NYTimes Editorial Board: The FCC Wants To Let Telecoms Cash In on the Internet (nytimes.com) 268
The New York Times' Editorial Board writes: The chairman of the Federal Communications Commission wants to let Comcast, Verizon and other broadband companies turn the internet into a latter-day version of cable TV, in which they decide what customers can watch and how much they pay for that content. That's essentially what would happen under the proposal by the chairman, Ajit Pai, to abandon the commission's network neutrality rules, which prevent telecom companies from interfering with how their customers use the internet. Net neutrality prevents those companies from having companies like Amazon pay a fee to get their content delivered more quickly than their rivals', and from having the firms throttle other services and websites, even blocking customer access to, say, Netflix or an online newspaper. Under Mr. Pai's proposal, telecom companies would effectively be allowed to sell you a basic internet plan that might include only limited access to Google and email. For Facebook and Twitter you might need a slightly more expensive deluxe plan. The premium plan might include access to Netflix and Amazon. Oh, and by the way, media businesses eager to gain more users could pay broadband companies to be included in their enhanced basic or deluxe plans. Further reading: Associated Press fact check: Net-neutrality claims leave out key context; The death of the Internet.
Worse idea EVER. (Score:5, Interesting)
Do they think Amazon and Google won't start building out their own 'internets'? Do they think that this type of fragmentation and duplication of efforts would be anything but harmful for consumers?
This isn't free market capitalism. This is crony capitalism.
It is racism! Says guy who invented Net Neutrailty (Score:2)
Read their Manifesto: https://www.savetheinternet.co... [savetheinternet.com]
A little background checking shows that SaveTheInternet is a coalition of organizations lead by the Free Press advocacy group whose chair is Tim Wu who invented the phrase "net neutrality." His Wiki page says "Wu ran for the Democratic nomination for Lieutenant Governor of New York against a conservative Democrat." So the top name in this effort is a person very much on the left who is also fighting for his legacy. Now that doesn't mean he isn't necessa
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Do you have to work at being this stupid? Net Neutrality was the reality when Facebook and Google got started. It only got codified into regulations when ISPs like Comcast started breaking it.
Re: Worse idea EVER. (Score:2)
Come to think of it, since Google survives on pointing people to stuff on the free, open Internet, if this kind restriction came to pass, I imagine Google would set up a free proxy to the open Internet. Of course, being Google, they'd want to monitor everything you did through that proxy. They could even set it up that you had to use their browser, and they could set up their browser so they could be a man-in-the-middle, even on secure sites. Google probably loves this plan.
Re:Worse idea EVER. (Score:5, Interesting)
The technology to do real-time deep packet inspection is getting more and more mature. It's possible now for ISPs, if they spend the money, to differentiate P2P, Video, Gaming, VOIP et cetera type traffic in real time using rules more sophisticated than simple IP filters. It is a big investment to install the equipment and software to implement, so the ISPs want to make sure there will be no legal challenges before they start rolling it out any more blatantly.
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We who? You and what army?
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The only important part of Net Neutrality is Free Speech. Neither the republicans nor the democrats seem to feel it's important to focus like a laser beam on that issue.
They'd love to focus, like, a laser beam on Free Speech, both parties. Or any other kind of weapon they can get their hands on.
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and now we have the worst of both worlds - last mile monopolies, and no protection from them.
The U.S. government has become weak and abusive. (Score:5, Insightful)
Another way is to pass a law that says anyone who tries to influence legislation must make all documents public, and must have no personal involvement with lawmakers or their staff.
Don't post hostile comments. (Score:2)
if they want to have to police it.... (Score:5, Interesting)
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Broken record time (Score:2)
I've said it before, and will continue to say it.
If the Internet goes "walled garden" i.e. AOL style unless you pony up more money, I will just go without.
Give me a dumb pipe where I can do what I please, thank you very much.
I still maintain the lawsuits will fly if this gets repealed, tying it up in court for years (and hopefully long enough where there will be a different administration in the WH)
And what to do with VPN users... (Score:2)
So, what will ISP's do with VPN users? I pay $5/mo for mine, and connect through another country. I am effectively able to bypass all of this nickle-and-dime filtering about to happen.
ISP's will therefore need to charge a HUGE premium on VPN users.
This is truly the death of the free internet.
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I would imagine that any traffic Comcast can't identify just gets dumped into a narrow, oversubscribed bandwidth category.
I think one risk Comcast, et al, face if net neutrality goes away is that there will be a lot of attempts to beat their shaping systems. I think Comcast would like extract their extra profit not from consumers but from data providers. It's one thing for Netflix to raise prices $1 / month for subscribers, it's another for Comcast to jack up prices to consumers directly -- that's bad PR
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I would imagine that VPN's everywhere would simply fail to function, unless the VPN you were using was paying a kickback to your ISP to include it in their basic service plan.
It's trivial for an ISP to block any traffic that is not expressly whitelisted based on customer demands. You wouldn't even be able to ping an IP address other than those that your ISP allows to talk to.
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SPX/IPX over MAC Addressed SONET frames?
Bwahahahaha
*doubt it would work but...
Charging three times (Score:4, Informative)
It seems to me that the last-mile providers are trying to charge three time for their service:
First, when you buy internet access you're paying for access at 50/mbps (or whatever speed I want). It seems like this should give you access to the pipe at that speed.
Second, the content providers are paying thousands (millions?) of dollars for their "upload" access. They are contracting with Level 3, or buying their own fiber to provide their content.
And now thirdly, the ISPs want to charge the content providers additional fees to deliver their content (initially, it will be fees for "faster", next it will be fees for "not slowing it down" and finally, the fee will be for "delivery").
The water utility analogy (sorry, no cars), is that if you first bought water from a water supplier (not your local utility), then the local water company charged you for a pipe that could deliver 100 gallons per hour, then the utility charged you for delivering the water that you've bought from the supplier, and finally, the local utility charged the company that supplied the water a fee for delivering it.
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Hmm, your "third" looks a lot like your "first". You're paying for access to the system, and the guys at the other end are paying for their access to the system.
In other words, I fail to see the problem that you have described. Which is not the same as being against Net
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the thing is that the "ISP" (ie comcast, etc...) is not the internet. it's just the end user's connection to the internet. the content providers (netflix etc...) have their OWN ISP which they're already paying. comcast wants the content providers to pay double.
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Second, the content providers are paying thousands (millions?) of dollars for their "upload" access. They are contracting with Level 3, or buying their own fiber to provide their content.
Here's a travel analogy: you want to meet a friend somewhere. You both want to meet far away from your homes. You buy a greyhound bus ticket (expense 1 of your post). He buys a plane ticket (expense 2 of your post).
Neither of those two expenses are unreasonable. However, expense 3 is superfluous. Therefore, it's double charging by the ISPs, but not triple charging.
Netflix is hurting the cable TV business and the cable tv operators want to use Ajit Pai to profit from TV over internet. This is to make up for
New Pricing Structure (Score:5, Funny)
Internet Access: 40.00/Mo @ 500Gb
Modem Rental: $10.00/Mo - Mandatory Use of Modem
Modem Insurance Fee: $1.00/Mo
Extra Computer Fee: $10.00/Mo/PC -Must use our router
NetFlix Fee: $10.00/Mo/client
Social Network Package Fee: $4.00/Mo
Email Fee: $2.00/Mo
VPN Fee:$50.00/Mo
VoIP Fee: $50.00/Mo
Skype Fee: $5.00/Mo
Non-Approved Browser Fee: $5.00/Mo
Non-Approved Application Fee: $4.00/Mo/application
Non-Approved OS Fee: $10.00/Mo
Mandatory AntiVirus Fee: $4.00/Mo
Blocked: Bittorrent, SSH, Non-Approved VPN, Non-Approved OS, Non-Approved Routers, Non-Approved Sites
Early Payment Fee: $1.00
Late Payment Fee: $10.00
Early Termination Fee: $100
Fee Payment Fee: $1.00
Fee Payment Fee Recovery Fee: $1.00
Fee Payment Fee Recovery Fee Surcharge: $1.00
Fee Payment Fee Recovery Fee Surcharge Levy: $1.00
Fee Payment Fee Recovery Fee Surcharge Levy Premium: $1.00
Excess Data Fee: $20.00/Gb
Unused Data Fee: $0.10/Gb
Paper Bill Fee: $1.00/pg
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Disconnect my Internet fee: priceless
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All of this stuff existed before net neutrality. So why haven''t the ISPs been charging for it all along?
It's a shame, because Canada is not (Score:2)
It's really a shame, because Canada is going full Net Neutrality and actually listening to what consumers want, and not the corporate greedheads.
(caveat: I indirectly own shares in many telecom firms, and have worked for them in the past)
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Where ISPs somehow losing money? (Score:2)
Because I'm not seeing it. Data caps have been a thing even on home connections. That obviously took care of any major problems they had. Why change rules around that could be potentially catastrophic?
An alternative view (Score:3)
Thus far, ISPs haven't been given free range to do what they want. While most of us would agree this is a "Good Thing(tm)", the fact that this keeps coming up indicates that some powerful people think otherwise, and we don't really have any counter data to show them other than what we think will happen ( and given the companies involved, it's almost assured that will happen ).
So at this point, given how much the FCC isn't listening to anyone but their corporate sponsors, I'm kinda of the mind to let them do it. Let them give the ISPs free reign, that will generate a TON of data for us to use later. Then, when congress gets involved and enshrines net neutrality in law, we'll know precisely why and be able to point to historical examples.
Given laws are painful to create and pass, while FCC regulations are seemingly easy to overturn, I'm kinda digging the idea of creating a net neutrality law anyway.
free-internet discount (Score:2)
i just hope that companies like netflix will give a discount to those users that predominantly use their service over fair (un-classified) internet connections. this would help to promote fair & local ISPs over the likes of comcast & verizon.
Is this happening around the world right now? (Score:2)
I am sure not every country in the world has net neutrality laws. Are they living this scenario right now? Or does consumer demand ensure availability of unrestricted services?
Re:I Appreciate the NYT Chiming in on This (Score:5, Interesting)
You're confusing toll roads with member-only access to a building.
If NYTimes requires people to pay to view their articles, it's their business.
But without net neutrality, it would give that power to the ISPs and completely fragment and destroy American's internet access.
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I never said such a thing. All they need is to keep ISPs classified as common carriers, otherwise trouble will follow.
http://bigthink.com/design-for... [bigthink.com]
Re:I Appreciate the NYT Chiming in on This (Score:5, Informative)
Prior to the rules being adopted, some two years back, had ISP's actually done this thing you fear?
Yes they had and there is proof. [techhive.com] They didn't charge their subscribers they extorted money from companies wanting to get to their subscribers. "It would be a shame if everyone of our internet subscribers constantly got **buffering** screens when trying to stream content from your site. If you pay us a % of your revenue we'll make sure that doesn't happen."
Re:I Appreciate the NYT Chiming in on This (Score:5, Insightful)
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You can't let every mom and pop ISP tear up the roads. Municipalities give monopoly rights to cable and telco companies because easements on private properties suck. Tearing up the streets sucks and is expensive. The Comcasts and Verizons and AT&Ts get away with this because they CAN. Consumers have no choice. They are not able to choose broadband alternatives. In the glory days of the 90s and the early 00s, we had the Golden Age of DSL, when the telcos were required to lease their lines to ISPS. ISPs p
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If you are tearing up the streets to bury cables, you are doing it wrong... Seriously wrong...
We have things like directional boring machines that allow you to shove cables under the pavement and keeps you from having to dig trenches to bury stuff. Just a couple of hand dug holes every few hundred feet.
Also... If you are a Mom and Pop shop trying to bridge that last mile, then may I suggest you use any number of RF or Laser optical options and not bother burying wires? It's a LOT less expensive than bury
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Um.. No. No ISP wants to tick off their customers like that.
You must not have Comcast.
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Guaranteed he works for Comcast.
Worse... A defense contractor... ;)
Oh, and I used to work for the phone company way back when...
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No.. Never worked for Verizon, though I was a customer at one point.
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That whole episode played out in the court of public opinion exactly how Netflix wanted. But I ask you a serious question. First, has NN gone into effect yet? Nope, it hasn't. So how has this been resolved for Comcast's customers? They ARE watching their Netflix now are they not?
Yes, Netflix is now paying protection money -- Comcast inserted themselves as a middleman, threatening to choke off access. So now, everyone is going to pay more. Comcast customers pay for their Internet access just like they did before the throttling began. Netflix pays for their Internet access, just like their did before the throttling. That's exactly how the Internet worked for a few decades until the ISPs gained trust power. They now have the ability to choke off huge numbers of customers in ways that
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Shesh... This "Big companies make profits = bad" thing is getting old. You do release that both companies make money right?
Comcast is currently trading at about 19 P/E, earning less than $2.00/share and currently pays under $0.70/share in dividends. I'd be willing to bet that YOU benefit from this, directly, if you have any kind of investment. So Big Bad Comcast is owned by people like you and me and are not making obscene profits if you look at the situation on a per share basis.
Netflix doesn't do badly
Re: I Appreciate the NYT Chiming in on This (Score:5, Informative)
When Comcast started charging Netflix for content to be delivered to Netflix customers who already pay both Comcast and Netflix to wat cg Netflix content.
That's what changed. Sips want to charge content providers for delivering content. You want to use Facebook that's extra. You want to use AMAZON over Wal-Mart that's extra for this isp. Want to visit foxnew.com instead of msnbc.com. That's going to cost Comcast customers extra. Comcast owns manic so all of their content doesn't count againistt you. But fox is extra.
That is exactly what Obama prevented. But morons don't seem to realize the difference between content providers and distribution
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Comcast was asking Netflix for more money for their CONNECTION based on data rates (supply side). That seems reasonable to me. Comcast wasn't throttling Netflix packets or routing them differently, but the Netflix traffic was swamping various links in Comcast's network. and Comcast was asking them to connect differently to their network, albeit though a connection purchased from Comcast.
So what you are saying is kind of true, but it's not fully explaining all the facts or what each side was saying. You a
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I've got to say, this sounds like willful ignorance from you.
Netflix pays its ISP for a connection to the Internet backbone.
We pay Comcast for a connection to the Internet backbone.
What bits are on those connections (*should*) have no meaning.
By the logic you're presenting Comcast should be trying to bill Level3 networks for all the traffic coming from their backbone customers, or CloudFlare for all the data they're sourcing into Comcast's network, but they don't. They are attacking Netflix because they co
Re: I Appreciate the NYT Chiming in on This (Score:2)
I fully support net neutrality, but one thing that seems to keep getting lost in discussions about Comcast vs Netflix is that back when Netflix live HD streaming was *new*, Netflix users were consuming *inordinate* amounts of bandwidth relative to "everyone else". On one hand, it was Comcast's fault for overselling their capacity... on the other hand, Netflix was an easy target PRECISELY because it was such a big, easy-to-see target.
The danger isn't that Comcast is going to start charging higher fees for Ne
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you pay comcast for your internet bandwidth. netflix pays its ISP for its internet bandwidth.
now for some reason comcast wants either you of netflix to pay them again? for what?
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but this is just plain false. netflix arranged a more efficient method to get its traffic to comcast, a method that would have been cheaper per bit for both of them. there's no reason for comcast to require additional payment, it just saw that its network wasn't going to be capable to handling the additional bandwidth and wanted to pass the blame/cost onto someone else.
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Wow.
Do you know the internet never would've even happened without the government right?
CompuServe, Delpha, Genie -- LOTS of companies were offering "internet-like" services back in the 80s. Want to know where they all are? In the garbage.
Capitalism...the premise of everything "good" only happens via competition (and w/o the Government) -- never could develop the internet. The technology was all there - but let's face it - no Bo
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Ah yes, "toll lanes." The lanes whose very existence slows down the rest of the freeway so that some other folks can pay to go faster.
Meanwhile, folks who don't pay find that they're closing slower, and that's the beauty of it it: Make a situation worse so that someone will be willing to also pay you to make it better. That's what you get in a society when the almighty dollar is valued higher than anything else.
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Under the worst-case scenario should the Net Neutrality rules go away, I'd still be paying for internet access, but I'd be limited to whatever Spectrum feels like is included in their "basic package".
Worst case scenario: Spectrum demands your first born child for ANY access to the Internet, and if you even try to visit a site on the unapproved list they come burn your house down and kill your wife. Beware those embedded links on random web pages, they could cost you more than you know.
If you are going to imagine "worst case scenarios", you should try a little harder. You're not even scratching the imaginary world that could be created here. Go wild! Hyperbole doesn't work if it isn't patently ridiculo
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A la carte cable channels isn't the same thing. Look, through my apartment building, I get basic cable (however that's defined). That gives me a bunch of channels, many of which, I never watch. I pay a little extra for some more channels, but I'm not paying just for those extra three or four channels that I watch. I'm paying for a bundle of channels that include those three or four.
PEople never really wanted a la carte cable channels either. They just wanted specific shows, but the way cable worked that wasn't technologically feasible. It's now technologically feasible for every "channel," (netflix, amazon, etc) to have every show, all the time, but the content companies don't want that either.
Oh well.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Glad I got on about '92-'93 while it was still a bit of the old "wild west" and anything went.
I guess you couldn't expect it to last forever...it caught the govt types off guard and it took a long time for them to catch up to it.
I guess they'll be happy letting the corporate world do what they really never seemed to be able to do and kill it for the masses.
Re:Oh well.... (Score:5, Insightful)
No, the government (in the form of a Republican Congress decades ago) made a deliberate decision not to let the government regulate the Internet.
That lasted until the Obama administration finally found a way around the laws (after losing several court cases) by reclassifying Internet access under Title II so they could start regulating it.
You're conflating regulating the internet (ie, the content and services on the internet) with regulating internet service providers (ie, the effective monopolies that give access to the internet).
Now we're just talking about repealing that and returning it closer to the "wild west" you remember so fondly.
No, we're not. We're giving the ISPs the ability to regulate content. That is exactly the opposite of the "wild west" approach.
Somehow we never had any irresolvable issues in the decades before the FCC had Title II authority to regulate the Internet, but after only a couple of years of validity (and use mostly to investigate charges of free Facebook access for people) repealing it is suddenly all going to doom the Internet forever.
You don't think that the consolidation that's occurred since then has changed the landscape at all? You don't think the reports that we're seeing about the type of plan seen in TFA have any weight behind them?
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He sees it. He's just hoping desperately to confuse anyone new to the conversation. Probably he's being paid to do it, too.
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Re: Oh well.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Donâ(TM)t you remember Comcast throttling all upstream BitTorrent traffic and then lying about it to their customers when they got caught? That wasnâ(TM)t a problem?
Re:Oh well.... (Score:5, Informative)
As far as I can see AT&T did exactly what they say they won't do now, in 2012.
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I did so love my dial-up internet.
You still out there, toad.net ?
Re:Oh well.... (Score:5, Insightful)
And Net Neutrality laws were passed in response to ISPs beginning to implement censorship and "cost maximizing" shenanigans. Do you really think they'd pay to have the laws repealed if they didn't plan to resume (and expand) their exploitation?
Re:Oh well.... (Score:5, Insightful)
It is interesting to reflect that we just lived through the Internet equivalent of the swinging sixities "where anything goes". Future generations will have Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Netflix and the MSM and that will be it for the Internet, all the rest, including this site will be history.
Fascinating how capitalism fucks everything just as assuredly as totalitarianism.
Re:Oh well.... (Score:5, Informative)
Hey, we've given capitalism a fair shake all over the world, and *every time* the same sorts of problems arise, the only variation is in how aggressively anti-capitalistic sentiment fights back.
Contrast with communism, which has never actually been tried at the national scale, and yet gets blackwashed with the abuses of the authoritarians that rose to power fraudulently claiming the banner.
Capitalism at least earned virtually every black mark against it on its own merits.
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Commuting to work faster than light also hasn't been tried - maybe that gets rid of all sexual harassment at the workplace. Imaginary things are great.
Elves, dwarves, hobbits are all imaginary and all can be said to have handled the Rings of Power better than humans at various times. Incidentally, humans are real. I know, reality is pesky.
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You certainly can't point to the US as an example, any more than you can point to the USSR as an exemplar of Communism.
Why not? The robber barons were exemplary capitalists, weren't they? In contrast to that, there had never been exemplary communism in the USSR (money wasn't abolished, state wasn't abolished, etc.)
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Giving monopolistic ISPs with strong lobby absolute power over the internet. What could possibly go wrong?
Hey Pai! Seems like you already have a TRUMP armband for the fourth Reich. But you may want to lighten up your skin a few tones if your going to be hanging out with that crowd. Wouldn't want them to think you were hispanic or a muslim terrorist now would you? They don't have the best judgment, and you wouldn't want to jeopardize your well-bribed ass.
Re:They should have done it right the first time (Score:5, Insightful)
When Obama decreed Net Neutrality he of course fucked it up. Instead of getting new laws passed, he simply had the FCC implement rules treating them like Common Carriers.
Instead of getting new laws passed? How exactly was he supposed to do that with a congress that stated in no uncertain terms - and backed it up with their actions - that they would not work with him on anything? Stop pretending that this is a bipartisan fuck up. It's not. One party, and one party alone, has been pushing for the end of Net Neutrality, and now that that party has full control of congress and the white house, guess what we got? Hint: it's not new laws to preserve Net Neutrality.
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Something needed to be done to protect the people. People are bad at realizing how bad things can get unless they see it. People need n
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Do you realize it's perfectly possible to approve of someone's specific actions without approving of the person or the rest of their actions?
Of course. This doesn't really have anything to do with who did it. The only "person" issue here is that if one person who is President can do it, then the next one who is President can undo it the same way. I think there's a saying for that: "sauce for the goose". That seems to upset some people (who have mod points today), but it's a fact.
That you can approve of something that someone did because something needed to be done, even though it wasn't the best way to go about it?
No, sorry, but the ends do not justify the means. especially when we are talking about the government. Assuming that "something must be done" justifies bypassing the cor
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That's right frogs get ready for the slow boil.
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Apparently your definition of right reasons is different than mine. My right reasons don't involve internment camps
He didn't say that the right reasons were internment camps. The "right reasons" were protecting against Japanese invasion, and protecting against foreign infiltration and sabotage during wartime. The internment camps were an abhorrent means to get a reasonable end. The camps were not the goal, they were not put into place because jailing Japanese Americans is fun. It was a horrible means to gaining security from Japanese sabotage and attacks, and as the GP stated, the ends do not justify the means.
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The people in power are supposed to make that decision based upon the needs/will of the people.
This justification leads to the tyranny of the majority. If the "needs/will of the people" say that we do something that the Constitution says is not an authorized privilege of government, then the "needs/will of the people" will just have to go lacking, and the government official has no authority to do it. If the Congress crafts laws that say one thing, it is not up to the "people in power" to decide they'll do something different because obviously, they're doing it "for the right reason".
Compare this t
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How would that have helped? In a democratic society you can reverse whatever you want. Obama passed healthcare with a law, and that is on its way to being dismantled. It is only a question of how complicated it is to reverse the steps. Give congress and the president enough power, and they can ruin anything they want.
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Prior to that, the telecom companies could have done all those things -- but they didn't.
Yes. Yes they did. [arstechnica.com]
Re:More NYT Lies (Score:4, Insightful)
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AT&T blocked access to Apple's FaceTime for customers on their unlimited cellular data plan in 2012.
Is AT&T STILL blocking FaceTime?
No?
They stopped the blocking without the FCC regulating them?
Huh. How about that.
Are you being willfully ignorant, or are you the regular kind of stupid?
Right back at you.
If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it. -- Ronald Reagan
Strat
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If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it. -- Ronald Reagan
I hope everyone realizes that this quote was one of many from Reagan describing what's wrong with government.
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They have bigger problems...such as selling something called, "unlimited" while limiting it in several ways.
Blocking FaceTime is only one of the things they did to keep from blowing up their network.
Big entity controlling (Score:5, Insightful)
If you want a free and open internet, the very, very LAST thing anyone should desire is government regulation. The internet has been as free and open as it's been so far precisely *because* there has been no government regulation
To be more precise, you do not want under the control of *ANY* bit entity.
Be it governments, or be it huge corporation.
And here liese the problem...
If it's so terrible, why hasn't all those bad things already happened?
...because it took some time for the big corporation to be big enough and vertically integrated to be able to pull off easily the kind of shit that forced the creation of net neutrality regulations.
There's a difference between what was once just a bunch of universities communicating with each other on equal grounds, and a huge corporation basically having a monopoly on internet over a whole region and deciding what every one will be able to see or not.
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There's a difference between what was once just a bunch of universities communicating with each other on equal grounds, and a huge corporation basically having a monopoly on internet over a whole region and deciding what every one will be able to see or not.
Except the timeline says otherwise, as Tom Wheeler and the Obama administration didn't place the internet under Title II until 2015.
I don't think those companies suddenly became giants in the last two years.
Your logic fails.
My position stands.
Strat
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At that point there was no other way to regain regulatory authority
We don't WANT the internet "regulated" by the FCC under Title II as Title II comes with a boatload of additional regulations, like CALEA compliance.
Let them fight it out in the courts one case at a time under FTC general trade rules and regulations. Allow the markets to decide.
This is simply a government attempt to control what you can see and read and who can say what on the internet along with gaining the ability to legally mandate the ability for LEAs/TLAs to spy on whoever they wish without an individua
Re:Big entity controlling (Score:4, Insightful)
At that point there was no other way to regain regulatory authority
We don't WANT the internet "regulated" by the FCC under Title II as Title II comes with a boatload of additional regulations, like CALEA compliance.
Yes we do!
Let them fight it out in the courts one case at a time under FTC general trade rules and regulations.
I prefer my taxes be put to better use then paying lawyers in unecesssary lawsuits
Allow the markets to decide.
That assumes competition. Unfortunately there is no competition. DSL is far too slow to be real competition. Most of the U.S doesn't have a serious alternative to the cable company franchised in their town
This is simply a government attempt to control what you can see and read and who can say what on the internet along with gaining the ability to legally mandate the ability for LEAs/TLAs to spy on whoever they wish without an individual warrant.
It's government tyranny writ large.
You are either ignorant or in favor of authoritarianism when it supports "your side".
Strat
Wrong! This was the FCC using its authority given to it by law, to prevent Corporations from abusing their power to the detriment of a service you are paying for
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Let them fight it out in the courts one case at a time under FTC general trade rules and regulations. Allow the markets to decide.
ATT is already doing that in such a way as to kill the FTCs ability to regulate... (and won the first case). Once the appeal fails and the FTC loses the power to regulate while the FCC abdicates its power the duopolies are going to destroy the remaining ability to a free Internet in the US.
On the bright side municipalities may be able to make their own last mile connections, as there won't be an FCC/FTC to rule against them.
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Brother, your efforts are valiant, but I'm sad to say I'm starting to think it's a lost cause around here. Look at every single comment that's modded up in this thread. The progs picked a theme -- "they're tekkin' away muh INTERWEBZ" -- and succeeded in getting the vast majority of people (even the ones around here, a lot of whom have enough brain cells to know better) to buy into it to the point where anything anyone says that suggest their might be another perspective feeds right into that paranoia. It
Private land control : make your own North Korea ! (Score:2)
Net neutrality being allowed to exist is no different than if I were to buy 10k acres of land and I built a system of private roads across that land
and then the government came and told me who was allowed to drive on my private roads, on my private land and in what manner, causing
damage, etc, to my business, to my property and told me that I wasn't allowed to prevent it from happening.
NOTE: for your metaphore to work and actually precisely describe the situation, the 10k acres of land need to be not continuous, but all the free space between the private houses of private home owner that where here before you came.
(i.e.: you only own the land where you build your network of private roads. The people living here aren't living on your privately owned land, they own their own land).
Nice metaphor you have here, because when you look into the details it breaks in the exact same way that anti-n
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Because regulation is the opposite of freedom, right? The freedom to form a monopoly, the freedom to pollute without repercussions, the freedom of banks to set their own leverage ratios, etc. Is that really the world you want?
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Why is it that such "right" ideas are shouted down with accusations of "Russian medaling" now days? LOL...
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The way you ensure a free and open internet is NOT to regulate it, it's to let companies do what they want, and then let people decide what they want to buy.
The only problem is the monopoly bit.
Nice to say "let people decide what they want to buy" but the reality is that I only have one choice for ISP so I have to buy what it offers at the price it dictates.
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You mean like how they crafted NN to be what they wanted with the previous FCC commissioners?
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Last we checked, supermarkets, clothing stores don't have monopolies. What is it you do not get about monopolies, or industries with a few colluding providers?
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Well, and where ISPs have monopolies, they are largely due to government.
The idiotic idea of the day?
If you want to get rid of those monopolies get rid of those monopolies
Like link every house to four more sets of wires and pipes in addition to the existing one? Sure, we'll get right onto it!
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Quick, we need some "store neutrality"!
They're called company stores, and we did need to outlaw them because of their abuses of citizens. The idea was that the company wouldn't pay you in currency, but in script only redeemable at its own store. So we made laws in the 1930's make it illegal to make base pay be in something besides common currency.
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yeah, maybe those "good old" lans, and IPX, make a comeback too ;)