and dial-up) the Internet was sort of given common carrier status only because the telephone system was classified as a common carrier. Cable systems never had common carrier status so ISPs that provided Internet access did not fall under common carrier rules.

In 1996, the Telecommunications Act of 1996 codified a distinction that had already been essentially the practice of the FCC between 1980 and 1996. Services that rely on the existence of the network (e.g. websites and pay-per-call 900 services) were to be classified under Title I (information services); the transmission of those services over the existing telephone network would remain Title II (common carrier). This makes perfect sense: websites aren’t transporting your data anywhere—they receive your request and respond to it; the ISP transports those requests and responses. However, the 1996 act abstained from classifying the new cable broadband Internet Service Providers under Title II, leaving this new “high speed” Internet industry essentially unregulated. In addition to this lack of classification, the 1996 law sought to reduce regulatory barriers to entry in both telecom and broadband by softening the laws of the previous regime as set in the 1934 act.

https://medium.com/@TebbaVonMa...

Re: Really?

[ShanghaiBill]

The Internet is Common Carrier, by act of Congress.

Bullcrap. Cite the "act of Congress".

Re:Really?

[dgatwood]

This is why democracy does not work. People would rather offload that responsibility than to tend to it.

People would be more likely to tend to it if they had any real belief that their vote mattered. When you have a choice between two candidates, both of whom are long-term politicians with little concept of the real world outside of government, the best your vote can really do is get rid of the worst of the worst, and the best candidates you'll ever get are likely little better than a random number generator on most issues.

Re:Really?

[Highdude702]

The premise of the USA was to have each state have its own laws, and have a small set of Federal Laws.

Re:Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, I think they had the right idea. You have to look at individuals to see what worth their ideas have.

Sorting into group identity weakens the idea of the self having its own ideas. The way that political party members "fall into line" with their "party line" is an example of how this can hurt the overall expression of ideas and thoughts.

It also makes tribalistic insults ironically truer, as "no true Scotsman" would support the idea from the "other side" out of fears of losing their political power, even if that individual *would* otherwise speak up and agree with someone outside of their tribe.

Court decisions make lousy legislation

[magarity]

Repeat until you learn it properly: Court decisions are NOT the proper way to get what you want despite the promise of being the quick and easy way. Convince your congresscritter to legislate what you want.
Too many judges think they are the one person legislature who know what is right for everyone.

Re:Court decisions make lousy legislation

[SirAstral]

This is a failure of the legislature which has the power to strike these courts down when they make stupid rulings like this. American citizens are grossly ignorant of how much the American Government no longer works properly. But we intentionally ignore the legislatures at the state and federal levels and instead focus on individuals. This unhealthy focus creates "king complexes" where people continue to invest power into a single individual until a despotism forms.

The people are broken and therefore our government is broken.

Re:Court decisions make lousy legislation

[Archangel Michael]

The Government was purposely designed to not work very well, requiring a lot of parts working together to actually change anything. This is not a flaw, it is a feature. The fact that this feature turns out to be flawed is no coincidence, and we can see the effects of stupid laws still to this day. See Prohibition for example.

Plenty of bad laws come from people shouting "We have to do something, this is something, therefore we ought to do it".

Just because we can do something doesn't mean we ought to do something.

Re:Court decisions make lousy legislation

[Anonymous Coward]

Convince your congresscritter to legislate what you want.

Nah. A judge has way more power to convince a congressperson to change a law.

Re:Court decisions make lousy legislation

[Anonymous Coward]

Generally speaking, people disregard implications when attempting to get what they want, in the political sphere.

Like, Hilary supporters encouraged members of the electoral college to disregard the rules and "vote their conscience," without considering the significance of such an action (let alone the possibility that some of them may have been Trump supporters).

People only like rules they agree with, when those rules are getting them the results they want at the time. In all other cases, to hell with the rules, just give me what I want!

Most people, anyway.

Re:Court decisions make lousy legislation

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not particularly flawed, it worked quite well for nearly 200 years, it wasn't until relatively late in the 20th century when there were a series of disastrous rulings by the SCrOTUmS that led to corporations being people and that those people had the right to unlimited speech and that speed is money, so they could be allowed to spend unlimited money "speaking" via dark money campaign ads that are completely unregulated.

Most of the problems we have politically right now are a direct result of that rather than any of the other bits.

The fact that not a single politicians was executed let alone brought up on sedition charges for signing Grover Norquist's seditious fealty oath is another source of the problem. Politicians cannot pledge fealty to anything other than the US constitution, doing otherwise is sedition and used to result in execution. Now, it's not even a slap on the wrist.

Re:Court decisions make lousy legislation

[SirAstral]

No, the government is purposefully designed to not work fast or frequently, this is not the same thing as being purposefully designed to not work very well, and why there are a lot of working parts. Though, you are right that most of the bad laws come from the people shouting we have to do something, anything. Most times, nothing is the proper course of action. People just do not understand why, but the Declaration of Independence has something to say about that.

"Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."

A rapidly changing government executing laws as fast as we are now is going to doom the nation.

Re:Court decisions make lousy legislation

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sorry, but I don't have millions of dollars to contribute to his reelection fund. Do you have any ways of making these people listen when you don't hold a large bag of money?

Re: Court decisions make lousy legislation

[jd]

It was decided by Congress. Congress ruled that data traffic was no different from any other, placing the Internet under Title 2.

Bush decided unilaterally to overrule the law.

It is right and proper to overturn illegal decisions in the court. That is their function.

Re:Court decisions make lousy legislation

[Anonymous Coward]

Especially when the Internet grew at a much greater rate under Bush than under Obama when he applied oppressive and expensive so-called NN regulations. Obama exerted a lot of control over the Internet.

States

[shaksys]

The states should make their own NN laws. That way, those who dont like NN can move to a state without them, just like those that dont like huge taxes can move to a state without it (like californians moving to Nevada).

Re:States

[omnichad]

State laws on this do little but show support for it. After all, it mostly involves regulating interstate commerce unless you only care about web sites within your own state.

Re: States

[Anonymous Coward]

Internet Service Providers carry on business in local areas. That is just the nature of their business. Where large national companies act as internet providers it is subject to local laws. NN is not imposed on websites you connect to, it is imposed on the local provider you use to reach the sites.

Re:States

[sconeu]

As I understand it [disclaimer I am not a lawyer], most state NN laws basically state, "if you wish to be elgible for state contracts, you must do X, Y, and Z", where X, Y, and Z are NN principles.

They don't (and can't, per the Commerce Clause) enforce neutrality by fiat, they say, "if you want to do business WITH THIS STATE*, you must be network neutral." ${TELECOM} is free to not implement NN, but don't bother coming to contract with us. A State may set whatever criteria it wishes for the entities it contracts with.

* "With this state" as opposed to "within this state". Key distinction.

Re:States

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure they can, the reason why you see those workarounds is because the FCC declared that states couldn't preempt their illegal regulation when they made the regulation. Those contract restrictions were put in place in order to try and side step that part of the regulation.

As far as the states go, the states have a huge amount of power to decide what ISPs can operate in the state and which ones can't, just refusing the franchising agreement with an ISP would effectively put them out of business in the area. Just like how corporate owned politicians have been shutting down municipal broadband at the state level.

Ultimately, it would probably be a good thing if these state matters were ruled to be subject to the interstate commerce clause as that would also strike down all those restrictions on municipal broadband.

Re: States

[jd]

That usurps the Federal law passed by Congress that places the Internet under Title 2.

Re: States

[Rhipf]

You can state this as many times as you like but the Internet isn't under Title 2 (see my reply to one of your posts above).

Re: States

[Anonymous Coward]

What law?

Re: States

[jd]

I state it because it is correct. There is no distinction in law between an ISP and any other telecoms carrier. This is the law. You can deny it as many times as you like, this was settled in the 1970s (check the posts if you want). I have no time for those who weren't there.

Re: States

[Rhipf]

Since you didn't seem to want to look up my earlier reply here it is.

This is actually the whole problem. Congress has not given the Internet common carrier status. When the Internet was primarily delivered over the telephone system (DSL and dial-up) the Internet was sort of given common carrier status only because the telephone system was classified as a common carrier. Cable systems never had common carrier status so ISPs that provided Internet access did not fall under common carrier rules.

In 1996, the Telecommunications Act of 1996 codified a distinction that had already been essentially the practice of the FCC between 1980 and 1996. Services that rely on the existence of the network (e.g. websites and pay-per-call 900 services) were to be classified under Title I (information services); the transmission of those services over the existing telephone network would remain Title II (common carrier). This makes perfect sense: websites aren’t transporting your data anywhere—they receive your request and respond to it; the ISP transports those requests and responses. However, the 1996 act abstained from classifying the new cable broadband Internet Service Providers under Title II, leaving this new “high speed” Internet industry essentially unregulated. In addition to this lack of classification, the 1996 law sought to reduce regulatory barriers to entry in both telecom and broadband by softening the laws of the previous regime as set in the 1934 act.

https://medium.com/@TebbaVonMa... [medium.com]
Flag as Inappropriate

You keep stating that the Internet is set as common carrier under law. This is false. It is also false that ISPs are set as common carrier under the law. The telephone system is set as common carrier so if you are getting your Internet access via the phone system then your Internet is sort of covered by common carrier requirement but if you get your Internet via cable there is no common carrier status.

Any legal opinions?

[EndlessNameless]

Like any sane person, I support net neutrality 100%. Let's maintain the open status quo that the internet grew up on. Totally support their goal, but I do have a question.

Does this have any legal legs to stand on?

I'm not a lawyer, and I couldn't find any decent opinions on the matter.

Re:Any legal opinions?

[MrMr]

I think you made a smart choice to ask for advice here. /. is famous for its opinion on legal matters. Most posters are actually lawyers pretending to be geeks living in the basement.

Re:Any legal opinions?

[EndlessNameless]

I was hoping for a link to some kind of expert opinion, but now that you point it out... maybe I should have been specific.

Re:Any legal opinions?

[Anonymous Coward]

Joke's on you. I'm an actor pretending to be a lawyer pretending to be a geek in a basement.

Re: Any legal opinions?

[jd]

The distinction of data was made by executive order. It usurps Congressional authority. Congress originally had the Internet under Title 2.

So the question is, are the courts investigating the illegal cancelling of Title 2 without proper authority or some other issue?

Wealthy Corporations

[sdinfoserv]

Then maybe these wealthiest corporations on the planet should have used their lobbying dollars like the communications cabal did....

Re: Socialism

[Anonymous Coward]

i'd like to, but my fortune 100 ex-employer moved my job to india. trump and pai didnt protect my job like they promised. maga fail.

The right stance for the wrong reasons

[Rick Schumann]

The corporations and companies in the TFA only take this stance because they don't want to be in essence taxed for the privilege of stealing people's private data and otherwise monetizing them, they want to continue to get all that for FREE. So support Net Neutrality but tell all those companies to fuck the fuck off in the process.

Re:The right stance for the wrong reasons

[EndlessNameless]

Privacy protection is probably more important, and there are some murmurs about a US privacy bill.

So I had some brief hope until I thought it thru, and I expect the tech industry to ghostwrite the legislation.

Fucking libs

[Anonymous Coward]

Always trying to do am end run around the rule of law. I believe in net neutrality, but what I believe in even more is the rule of law as an aversion to tyranny. Ledgislating from the bench is an affront to the democratic process for the benefit of the connected

Re:Fucking libs

[Anonymous Coward]

First off, this wasn't a legal regulatory change, they have to have non-political reasons for these sorts of changes.

Secondly, so you admit that the right regularly violates the rule of law and our constitution, good to know.

Elections have consequences

[Anonymous Coward]

"Elections have consequences." said the guy who used an executive order to create net neutrality rules instead of using the Democrat-controlled House and Senate to pass a law which he would have signed.

Live by the E.O., die by the E.O.

Re: Elections have consequences

[jd]

No, he did not create them. They already existed. Net neutrality existed from inception as the Internet is Title 2.

So much for belief in democracy

[Anonymous Coward]

The left has been chanting "democracy democracy democracy" for decades, but any time it cannot get what it wants at the polls, it runs to the courts for dictated policy decisions. The courts do not exist to implement policy, they are there to stop unconstitutional actions and thereby protect our constitutional republic - and nothing in the Constitution relates to throttling data on privately owned computer networks.

Oh, and while we're on the subject: What's with all the support for "democracy" and the simultaneous revulsion toward "populism"? People seem to not understand the basic meanings of words these days.

Re:So much for belief in democracy

[Insanity Defense]

And the Right have been chanting "Family Values" for decades. Now they have their Chosen One in power. Multiply divorced. Multiple times an adulterer. Pussy grabber in Chief. Some family values they have.

Re: So much for belief in democracy

[jd]

Sorry, you're wrong. The Internet was created under Title 2. The distinction of data is by executive order, not law. Law requires net neutrality. The courts are entitled to impose law on the lawless. That is their job.

Constitutional crisis

[Okian Warrior]

There's a problem with all these court orders that few people realize, which is the separation of the three sections of government.

Consider the current situation: net neutrality was a policy created by a government agency without the force of law, in the sense that the policy didn't come from the legislative branch, and the same agency could choose to reverse its decision.

If the courts step in and order the policy reinstated, they are effectively enacting law from their own branch and circumventing the normal rules of how law gets enacted.

So far the executive branch has been very "polite" about these court orders by deferring to the order and possibly filing appeals, sometimes going as far as the supreme court.

A more serious situation happens with things like DACA and DAPA: these policies were implemented by the executive branch in direct contradiction of established law. These did not even have the weight of executive orders, they were "policy memos" issued from the executive branch.

If the courts step in and order the executive branch to reimplement DACA we have the special situation where the legislature wants the executive branch do one thing, and the courts want them to do the opposite.

The term for this situation is "constitutional crisis", and again the executive branch has been polite in obeying the orders (even the really obviously bad ones), but this doesn't necessarily have to happen. They could push the issue and it would have serious ramifications about the government in this country, most of which no one would like.

Honestly - using the courts to force your agenda is a really bad idea, and while it may *seem* like you are winning small points, the larger point keeps looming larger every day.

This is mentioned every. single. time. NN has come up on this forum, which is that NN was *not* axed due to technical merits, it was axed because it wasn't proper law. And people mention every. single. time. that the right way is to have the legislature pass a NN law, and the executive branch would happily implement it as written.

Similarly, for DACA and DAPA, Trump has been asking the legislature (clearly and explicitly) repeatedly for immigration reform, yet none is forthcoming.

Pass NN laws at the state level, let the carriers sort it out with the states.

But please stop asking the courts to implement your political agenda.

It's a run-around of the legislative branch, and literally threatens the stability of government.

Re:Constitutional crisis

[EndlessNameless]

There is so much wrong in this post that it's difficult to address properly. But I will try.

net neutrality was a policy created by a government agency without the force of law

Congress has routinely delegated regulatory authority to the executive branch. The FAA, FCC, FTC, EPA, etc were all established by Congress. If Congress dislikes a regulation, they can pass a bill to fix it. The ultimate power always lies with Congress on these matters. Congress could, in theory, disband any of these agencies.

[the courts would be] enacting law from their own branch and circumventing the normal rules of how law gets enacted

Not at all. Congress gave authority to the FCC to regulate certain things. But the FCC still must regulate things in accordance with the law and established rule-making procedures. If Pai's reversal of net neutrality did not adhere to these rules, then it should be thrown out. The court is acting as a proper check on the executive branch by reviewing it for compliance with the law.

NN was *not* axed due to technical merits, it was axed because it wasn't proper law.

The original Open Internet rules were partially tossed because the court decided that the FCC could only regulate companies like that under Title II (and ISPs were classified under Title I at the time). This was Verizon v FCC 2014, and Verizon won.

The FCC responded by reviewing the ISP industry and reclassifying it under Title II. There was another legal challenge, and the court decided that the FCC has the authority to classify telecommunications services as it sees fit, and the FCC did so properly. This was Verizon v FCC 2016, and the FCC won.

So net neutrality was legal in the end. There is a specific "right way" to implement it under existing law, and Verizon basically forced the FCC to do it properly.

Re: Constitutional crisis

[jd]

Network neutrality was created at the inception of the Internet, as it was classed as Title 2. Executive orders overrode Congress. No President, Bush or any other, had the authority to override Congress. The law is clear. Ignorance of it is not an excuse.

Re:Constitutional crisis

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, OkWa. Typical OkWa. You'd just love an authoritarian power to usurp power away from those pesky courts, wouldn't you?

I noticed a pattern in your posts: You typically side with the persons who are acting like the biggest assholes. In fact, I'd say it's your position on slashdot to advocate for the position that gives the biggest assholes the most power possible, and anyone curtailing those assholes must hate freedom, or something.

The courts are famous for telling assholes, "no, you can't be that much of an asshole, because it actually infringes on the freedoms of others." People like you hate that, because it's supposed to be the right of the people to tell the government that they want to be the biggest assholes possible, and the government is supposed to step aside and allow it. Or something.

But, nay, I think that most clear-thinking persons actually don't want assholes running rampant. The Courts have the power to do that, and they especially need to do that when the other branches of government are run by assholes.

tl;dr: It's not a goddamn constitutional crisis. It's just the asshole-suppression function of a branch of government.

eh?

[cascadingstylesheet]

On what legal basis, exactly?

"Thou shalt not overturn Obama stuff"? Pro tip: that's not actually a thing.

Re:eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Pro tip: it's only a "pro tip" if you are actually a professional in the field you're giving the tip on. Otherwise, you're just a douche spouting "pro tip!"

Re: eh?

[jd]

On the basis that the Internet was established in the 1970s under Title 2.

There is nothing else required. Bush had no authority to overrule Congress.

Re:eh?

[Dragonslicer]

On what legal basis, exactly?

If you read the article (I know, I know), you'll find:

The brief calls the FCC’s decision “unreasoned and unreasonable” and says its “flawed analysis runs counter to the record and departs from the (FCC’s) previous factual findings without explanation.”

There are defined (by Congress) rules for new regulations or changes to existing regulations. Among them is the rule that federal agencies must provide a factual basis for their actions, so that regulations aren't changed purely by political whim with every new administration. As far as I can tell, the lawsuit is challenging the FCC action for not having the required factual basis.

Dumb Question

[ElizabethGreene]

I have to ask a dumb question.

Are there any concrete examples of violations of net neutrality since the regulatory change?

To me the Firefighter's issue doesn't count, because ISPs are still allowed to set bandwidth/data caps under NN. Am I wrong about that?

Re:Dumb Question

[Gilgaron]

The most cited example I've heard is that AT&T is not metering streaming content they own from buying DirecTV. T-Mobile has some non-metered options, but I believe theirs is NN-friendly vs promoting in-house content.

Re:Dumb Question

[Anonymous Coward]

No, the big ISPs are smart enough to wait until Net Neutrality is no longer a hot issue, before they start abusing their newfound freedoms.

Re:Dumb Question

[ElizabethGreene]

Is this markedly different from AT&T or Verizon offering free calls to other AT&T or Verizon customers? That was a thing back when people used cell phones to call people.

Re:Dumb Question

[Gilgaron]

It gives the home field a competitive advantage. Whether that is a problem or not will correlate with your stance on NN, but it is pretty obviously violating the idea of NN.

Re:Dumb Question

[BlueStrat]

No, the big ISPs are smart enough to wait until Net Neutrality is no longer a hot issue, before they start abusing their newfound freedoms.

"Newfound freedoms"??

You mean "new" as in exactly how the internet had been until the FCC (with some prodding from the Obama administration) implemented NN rules? FFS, the FCC NN rules were only in place for a matter of months!!

On top of that, all the ISP abuses trotted out as justification were resolved under existing laws and with the force of negative publicity without any NN rules.

"If it ain't broke, don't "fix" it."

This is simply content providers trying to effectively seize regulatory control over their means of distribution just like the RIAA/MPAA tries to do. If you don't like the RIAA/MPAA doing that shit, why the fucking hell are you in favor of Alphabet essentially doing the same evil shit except to ISPs!?

Strat

Re:Dumb Question

[Dragonslicer]

Not yet, because the people running the ISPs are smart enough to wait until it isn't obvious that that's what they're doing. You can, however, find plenty of examples from before 2015, which are what prompted the FCC's action at the time.

Re:Dumb Question

[Dragonslicer]

Is this markedly different from AT&T or Verizon offering free calls to other AT&T or Verizon customers? That was a thing back when people used cell phones to call people.

The main difference is that it's using AT&T's position in one market (ISP) to reduce competition in a different market (video content), which is the problem that Net Neutrality is meant to address. Free calls to other customers on the same provider might also be considered anticompetitive, but it only involved a single market.

Re:Dumb Question

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not Net Neutrality. There has always been the ability to charge the actual customer more or less as the ISP sees fit. Net neutrality is where the ISP would charge someone who is NOT a customer to provide service. The best example is the grumbling by ATT about the bandwidth they use to "service" google searches even though the customer of ATT already pays for service. Att then tries to get payment from Google.

But payment tiers and schemes for actual customers has always been ok. For example, If I get cable stations with my cable service then I can sign up and get content from that station over the net without additional charge. That's just a payment scheme that's legit once you allow carriers to also have content.

Now if ATT said it wouldn't honor ESPN signups that ESPN gave when people got ESPN from cable then THAT WOULD be a violation of net neutrality. There could in fact actually be some violation of that sort happening but we wouldn't know about it because the shakedown would be for payment and the payment contract would likely include NDA. But stuff like content free because it belongs to the carrier has already existed under NN as with content allowed for cable/uverse subscribers. It's just a legit payment arrangement between ISP/content holder and customer.

The danger addressed by NN is not the antitrust issue of content/ISP being one entity. The danger is where ISPs will basically "own" their customers and charge admission to get access to them on any basis other than simple carrying of electrons. It is really silly to attack net neutrality because NN is ultimately in all ISP and content owner's interests. NN would just keep the stupid greedy fucks from screwing themselves along with everyone else. Like when ATT was grumbling about Google's wealth and suggested that Google should share it with ATT if Google wanted access to ATT customers. Google response was Google fiber and pointing out to ATT that there are things like proxies. ATT customers indicating that an ISP without Google is an ISP they would rather not use also helped get that noise to stop. The danger is the shakedown of little guys. We wouldn't know about that for a while because OF COURSE there will be NDAs.

Re:Dumb Question

[whit3]

Are there any concrete examples of violations of net neutrality since the regulatory change?

Maybe not, and there's several ways to take that. One, is that ISPs are furtive, concealing their deeds or biding their time. Another, is that anger and ridicule have more negative effect on the bottom line than the piddling pennies they'd make by fiddling the datastream.

A third possibility is that shakedowns are happening in the Netflix-vs-Comcast style, where a service provider chokes access to a popular service for all their customers. How would we know what the problem is, if the principals are keeping the demand, and payoff, secret?

Our best defense would be a functional regulatory agency exerting oversight and civil courts empowered to act on complaints. Wishful thinking (so far, so good) is not an acceptable substitute.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Content Providers

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course the content producers want to regulate the carriers of their content. But they don't want any regulation on what they do. I'm personally less concerned about what my ISP does, as I am about what the content producers do with my information.

Re: Content Providers

[jd]

The Internet is Common Carrier. Providers are regulated under that. There is no provision for regulating services because the Republicans decided not to give a shit about users when Europe debated data protection. Quite the opposite, they demanded the right to be an exception.

You get to argue about services when you stop voting such people in.

Re:Net Neutrality ISP

[Anonymous Coward]

Google tried this, the project was called Google Fiber. It failed - due to incumbent companies using their entrenched monopolies to make life difficult to get into neighborhoods. So, Google gave up on the Fiber project. I've heard there was a workforce reduction, and an unrealistic demand to sell 10x as many fiber connections per month as what they were doing. Now they are working on something called Project Loon instead. Unfortunately, this is primarily meant for 3rd world countries, and not so much for developed nations. I'm guessing they have to stay on friendly terms with the wireless carriers, or no one will push any Android phones.

Not that I'd want FB as an ISP even if it was very cheap. They're sort of infamous for the data that they scrape from the like buttons that litter the web. I cannot imagine all that they'd pull from web traffic, and would not be startled to hear that they are replacing banner ads that you see with similar stuff (where they'd get the cut, instead). I wouldn't put that past Amazon, either.

It's a trap

[Anonymous Coward]

None off your congress critters are going to publicly vote to bring CALEA to the internet. Letting the Obama admin do it was much easier

What is the basis for this lawsuit?

[Anonymous Coward]

I have yet to hear a reasonable explanation as to why the Executive Branch cannot use the powers delegated it by Congress. Net Neutrality was implemented by executive fiat and can be un-implemented just the same.

Delegation of powers is not unconstitutional, nor is the exercise of a delegated power in a manner you disagree with.

NN is a scam. Period.

[Anonymous Coward]

Net Neutrality is stupid. It is a "solution" to a problem that doesn't exist. Typical progressive BS that has unfortunately roped so many of you in. Wake up.

https://jasonstapleton.com/595-net-neutrality-is-a-scam/

Re:Net Neutrality ISP

[Dragonslicer]

If Alphabet, FB, and Amazon were really serious about Net Neutrality, they would form an ISP partnership to compete against the cable and telecommunications.

Running wires to every home in a city is a rather large barrier to entry. It's why free market theory doesn't fit very well when it comes to things like utilities.

Nobody trusts the current Congress

[rsilvergun]

to save NN. The expectation is they'll pass a phony baloney law with no teeth and won't even enforce the occasional gumming of the cable & telcos the law requires. Crap like this is why Congress has a 12% approval rating.

Of course that's over all. Somehow every congress critter seems to hang onto a 48% approval rating in their district which is just enough to stay in office. Aren't winner take all political systems wonderful?

The Court is needed to force Congress to enforce

[rsilvergun]

laws a lot of times. I'm in agreement that existing law regarding telcos covers the internet. There's nothing magic about the internet, it's just another telecom utility. There's plenty of existing law if it's just enforced.

I find it funny that the same folks who complain about excess legal cruft gumming up our system seem to always be ready to pass yet another law when the current ones are plenty good enough.

Dammit!

[rsilvergun]

I came here for advise from dogs pretending to be lawyers pretending to be geeks living in a basement. Once more /. lets me down...

Yeah, Right...

[Anonymous Coward]

Bullshit! Net Neutrality only affects ISPs and users. Corporations and monopolies can still censor and throttle traffic as much as they want. I'd like to smack all you idiots FOR Net Neutrality right up side the head, but you just can't fix stupid. It's too bad we can't add a little Chlorine to the gene pool.

Wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

So wrong.

The "government" consists of 3 equal branches. Your suggestion that the judiciary is somehow illegitimate, even when they are setting or enforcing policy, is entirely, 100%, completely, wrong. There is also a long, Long, LONG history of jurisprudence that deals with how to create decisions.

Would it be better if the legislative branch issued new laws? Sure, probably. However they haven't. And by the way, it's part of the POTUS job to get them to do that. Portraying POTUS as politely asking questions but then standing by while they do nothing isn't accurate either. POTUS gets judged, in part, on the success of their legislative agenda.

Trump didn't repeal Net Neutrality because it was "illegal", "bad", or "incorrect procedure". Trump repealed NN either because he really thinks it might help business, or because Obama made NN official and Trump is reflexively anti-Obama. Pick one. Either way, even if Obama had used legislation to implement NN, Trump would be undoing NN. Again your statements fail to portray the situation correctly.

Ultimately all this is political. You keep trying to make it sound like these are mere procedural corrections to procedural violations. It isn't. A political party got elected and they are implementing their goals and values. Executive orders are the least important part of this entire story, as is judicial activism.

Back to paper insulated

[AHuxley]

wireline as then everyone gets equal internet in the community? No community can pay more and get really great internet under federal NN laws?
Time to build better more innovative last mile services all over the USA without federal laws holding back communities who want to build their own new last mile services.

Its a bit rich comming from companies trying to...

[Anonymous Coward]

censor the internet. Shadow banning, and manipulation of what people see online.. and then they ask for Neutrality. what a joke.

"Placed" comments?

[davecb]

The leading comments here are

• an attack on the open internet
• an attack on courts
• A attack on slashdot itself,
• And attack on political parties, and
• an attack on the balance of powers

If I were trying to disrupt a discussion of a political initiative, I'd generate astroturf in exactly that way...

Re:"Placed" comments?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just remember: people don't say things just to say them.

Re:"Placed" comments?

[Anonymous Coward]

"If you only knew the power of the dark side." In Star Wars the basis of dark side is hatred, anger, and fear which is the same as in religion. Staying in the light is a never ending struggle. The hatred of the US ISP providers business practices and misplaced hope and trust has polarized the debate. Until we get enough people willing to listen to BOTH sides good luck with a logical debate.

ez solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Google can just give pai a one time bribe and NN will be back within the week.