Our old friends at the FCC have started to
put words into action, as the net neutrality regulations
proposed by Chairman Julius Genachowski have now entered the rule-drafting stage. The provision of most import here is that broadband providers would be forbidden from
traffic discrimination or
"management," and compelled to provide equal access and services to their users, irrespective of the type or bandwidth uptake of their internet activity. Of course, this is
hardly a bumpless road, with Senator John McCain proposing the Internet Freedom Act of 2009, whose sole reason for existing will be to prevent the FCC from putting those rules through. Even if things do go smoothly, though, "reasonable network management" will still be an available recourse for telecoms, where it is necessary to block spam and illegal content, such as child pornography. Which sounds kinda like censorship to us. Look, we have no more interest in child porn than we do a pair of
Lady Gaga Heartbeats, but any time we hear of internet providers having either the right
or responsibility to block content, we get an uneasy feeling in the pit of our libertarian stomachs. Anyhow, the great big gears of regulation have finally started turning, and we can look forward to more political wrangling as the rules take shape over the coming months.
posted October 23rd 2009 6:45AM
Andir,
Good point. The lawful content is subject to interpretation. I would be in favor of allowing "any content or any traffic" being allowed (true neutrality). I don't think the ISP should be responsible for filtering illegal content, but I don't know who should be responsible for detecting illegal activity nor how they would do it - if it should even be done.
"I don't know who should be responsible for detecting illegal activity nor how they would do it"
The content owner. If they find a person illegally sharing their content, they take the person to a court (hopefully of their peers) and let the Judicial system check the law. That's what it's there for.
Get calling! It seriously makes a difference. Even better; write a snail mail:
Must get into the daily habit of taking 5 min to make 4 brief calls: Pres (202-456-1414), Congress (202-224-3121), Senators (202-224-3121).
Wow... You halfwits supporting the FCC are preposterous. It's almost not even worth arguing with you, because you're so ingrained with the idea that Government is looking out for your overall well-being and best interests. I find that notion absolutely hysterical.
Do you forget that the courts overturned the FCC regulation on monopolies for cable operators? Thus, Comcast is now able to hold a monopoly in the market without fear.
Do you not realize that the FCC Czar under the Obama administration is a proponent for Hugo Chavez's movement on media and news? Chavez owns the Venezuelan media and thus, controls the news. Is that something you really want to get behind? It's pure socialism... which this administration is all about.
If you think Net Neutrality is anything being done to benefit the US population, you're sorely being mislead by companies like Google, who have everything to gain from this administration's crap... It's funny that Google has decided to start filtering FOX News content, since the new administration has decided to declare war on them. Tried this yesterday... try it for yourself: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2009/10/obama_effect_already_working_t.html
Don't be a sheep... stop watching the failing news sites who only prop up the Obama administration, and start watching/reading some objective, real news. And if you don't believe the stuff coming out of Fox, then ask yourself this: Why did Van Jones resign? Why is ACORN now under Federal investigation? Why did Tom Daschle resign? Here's a hint... it wasn't because of what any of the other "news" organizations were doing. Also, WHY would Obama declare war on a news organization? Because it's the only one with objective journalistic integrity? They're the only ones questioning things? You're goddamn right that's why.
A people that does not question government is not free, but are enslaved sheep.
Net Neutrality is nothing more than the already large government's movement into controlling more aspects of your "free" life. If this passes, get ready for more regulations, more "fair and balanced" content, an infringement on your basic constitutional rights of free speech, and overall control. This is a jump into the Euro-Asia-Banana Republic realm of socialism.
Someone here finally gets it.
We cant trust the government (only when its democratic). You know, we should have privatized the army too when we had the chance.
Oops, Dickhead Cheny already did that with Haliburton and PMC's (and probably made millions in the bargain). :)
The only thing Kevin "gets" is paranoid delusion. Seriously, anyone who believes that America---by *far* the most conservative democratic nation on the planet---is in any risk of being turned into a socialist state needs their head examined.
Wait, so is Google restricting your access to news stories, or are the news stories not even being created? I'm a bit confused after reading that wonderfully unbiased blog on that middle-of-the-road, straight-shooting, honest, fair, and balanced site.
Where the fuck were you people after the Patriot Act was passed?
Where the fuck were you people in 2003 before we invaded Iraq?
Where the fuck were you people when journalists were being PAID to write positive stories about the executive branch?
Where the fuck were you people when US Attorneys were being fired for not attacking the administration's political opponents?
Where the fuck were you people when tax cuts and war spending destroyed a budget surplus and plunged us into a fiscal nightmare?
Forgive me if I find your concern over our liberties a bit disingenuous at this late hour.
Forrest,
All I saw was a fat woman's pic with a caption saying "1 rule to a flat stomach:Obey"..ummmmm...Thinker Blog indeed.. LOL
Okay, @Tacitus, maybe Kevin is a bit paranoid. But I think the move for net neutrality is another incremental step in placing the government in control of more and more aspects of our lives, and of private industry. At no other time in our time has our government been in direct or indirect control of such a large portion of the GDP. For some people, this is a scary prospect.
From health care to car companies to the bank down the street - the government seems to be more and more pervasive in everyday life. We, of course, could argue all night over the reason why and who's fault it. It started many, many years ago - continued with the PATRIOT Act, and other intrusions - and continues to present.
But at the end of the day maybe this isn't just about net neutrality, but more about a disguised battle between two diametrically opposed philosophies on the proper role of government in our society.
Forrest, activism doesn't work overnight. People WERE complaining about it then and were being washed out by the media as crazy people.
Amen on all the where the fuck questions! Where was your freedom loving ass back then!?
Keep attacking with buffoonery, because that's all your arguments are. Did I say anything about being Republican? No. Did I even say I was conservative? No... but I am. The Republicans are just as bad as the Democrats... who passed the first stimulus bill, TARP, didn't build a wall to fight illegal immigration when they had a chance, passed the Patriot Act, etc? Yeah... I get it, they screwed up, too. You think it's a good thing that they're still screwing up?
Get your head out of your ass and take a look around. The GOVERNMENT (Read: Democrats/Republicans in office RIGHT NOW are in it for themselves, the power, the money, etc... they're not working for YOU anymore. - Time to WAKE UP you party-bashing fools). It's not about "party" it's about your freedom/liberty and your country going the way of socialist extremism (aka the "progressive movement").
Actually Mav, we did, at one point have a privatized army... it was called the militia. Remember reading about the Revolutionary War, or were you not taught that in your liberally written history classes?
Also funny is the fact that Cheney wasn't even associated with Haliburton when we went to war. He headed the corporation well before taking office as VP in the White House, thus he would not have benefited from any dealings with them and there was no real conflict of interest... though, you'd actually have to look that up to find out. You get that tidbit of info from one of your intellectual friends at Wikipedia or The Daily Kos?
If you want to look at conflict of interests... why don't we talk about the relationship between Al Gore and the green movement, his government dealings and his stock holdings/investments in various green-energy corporations? Further, let's look into GE's relationship with the Obama administration, with Jeffrey Immelt at the helm as one of his chief economic advisers? What does GE do to benefit from such a relationship? Well, let's see... they own energy companies w/ "smart grid" technologies, green-energy production plants, create/sell green electronics & appliances, etc. What else does GE own? Oh, that's right... NBC/MSNBC/CNBC/Universal. Coincidence that NBC is such a green energy/movement pusher? Any coincidence as to why they're not overly (or at all) critical of the Obama administration?
Give me a fricking break and start doing some of this research yourselves... I'm sick of re-educating the kool-aid drinkers of this country who will never get it, because they're too blind to see past their own biases.
I seriously don't think you guys know what socialism, marxism, communism or fascism really is... go look it up. Then take a look at what this country is doing, and where it's headed.
"objective journalistic integrity" Are you f'in kidding me!?!?! Your post lost all credibility when you defended Fox. Trust me, if McCain won Fox wouldnt be questioning anything, since they only seem to be "OBJECTIVE" to one side of the political spectrum. Try presenting a negative fact on Ronald Reagan to Hannity and see how "OBJECTIVE" he is. Try showing Bill O' some facts on police brutality and discrimination and see how "OBJECTIVE" he is. Show Glenn Beck the definition of "OBJECTIVE" and see if his overly-dramatic little head doesnt explode... :shakes head:
"Keep attacking with buffoonery,"
What else should I attack buffoonery with?? With Intelligent, rational comment??? Nah..Its an eye for an eye :)
@lkw -- if you had lived in Britain before the 1980s, you would know that all this whining about "socialism" and the government taking over everything is a joke. When I was a kid, the government owned the coal mines, water and electric utilities, the railways, the buses, the airlines, the airports, on and on and on. Here? Obama took over a couple of car companies to prevent then from going out of business *and* is *already* setting things up so they will be placed back in private hands within the next 12 - 24 months.
That's socialism? You take a pie chart of publicly owned vs privately owned businesses in the States, and the government-owned part is just a thin line -- less than 1%. So whether it's conservative or libertarian paranoia, it's still paranoia. Nowhere in the world is private industry as powerful and unfettered as here in the US -- often to the great detriment of regular citizens. Equating putting a few extra regulations in place or bailing out a couple of companies with full-blown the-end-of-civilization-as-we-know-it hysteria is a joke. Nothing more, nothing less.
"publicly owned vs privately owned"
I think you mean government owned vs privately owned. Technically a corporation is a publicly owned company where a majority of the shares are held internally, but you can have completely public companies without government intervention. When someone incorporates their business they open it up to public ownership while keeping a number of shares for themselves in order to increase revenue through stock offerings.
Also, I've seen two charts. One was a number of companies with government involvement and another compared some arbitrary dollar amount. The dollar amount chart (not sure if it was revenue, gross income, or profit) was less than 1% but the total count was somewhere around 30%. Both charts I'm sure were played with to portray their agenda, but I don't believe it's less than 1%.
Tacitus: Your ignorance towards reality is bewildering. Britain tried the whole nationalized car industry before and that failed, or don't you remember? Britain also has some of the more strict rules regarding free speech/expression/gun control/health care, etc, and some of the highest taxes in Europe. You're also in the same boat as we are... in terms of the economy.
You fail to mention the government's hand in Fanny Mae/Freddie Mac, the control of salaries and bonuses in several corporate banks, and the recently spoken points that the Pay Czar is considering limiting salaries of 28 other financial corporations that did NOT receive bailout money. You've already mentioned the bailout and takeover of GM, where the CEO (who wasn't taking a salary) was forced out by the Obama Administration (before the takeover). You forget the government's hand in Dodge/Chrysler, as well.
You're also not looking toward the future or who's running the government... and what they want. GE is already in bed with the Obama administration, so you've already got a facet of the media under their wing. Now you have Obama and his lackeys attacking Fox News, trying to discredit them as a news organization, merely b/c they've been reporting facts that show them in a different light.
The FCC Czar thinks de-privatizing the media and controlling news is an excellent strategy.
You have the Obama administration fervently attacking health insurance companies, big businesses, and disagreeable (but real) medical doctors and trying to pass (without listening to the majority of the American people) a health care bill, which will place medical care under control of the government.
Please... stop me when you can discredit the idea of socialism playing a role in any of this...
How about regulations on credit card and mortgage/loan corporations?
I'm sorry... does any of this ring any bells?
If you don't want to stop there, we can talk about Cap & Trade coming through the pipe. That's already influencing the way many companies are running and putting quite a few out of business as it is. When that hits the lime light, the shit's going to hit the fan.
This is why it's impossible to argue with any of you guys... because facts are indisputable, but you never get the facts... you get bullshit spewed by the white house and leg-tingling commentators who are so infatuated with Obama, they can't get passed his shiny exterior.
Use google to look up any of these issues/facts... if you're not too f'ing lazy.
"Where the fuck were you people when tax cuts and war spending destroyed a budget surplus and plunged us into a fiscal nightmare?"
@Forrest, I hope you're kidding. I tried to stay away from the partisan vitriol, but the Obama Administration has spent more in 10 months than the entire price tag for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. George W. Bush sucked and spent way too much money, but we are now looking at a $14+ trillion dollar debt. That's TRILLION, 14,000,000,000,000.00. And that's not even included the costs of possible health care reform coming quickly down the pike.
Who are you going to blame a couple of years from now?
National debt on 9/30/2000: 5,674,178,209,886.86
National debt on 9/30/2008: 10,024,724,896,912.49
That's a 77% increase in debt in 8 years.
Source: http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/histdebt/histdebt_histo5.htm
Current national debt as of 23 Oct 2009 at 04:51:47 PM GMT
$11,955,422,209,196.24
Source: http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/
That total includes debt as a result of TARP funds, which were approved by the Bush administration.
If Congress enacts (or enacted, not sure if it has already been approved) the FY2009 Supplemental request as proposed, total war funding would be $935,000,000,000 (which would coincidentally pay for proposed health insurance reforms for the next 10 years)
Current health care plans are all deficit neutral.
The current administration has been by no means fiscally conservative, but at least they have spent money trying to reverse a recession instead of causing one. Deficit spending during a recession can help to blunt its effects. What did deficit spending during the Bush years get us?
Whoa, who let you guys publish an article that mentions child pornography? And not only that but a less intelligent person could read those lines as support for the distribution of child pornography. Surely whoever wrote or edited this article should have tried to change that example to say something like illegal music downloads or something less disgusting.
Can the CRTC take note?
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/technology/big-internet-carriers-win-right-to-manage-traffic/article1332984/
MCCain is an idiot. These cable company's already charge way too much for shoddy service (you hear me TWC?) and now MCCain thinks it is ok for them to gauge us on internet pricing now? WTF? Why is that ok? We the people lose in this deal and the fat cats at the cable company on ISP's win. Gee thanks, I like paying more money and getting nothing out of it. If the FCC does not regulate they will continue to raise prices as digital content explodes exponentially and charge you for every little overage. I hoped you all enjoyed hulu because it will cease to be free if MCCain has his way. Does he even know what the internet is???
Yes McCain knows what the internet is. The corporate lobbyists explained it all to him when they presented their pre-drafted legislation for him to introduce... /sarcasm
Ah, the evil corporate lobbyists talk, again.
Perhaps President Obama's FCC is thanking Google's CEO Eric Schmidt for his strong public support, political contributions, and work as an economic adviser?
Oh let me guess, it's George W. Bush's fault.
shhhhh.. Its actually Brooke and Mark who drafted the legislation. McCain is busy trying to get his daughter's blog on his windows.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/uselection2008/johnmccain/2403704/John-McCain-technology-illiterate-doesnt-email-or-use-internet.html
My favorite quote - "You don't necessarily have to use a computer to understand how it shapes the country."
LOL.. Yet he find it necessary to legislate a law shaping the internet without ever using a computer?
Its ironic how the internet enables this article to be downloaded down the dumb pipe years later... and bite someone's ass :)
@IKW, look beyond your own political persuasions and realize they are all corrupt bastards that are in it for themselves. Basically the American people are fucked. These politician don't give a damned about whats best for you or me no matter what party they belong to. We lost any say we had in out government a long time ago. I go out and vote and it never makes a difference for the better. I always get fucked in the end. The only winners are big business, the politician themselves and the government. All the people get are empty promises and shafted when policy is drafted and legislation passed.
And to think I voted for him… =/
I have mixed feelings about Net Neutrality. On the one hand, I feel like implementing it eliminates the possibility of carriers abusing the power and acting like gate-keepers. If all data is treated equally, then no one gets shafted simply because they don't meet the interests of the gate-keeper (whatever those interests are). The internet's ability to level the playing field between big players and little players is of great interest to me.
On the other hand, I'm a believer in a free-market system. I feel like if providers implemented controls on certain things, inevitably the market would shift and give favor to the one who was least restrictive. The restrictors would see a drop in market and adjust - the trouble there is that the market is limited to a handful of providers. Entry into the market is exceptionally difficult, so competition is not quickly or easily generated. To force providers to do a particular service violates the principle of allowing a business to do as it chooses. I think in order to impose Net Neutrality, internet access would really have to become a utility... and that has it's own problems.
That Glenn Beck clip someone linked has left bile in my mouth.
McCain doesn't even use a cpu!!!
Everyone that has commented on this seems to believe that "net neutrality". The difference is who you trust and who you fear with regard to keeping the internet open. ISP's like comcast couldn't care less if you are a republican, democrat or independent. While the federal government doesn't care whether you buy movies with netflix or on-demand. My concern is that the FCC could (and probably will) exert much more control over the internet than any group of ISP's will even attempt. I do not believe that the current bill from the democrats is a fair minded view of net neutrality and arguably the republican bill might not be either. With that in mind the status quo is far better than either new alternative.
I agree. (That's pretty much what I've argued, I hope.)
If all that is in net netrality is "that broadband providers would be forbidden from traffic discrimination or "management," " then I'm for it but some are reporting that the cause is being used to justify sneaking in actual controls by the government on Internet access. Similar to the fairness doctrine that was applied to radio.
If it was really just "that broadband providers would be forbidden from traffic discrimination or "management," " then I don't have a problem with it but I really think the ones who have taken over the Net Neutrality movement are using it for alternative purposes.
http://raymondpronk.wordpress.com/2009/10/20/progressive-radical-socialists-full-frontal-assault-on-free-speech-with-network-neutrality-government-regulation-and-hostile-takeover-and-of-the-internet/
Andir3.0 @ Oct 23rd 2009 4:20PM
I agree. (That's pretty much what I've argued, I hope.)
Yep we agree. You have been getting bogged down answering the many flame posts, so the point gets obscured. Keep fighting the good fight.
Dear old Man,
You just learned what the internet was stop speaking for the lobbyists and still to what you know, 8 tracks.
Sincerely,
America
All,
Can someone help explain a couple points to me. I'm not very clear on some of them. Do the telcom's have more to lose than ISP's in this "battle"? It seems that the telcom backbone almost seems to be at stake with the content provider's allying the government hand for themselves.
Also, Is there any evidence at all that the telcom's are discriminating? not in theory, but in actual practice. It seems like they are trying to create smoke and fire where there is none.
Again, I'm not very knowledgable about this whole subject.
Yes, there have been a few examples of ISP's blocking or throttling content, the most recent famous one is Comcast's blocking file sharing traffic: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21376597/ .
There also have been examples of telecoms blocking Internet phone software (like Vonage or Skype) and certain protest sites, but I'd have to dig for some links.
And some of the big players are owned by entertainment industry content creators, and now that such a substantial amount of the population has internet at decent speeds they are in fact themselves talking about streaming video, and preferencing those packages, and they have also been proposing charging others (companies) for sending through content with preference, so yeah, apart from the slowing down they do already against people sharing files, they have definitely shown they have interest in messing things up for more direct economic reasons.
It also has to do with the technology to do so easily being available of course, once they could do stateful inspection of massive backbones the misuse for economic or political reasons was/is almost inevitable.
The US government is proposing broad new regulations for telecommunications and cable internet service providers.
The new proposals appear to target specific providers for regulation and government oversight. Specifically, Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey has proposed the Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2009, or the “Net Neutrality” bill, outlining government policies to impose new governance and restrictions targeting telecommunications and cable providers AT&T, Verizon, Time Warner and Comcast.
The proposed is based on the unfounded fear that service providers will “control who can and cannot offer content, services and applications over the Internet utilizing such networks.”
The Markey bill indicates the vast majority of consumers receive services from only one or two dominant internet service providers. And, the bill says the national economy could be harmed “if” these providers interfered with access to internet applications.
The bill proposes regulations imposing equal treatment (eg price/performance) of all internet traffic and content, regardless of content type and delivery costs. Specifically, the legislation proposes internet service providers could not sell prioritized internet applications or services.
One of the main problems with the proposed legislation is the lack of recognition of costs to provide internet services. Some applications, such as video are bandwidth hogs and require significantly greater network infrastructure and associated costs to deliver when compared to the network infrastructure costs to deliver email access. Under the proposed legislation, services providers would have to charge the low bandwidth users (casual browsers and email readers) more to offset for the higher costs of the video users. One result of the proposed legislation would be less consumer choice and a hidden “bandwidth hog tax”. Today, most service providers offer tiered products and pricing to consumers and businesses to account for the additional costs to deliver bandwidth intensive applications. You pay more if you use more under the tiered pricing model. These are not “discriminatory” practices. Rather, tiered pricing and application prioritization are sound business models delivering reliable, profitable product choices and unburdened internet ecommerce. Consumers and businesses currently have choices. The proposed legislation takes away choice and increases costs to consumers and businesses.
Another problem with the legislation is, certain applications such as voice and video over the internet require prioritization and special treatment to work properly. The proposed legislation makes existing application prioritization products and networking practices illegal. Internet service providers would have to dismantle these services to make all internet applications “equal” with no prioritization schema. The new legislation would kill off reliable voice and video over the internet as we know it.
The other problem with the Net Neutrality legislation is anti-trust and federal trade regulations are already in place to protect consumers and business from monopolistic practices and unfair trade. For example, when AT&T disconnected MCI customers in 1974, MCI filed and won a successful anti-trust lawsuit resulting in breakup of the AT&T monopoly. Another example is, the Federal Trade Commission recently investigated possible antitrust violations caused by the Apple and Google sharing two board directors. Arthur Levinson has since stepped down from both Apple and Google boards.
The US government would better use taxpayer dollars and valuable legislation time by asking two questions:
Which companies are hiring lobbyists and launching advertising campaigns promoting Net Neutrality legislation?
What is their agenda?
Net Neutrality legislation is not needed. Consumers would have less choice and higher costs. Internet service providers would incur additional costs and compliance overhead. Taxpayers would pay higher taxes to create and support additional government oversight organizations.
What business and consumers need is effective interpretation, oversight and enforcement of existing laws and regulations.
Disclosure – Joe Tighe has no paid relationships, products or endorsements from any company, political or government organization cited in this article.
Kinda makes me with the last Presidential election was concluded in a Thunderdome. The outcome would've been the same, only, I wouldn't be reading about this right now.