Except it isn't Google's business plan. Google sells advertising targeting to ad companies. Verizon is selling your data to data mining companies. Google would never sell your data because it's their core business to be the keepers of that data so they can sell targeted ads. Not that Google is altruistic, just that they are themselves the data miners so they are not going to share.
Google offers free services to compensate. Services people tend to find pretty valuable such as Android, Gmail and Search.
Verizon is going to offer "discounts for shopping, travel and dining" read: coupons (ie more advertising).
Verizon is going to "anonymize" your data and sell it to anyone and everyone willing to pay.
I see the exchange of value in one business plan, and not the other.
Verizon is offering more than just the points. Your asymmetrical FIOS connection gets upgraded to symmetrical based on your download speed if you sign up. My 150/65 got upgraded to 150/150 and speedtest.net shows it is actually hitting 152/164 consistently. I'll take it, especially considering they could probably have sold the data with no compensation.
Yes, I took it, too. I read all through their terms-of-service fine print, too, and there is nothing there granting them any access to, or additional rights to use, any data or tracking information about me. That is, there was no change in privacy policy stuff for signing up for the Rewards+ program. So whatever data they are selling, they are not collecting / selling more of it than they were before.
I suspect that what they are selling is eyeballs to advertisers or merchants that want access to Verizon's customers. And you get "points" for actually becoming a patron with one of their partners / advertisers.
I went to Verizon's site to check on this for my account. Here's what I got:
My Rewards+
SHARING ONLINE JUST GOT FASTER!
Great news, you are eligible for an upload speed to equal your current download speed, at no additional cost to you! Simply click here and enroll in our My Rewards+ program - it’s easy and free. Just our way of thanking you for being a loyal Verizon customer. Faster upload speed means better sharing experiences. That’s Powerful! Join Now
US government foreign policy prefers it this way, because then these other countries are beholden to us if they want to act militarily. It's hegemony.
Plus, military weaponry is just about the only US export still bringing in money. Civil wars or border disputes crop up, and the US companies get to sell to both sides. Of course, I'm sure State Department advisers would NEVER do anything to encourage those conflicts...
Which this article seems to implies it takes Verizon a year to send a technician to 7 cities to connect up a few cables between routers. (And / or maybe install a couple of cards). Maybe Verizon should stop having their techs travel by horseback, they might get it done faster.
It's not that simple. This isn't adding cards and cables to an existing interconnect, it's installing a whole new one. In fact, Netflix will be co-locating servers with content either within or close to Verizon's data centers. So there is lots of logistics involved.
So the credit rating was lowered because the Republicans eventually capitulated, not because they "shut down" the government.
Not because they "capitulated," but because it was obvious that they'd play stupid games like that without actually making useful moves towards controlling the debt. Make no mistake, the GOP didn't cause the shutdown because they were concerned about the debt. They were annoyed that they didn't get their way to the exclusion of all others.
Close enough. Neither party is serious about their "stance" - it's all marketing.
Then they should be eliminated, or at least made more difficult to pass. WTH?
We need a straight up progressive income tax with no exceptions, deductions, credits or waivers.
Well we already have the most progressive tax system in the world, but you're right, it needs to be flattened, and the vast majority of those deductions, exceptions, etc. NEED to be eliminated. There is a MAJOR issue with the complexity of the current tax code. This desperately needs fixing, and no one is even talking about it.
If they need more money let them raise the base tax. This BS where they tax every little thing and service is grossly unfair and tends to disproportionately shift the tax burden to the middle class/poor and excessively harms the poor.
The problem is that this system has been thoroughly polarised and distorted due to the amount of money that has been thrown at this process.
No, not really. I know that's the prevalent leftists meme, but it really doesn't wash, and a Constitutional amendment to change free speech, and license journalists, and all the other statist ideas are just a way to protect incumbents and provide them more power to shut people up. Already the rules are quite onerous - I know, I tried doing the accounting for a VERY small disconnected political committee. It's a full-time job just to keep up with the reporting requirements, and it's often used as a tool to crush [real] grassroots opposition, because almost nobody can follow the rules to the letter, and the organization treasurer is personally and criminally liable for failing to deliver reports on time.
The 2-party duopoly is certainly an issue, as Washington warned about. It breaks the balance of power of the executive / legislative / judiciary, because they end up with more loyalty to party than to their branch. But the real issue is the break-down of the Republic, which is designed to vest the greatest authority in the people, then the local government, then state, then Federal which is supposed to have supremacy, but only in very limited, specific powers. State governments are much more responsive to their constituents, and local governments even more so. Unfortunately, the Feds are now exerting police powers (which they were never supposed to have at all), the bureaucracies are heavily armed (from the FBI to the USDA even down to the Department of Education), and the centralization of power is out of control.
Rule of law? Who at the Federal level does anything but laugh at such an idea - it's gone.
I take it you are unfamiliar with the history of coal miner unions? Corporations have used PLENTY of violence. You may want to look up The Battle of Blair Mountain.
Yea, I did... the rebellion was put down by local law enforcement - Logan County deputies - the government.
So this just proves my point. Don't rely on government to protect you, they use violence as the means to their end.
And, let's face it, labor disputes are a really BAD example. Labor unions are certainly guilty of instigating violence in many instances, even today. And since the 1970's, they are almost impossible to prosecute when they do so.
As was previously pointed out, there is nothing in this bill to prevent PAYING FOR Internet services out of tax revenues, only that services can't be arbitrarily made more expensive by local governments, states, and the Federal government itself. There's also nothing preventing municipalities from building networks and Internet services - and they can charge for that service just like anyone else. They just can't charge a service fee AND a tax.
So your rant is based on a false premise.
To use your phrasing, it says we don't want governments shitting on the idea of having Internet access without paying a tax for the privilege.
Government has a monopoly on violence? In theory. In practice....
Legally, the government does have a monopoly on violence. This is the principle of government almost everywhere in the world.
Check the history of opposition to labor rights. Lots of corporate violence there. Corporate behavior overseas has a long and (undertold) storied history of hired thugs, violence and the threat of it all over this planet.
The government should be a "referee" on the other powerful interests, with power that is derived from the "people".
EVERY "referee" is subject to being influenced. And not by the "people", not when they claim more power than the people ever gave them. People have power in local government and in the market. That's how companies (without legal access to the use of force) are kept in check. Expecting 1 person to make decisions for 700,000 people will rarely mean those 700,000 will be treated equitably.
Wow, maybe if you had been paying attention, you would understand that the reason government is "breaking down" is because of unchecked corporate power.
HA! If you knew any history, you would understand that the reason society is breaking down is because of unchecked government power. Corporations are subject to (and subjected to) swat raids just like everybody else. The only ones safe from that are the ones with... hmmm... connections with government. Imagine that.
It is in the best interest of multinational corporations to "break down" any barriers in their way to profits at all cost, regardless of human or environmental well being.
Yes. And with unchecked government power they are 1) required to petition government for the ability to operate at all, and 2) find government can provide them with safety from competition, assistance with lowering wages, and money from the treasury. All thanks to a government with too much authority.
Libertarians pretend that everybody can live inside their own little bubble (they can't, society as we know it breaks down, and actors will come in an fill the power vacuum).
No, sorry, but you're just repeating some pop statist talking points about libertarian ideas, you don't understand them at all, and can't even pretend to have tried to find out. Society breaks down under all kinds of governments, that's clear from history. The US was actually based on libertarian ideas from John Locke, and functioned quite well until the Federal government start breaking out of it's chains.
Also, the government is not my mom, and I am not a child. It's this attitude that government is some benevolent parent that has gotten us into this mess.
So being in a facist (or libertarian) oligarchy with no accountability is better than being in a social democracy with many services provided by a government which is accountable?
I was just responding to your false choice of two extremes - which you just doubled down on. I don't even know where you live that's a "social democracy", or even what that's supposed to be. Libertarian ideas are not fascist - that's an idea that Mussolini came up with and drives much of public policy at the federal level today (typically is renamed as something like "public/private partnership". It's entirely the opposite of what libertarians espouse.
Regulations are there for a purpose - for example, the FDA was created to save lives. Over regulation is stifling and encourages rent-seeking behavior, but under-regulation cause us to revert back to the previous, non-desirable state. So we need to find a balance.
Well today the FDA does swat-style raids on food coops and dairy farmers, bans healthy supplements unless a pharmaceutical company can come up with a patent for it (much of the FDA's budget is paid by pharmaceutical companies, BTW). So I think at this point we are WAY out of balance in the wrong direction.
As you said, the current system is breaking down, but not because of the system itself. It's because it hasn't been maintained.
The "system" requires a very strict limit on the authority of the Federal government, spelled out as "enumerated powers" in the Constitution. Those limits have been ignored, perverted, and dismissed, as has the balance of power in the branched, by partisan loyalties. I'm not sure the system can be saved.
No, the government cannot come bulldoze your house on a whim. Calm down. It COULD use emminent domain, possibly... But then, the bank could decide to mess up some paperwork and forclose on your house despite your ability to pay. Frankly, both of these have happened. They're also RARE AS SHIT and cause a shit storm in the news when they DO happen.
Accidental bank foreclosures are rare. Government bulldozing whole neighborhoods - often to hand over to private developers for the sake of "economic development" - is actually quite frequent. In fact, here's a layout of a few for you.
And the Republicans were perfectly happy choosing to shut down the government. It wasn't a threat. It was completely real. They shut down the government because they didn't want people to have healthcare.
That's funny, because during that time period, I got a ticket for speeding, a bill from the IRS, taxes were taken out of my pay check every week, and my neighbor's EBT card continued to work to buy groceries. The VA didn't kick my dad out of the hospital.
The country was stripped of its AAA credit rating, was one day away from a credit default,
There's a lot of misinformation here. Especially the "default" myth, when the treasury was taking in many times more money than required for debt service. But the ONE credit agency that lowered the US rating actually stated as the reason that there is too much debt and not enough political will do do anything to address it. Interesting, that was the very issue the shutdown was about. So the credit rating was lowered because the Republicans eventually capitulated, not because they "shut down" the government.
Power concentrated in the hands of organisations such as multi-national corporations (or even less omniscient entities such as car dealership networks) is no better than being in the hands of an autocratic and abusive regime.
That's not necessarily true. For one thing, you're talking about multiple corporations that compete against each other, providing a better balancing of power than a single entity with unlimited power. Also, governments retain a monopoly on violence. So corporations might have a lot of financial power, but they can't put you in jail or kill you like governments can. They generally can't spy on you, either, unless you're using their stuff - not true with government which injects itself into the very infrastructure of all communication channels, which they license and regulate.
If the rule of law is working, maybe government is a better choice. But that is breaking down severely these days.
Slashdot Mirror
Except it isn't Google's business plan. Google sells advertising targeting to ad companies. Verizon is selling your data to data mining companies. Google would never sell your data because it's their core business to be the keepers of that data so they can sell targeted ads. Not that Google is altruistic, just that they are themselves the data miners so they are not going to share.
Google offers free services to compensate. Services people tend to find pretty valuable such as Android, Gmail and Search.
Verizon is going to offer "discounts for shopping, travel and dining" read: coupons (ie more advertising). Verizon is going to "anonymize" your data and sell it to anyone and everyone willing to pay.
I see the exchange of value in one business plan, and not the other.
Verizon is offering more than just the points. Your asymmetrical FIOS connection gets upgraded to symmetrical based on your download speed if you sign up. My 150/65 got upgraded to 150/150 and speedtest.net shows it is actually hitting 152/164 consistently. I'll take it, especially considering they could probably have sold the data with no compensation.
Yes, I took it, too. I read all through their terms-of-service fine print, too, and there is nothing there granting them any access to, or additional rights to use, any data or tracking information about me. That is, there was no change in privacy policy stuff for signing up for the Rewards+ program. So whatever data they are selling, they are not collecting / selling more of it than they were before.
I suspect that what they are selling is eyeballs to advertisers or merchants that want access to Verizon's customers. And you get "points" for actually becoming a patron with one of their partners / advertisers.
I went to Verizon's site to check on this for my account. Here's what I got:
US government foreign policy prefers it this way, because then these other countries are beholden to us if they want to act militarily. It's hegemony.
Plus, military weaponry is just about the only US export still bringing in money. Civil wars or border disputes crop up, and the US companies get to sell to both sides. Of course, I'm sure State Department advisers would NEVER do anything to encourage those conflicts...
Actually, they did. Verizon has just yet to deliver. Apparently they don't expect to deliver until the end of the year in any case.
Which this article seems to implies it takes Verizon a year to send a technician to 7 cities to connect up a few cables between routers. (And / or maybe install a couple of cards). Maybe Verizon should stop having their techs travel by horseback, they might get it done faster.
It's not that simple. This isn't adding cards and cables to an existing interconnect, it's installing a whole new one. In fact, Netflix will be co-locating servers with content either within or close to Verizon's data centers. So there is lots of logistics involved.
China is already starting to loose work.
Chinese work has actually been pretty loose for a long time.
Just shutdown No-IP servers. That should fix it.
That's 'tarded.
Not because they "capitulated," but because it was obvious that they'd play stupid games like that without actually making useful moves towards controlling the debt. Make no mistake, the GOP didn't cause the shutdown because they were concerned about the debt. They were annoyed that they didn't get their way to the exclusion of all others.
Close enough. Neither party is serious about their "stance" - it's all marketing.
These are easy taxes for the localities to pass.
Then they should be eliminated, or at least made more difficult to pass. WTH?
We need a straight up progressive income tax with no exceptions, deductions, credits or waivers.
Well we already have the most progressive tax system in the world, but you're right, it needs to be flattened, and the vast majority of those deductions, exceptions, etc. NEED to be eliminated. There is a MAJOR issue with the complexity of the current tax code. This desperately needs fixing, and no one is even talking about it.
If they need more money let them raise the base tax. This BS where they tax every little thing and service is grossly unfair and tends to disproportionately shift the tax burden to the middle class/poor and excessively harms the poor.
Exactly this.
The problem is that this system has been thoroughly polarised and distorted due to the amount of money that has been thrown at this process.
No, not really. I know that's the prevalent leftists meme, but it really doesn't wash, and a Constitutional amendment to change free speech, and license journalists, and all the other statist ideas are just a way to protect incumbents and provide them more power to shut people up. Already the rules are quite onerous - I know, I tried doing the accounting for a VERY small disconnected political committee. It's a full-time job just to keep up with the reporting requirements, and it's often used as a tool to crush [real] grassroots opposition, because almost nobody can follow the rules to the letter, and the organization treasurer is personally and criminally liable for failing to deliver reports on time.
The 2-party duopoly is certainly an issue, as Washington warned about. It breaks the balance of power of the executive / legislative / judiciary, because they end up with more loyalty to party than to their branch. But the real issue is the break-down of the Republic, which is designed to vest the greatest authority in the people, then the local government, then state, then Federal which is supposed to have supremacy, but only in very limited, specific powers. State governments are much more responsive to their constituents, and local governments even more so. Unfortunately, the Feds are now exerting police powers (which they were never supposed to have at all), the bureaucracies are heavily armed (from the FBI to the USDA even down to the Department of Education), and the centralization of power is out of control.
Rule of law? Who at the Federal level does anything but laugh at such an idea - it's gone.
I take it you are unfamiliar with the history of coal miner unions? Corporations have used PLENTY of violence. You may want to look up The Battle of Blair Mountain.
Yea, I did... the rebellion was put down by local law enforcement - Logan County deputies - the government.
So this just proves my point. Don't rely on government to protect you, they use violence as the means to their end.
And, let's face it, labor disputes are a really BAD example. Labor unions are certainly guilty of instigating violence in many instances, even today. And since the 1970's, they are almost impossible to prosecute when they do so.
As was previously pointed out, there is nothing in this bill to prevent PAYING FOR Internet services out of tax revenues, only that services can't be arbitrarily made more expensive by local governments, states, and the Federal government itself. There's also nothing preventing municipalities from building networks and Internet services - and they can charge for that service just like anyone else. They just can't charge a service fee AND a tax.
So your rant is based on a false premise.
To use your phrasing, it says we don't want governments shitting on the idea of having Internet access without paying a tax for the privilege.
Government has a monopoly on violence? In theory. In practice....
Legally, the government does have a monopoly on violence. This is the principle of government almost everywhere in the world.
Check the history of opposition to labor rights. Lots of corporate violence there. Corporate behavior overseas has a long and (undertold) storied history of hired thugs, violence and the threat of it all over this planet.
Unions have a history of violence as well. Never heard of the Haymarket Square Massacre of 1886? The Colorado labor war of 1903 and 1904? Most of the claims of employer violence against strikers were actually local police and militia called in. Today, violence by labor unions is cannot be prosecuted by our government, in spite of all the violence perpetrated by labor unions these days. How is that an improvement?
And who will protect your rights from those with more power and money?
Rule of Law. It's worked before...
The government should be a "referee" on the other powerful interests, with power that is derived from the "people".
EVERY "referee" is subject to being influenced. And not by the "people", not when they claim more power than the people ever gave them. People have power in local government and in the market. That's how companies (without legal access to the use of force) are kept in check. Expecting 1 person to make decisions for 700,000 people will rarely mean those 700,000 will be treated equitably.
Wow, maybe if you had been paying attention, you would understand that the reason government is "breaking down" is because of unchecked corporate power.
HA! If you knew any history, you would understand that the reason society is breaking down is because of unchecked government power. Corporations are subject to (and subjected to) swat raids just like everybody else. The only ones safe from that are the ones with ... hmmm... connections with government. Imagine that.
It is in the best interest of multinational corporations to "break down" any barriers in their way to profits at all cost, regardless of human or environmental well being.
Yes. And with unchecked government power they are 1) required to petition government for the ability to operate at all, and 2) find government can provide them with safety from competition, assistance with lowering wages, and money from the treasury. All thanks to a government with too much authority.
Libertarians pretend that everybody can live inside their own little bubble (they can't, society as we know it breaks down, and actors will come in an fill the power vacuum).
No, sorry, but you're just repeating some pop statist talking points about libertarian ideas, you don't understand them at all, and can't even pretend to have tried to find out. Society breaks down under all kinds of governments, that's clear from history. The US was actually based on libertarian ideas from John Locke, and functioned quite well until the Federal government start breaking out of it's chains.
Also, the government is not my mom, and I am not a child. It's this attitude that government is some benevolent parent that has gotten us into this mess.
So being in a facist (or libertarian) oligarchy with no accountability is better than being in a social democracy with many services provided by a government which is accountable?
I was just responding to your false choice of two extremes - which you just doubled down on. I don't even know where you live that's a "social democracy", or even what that's supposed to be. Libertarian ideas are not fascist - that's an idea that Mussolini came up with and drives much of public policy at the federal level today (typically is renamed as something like "public/private partnership". It's entirely the opposite of what libertarians espouse.
Regulations are there for a purpose - for example, the FDA was created to save lives. Over regulation is stifling and encourages rent-seeking behavior, but under-regulation cause us to revert back to the previous, non-desirable state. So we need to find a balance.
Well today the FDA does swat-style raids on food coops and dairy farmers, bans healthy supplements unless a pharmaceutical company can come up with a patent for it (much of the FDA's budget is paid by pharmaceutical companies, BTW). So I think at this point we are WAY out of balance in the wrong direction.
As you said, the current system is breaking down, but not because of the system itself. It's because it hasn't been maintained.
The "system" requires a very strict limit on the authority of the Federal government, spelled out as "enumerated powers" in the Constitution. Those limits have been ignored, perverted, and dismissed, as has the balance of power in the branched, by partisan loyalties. I'm not sure the system can be saved.
No, the government cannot come bulldoze your house on a whim. Calm down. It COULD use emminent domain, possibly... But then, the bank could decide to mess up some paperwork and forclose on your house despite your ability to pay. Frankly, both of these have happened. They're also RARE AS SHIT and cause a shit storm in the news when they DO happen.
Accidental bank foreclosures are rare. Government bulldozing whole neighborhoods - often to hand over to private developers for the sake of "economic development" - is actually quite frequent. In fact, here's a layout of a few for you.
In a "free market", people can still come and bulldoze your house. Who is going to stop them?
Free markets cannot exist in the absence of property rights. So your assertion is non-nonsensical.
And the Republicans were perfectly happy choosing to shut down the government. It wasn't a threat. It was completely real. They shut down the government because they didn't want people to have healthcare.
That's funny, because during that time period, I got a ticket for speeding, a bill from the IRS, taxes were taken out of my pay check every week, and my neighbor's EBT card continued to work to buy groceries. The VA didn't kick my dad out of the hospital.
The country was stripped of its AAA credit rating, was one day away from a credit default,
There's a lot of misinformation here. Especially the "default" myth, when the treasury was taking in many times more money than required for debt service. But the ONE credit agency that lowered the US rating actually stated as the reason that there is too much debt and not enough political will do do anything to address it. Interesting, that was the very issue the shutdown was about. So the credit rating was lowered because the Republicans eventually capitulated, not because they "shut down" the government.
Power concentrated in the hands of organisations such as multi-national corporations (or even less omniscient entities such as car dealership networks) is no better than being in the hands of an autocratic and abusive regime.
That's not necessarily true. For one thing, you're talking about multiple corporations that compete against each other, providing a better balancing of power than a single entity with unlimited power. Also, governments retain a monopoly on violence. So corporations might have a lot of financial power, but they can't put you in jail or kill you like governments can. They generally can't spy on you, either, unless you're using their stuff - not true with government which injects itself into the very infrastructure of all communication channels, which they license and regulate.
If the rule of law is working, maybe government is a better choice. But that is breaking down severely these days.
The basic tenants of good government is to balance this equation in favor of the common good.
Incorrect. Government is a necessary evil. Thus it requires hard limits on its authority.
Things like regulatory capture happen because people don't pay enough attention to their government, not because it is too big.
Vote for guy R - he appoints his friends. Vote for guy D - he appoints his friends. Neither are mine.
Money chases power wherever it is.
That entirely contradicts your first statement.
The idea that small government is a substitute for good governance is a koch dream.
KOCH BROTHEEEEEERRRRRRRRRSSSSSS!!! .... but it is yelling!