Internet nutrality

[soloNH]

I havn't seen this posted here so here goes.

 

The U.S. Senate is going to vote on a bill to decide if the internet should remain free or should communications companys be allowed to charge fees to allow certain links to connect faster than others that do not pay up. This is called "Net Nutrality"

 

This bill would only allow these companies to make more profit and serve no one but them.

 

These are bills that sort of slide through and then can not be taken back.

 

This is NOT about being a Conservative or a Liberal. Not a conspiracy just lobbying at its best with us paying the way. If it goes through here it will naturally become global as well.

 

If you reside in the U.S. do the usual, call your senators (really). I have, as one of my senators in head of the communication commity and the other has indicated that he opposed "net nutrality".

 

Non U.S. members should be aware that this is on the way, if not already.

[Guest ratchethack]

This is an important bill that needs to be shut down early and often. I doubt it'll pass, but it's certainly important to do everything we can to make sure it doesn't. If it doesn't pass this time around, it's CERTAIN to come back again with a different name and it'll be back as many times as the backers think it takes. Without going into the politics behind it, let's just say it's the USUAL SUSPECTS attempting to force regulation, extort revenue, and stifle our remaining freedoms.

 

Exec Summary: The last sentence of the article below says it all:

 

"Net neutrality will live on as a political threat, combining as it does the economic self-interest of Google, et al., and the egalitarian pretense supplied by such pro-regulation voices as Moveon.org. What everyone should understand is that consumer benefit has nothing to do with it."

 

 

A Net Loser

The Wall Street Journal, June 24, 2006; Page A10

by Paul Gigot, Editor of the Editorial Page, and Staff

 

Chances are that by now readers have heard the term "Net neutrality," even if they haven't figured out what all the fuss is about. This week, the controversy reached the Senate, with Net neutrality proponents attempting to write a whole new layer of Internet regulation into law. Support for regulation of the Internet is also looking more and more like a litmus test for Democratic Presidential hopefuls.

 

A recent incident may illuminate the controversy for those wondering what both sides are after. Several weeks ago, users of Cox Communications' broadband Internet service found that they could no longer access Craigslist.org, the free classifieds site. Some bloggers immediately smelled a rat -- Cox's parent company also owns newspapers, which compete with Craigslist for classified ads.

 

Neutral Net: A Battle for Control of the WebIn a letter to this newspaper last week, Senator Ron Wyden (D., Oregon) cited the Cox incident as an example of why we need Net neutrality rules. Without them, supposedly, Verizon, Comcast, Cox and other Internet access companies would control users' Internet experience to the detriment of consumers.

 

Well, not quite. It turns out Cox had installed another company's security software to protect its users, and a bug in that software inadvertently cut users off from Craigslist. But don't take our word for it. Craigslist founder Craig Newmark, no enemy of Net neutrality, said this about the incident on his blog: "The whole thing was exacerbated by folks talking about Net neutrality," adding for good measure: "None of this was deliberate" by Cox.

 

Nevertheless, this is a teaching moment. Net neutrality advocates say we need new regulations for the Internet to make it illegal to do what Cox was supposedly doing. Of course, Cox is innocent in this case -- but this is precisely the point. There are all kinds of innocent or inadvertent ways that a user's access to a given site can be disrupted or slowed today. Under a Net neutrality regime, Cox could well have been subject to investigation, sanction and lawsuits for what amounted to a bug in someone else's software. This is so because most versions of Net neutrality would create a legal obligation for companies like Cox to manage their networks in a "nondiscriminatory" manner. This may sound simple, but it's not.

 

As it is, the big phone and cable companies, which also offer Internet service, try to ensure that a user's experience is "optimized." They have every business incentive to do so if they want to keep those customers. That this sometimes seems hard to believe (say, when there are delays in downloading a streaming music video) is testimony to how difficult a task that is. Exposing these companies to litigation or prosecution for not doing this to some Web site's satisfaction is not going to make the task easier.

 

Meanwhile, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and other Net neutrality proponents seem to want it both ways. They insist both that this is pro-consumer legislation and that the best thing is for consumers to pay for things that Google and other content providers would rather not. Net neutrality only became a cause of these companies and of the Moveon.org crowd when some phone companies suggested they might want to charge Google or other content providers for priority access to their networks.

 

No way, shouted Google and its allies, many of which have fabulously rich stock prices. Far better to charge individual consumers. Well, the American Consumer Institute, a Washington think tank, actually asked an economist to look into whether this is true. In his 40-page paper, Larry Darby's answer is that pricing flexibility is good for consumers.

 

He cites the newspaper industry -- in which the costs of providing news are split between readers and advertisers -- as an example of the kind of "multisided market" that can develop when businesses are free to charge whoever is most willing to pay. Mr. Darby's conclusion is that barring network operators from charging for value-added services would be bad for consumers. "The practice of 'end users only paying' evolved in, and was suitable for, the world of . . . voice message only technology," Mr. Darby writes. "But, Congress should not lock that business model into a market for which it is ill-suited -- and certainly should not do so on grounds that consumer welfare is thereby enhanced."

 

Earlier this month, the House rejected a Net neutrality proposal in a bipartisan vote. A Senate amendment, sponsored by Democrat Byron Dorgan and Republican Olympia Snowe, is currently being considered in committee, but looks likely to meet a similar fate. Even so, Net neutrality will live on as a political threat, combining as it does the economic self-interest of Google, et al., and the egalitarian pretense supplied by such pro-regulation voices as Moveon.org. What everyone should understand is that consumer benefit has nothing to do with it.

[Ballacraine]

I hope they are not parochial about this, and accept the fact that the internet is a global tool not just one for the US or its companies to own.

 

Nige.

[mike wilson]

I hope they are not parochial about this, and accept the fact that the internet is a global tool not just one for the US or its companies to own.

 

Nige.

 

 

That is _precisely_ what they hate about it.

[Ballacraine]

That is _precisely_ what they hate about it.

 

Yes, I thought so!

 

Nige.

[dmoon64]

As long as my porn doesn't get expensive.......

[dlaing]

As long as my porn doesn't get expensive.......

If a decent "net neutrality" bill is not passed your ISP could choose to block your porn or make is so you only get metrosexual porn

I am not sure which bill or act folks are talking about....I think SoloNH is talking H.R. 5252 while Ratchet is likely talking S. 2917

On June 8, the House of Representatives passed the "Communications Opportunity, Promotion and Enhancement Act of 2006," or COPE Act (H.R. 5252) -- a bill that offers no meaningful protections for Net Neutrality. An amendment offered by Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), which would have instituted real Net Neutrality requirements, was defeated by intense industry lobbying.

 

It now falls to the Senate to save the free and open Internet. Fortunately, Sens. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) and Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) have introduced a bipartisan measure, the "Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2006" (S. 2917), that would provide meaningful protection for Net Neutrality.

 

On June 28, the Snowe-Dorgan bill was introduced as an amendment to Sen. Ted Stevens' (R-Alaska) major rewrite of the Telecom Act (S.2686). The committee split down the middle on the measure, casting a tie vote of 11-11.

[Guest Nogbad]

If a decent "net neutrality" bill is not passed......

 

Oh I could have guessed. It's Mr Big Government back to support more socialist regulation of one of the only examples of a well running free market. Puhleeze!

[g.forrest]

Oh I could have guessed. It's Mr Big Government back to support more socialist regulation of one of the only examples of a well running free market. Puhleeze!

free market my aunty mary...world policeman here..watch your tone.

[dlaing]

Oh I could have guessed. It's Mr Big Government back to support more socialist regulation of one of the only examples of a well running free market. Puhleeze!

What part of the word "decent" didn't you understand.

If the world was really a free market McDonalds would be the nearly the only restaurant.

US and Eurpopean Nuclear Warheads and control equipment would be made in China(probably some of it is already)

Cable companies could block you from having the freedom to choose.

Streaming Music, Video, phone conferencing, and video conferencing are the obvious targets.

We are blocking some of that at work in the interest of preserving bandwidth, and apparently it is backfiring and messing up all sorts of needed internet activity.

Your ISP could say, no Skype or equivalent, because they want you to use THEIR PRODUCT.

They could say NO PORN except for Playboy and Disney Channel

The real big brother is the corporation, answerable only to profit.

The big brother you fear is answerable to the voter...for whatever a vote is worth.

The point is Democracy, even if "representative" is far better than corporate plutocracy.

[Guest Nogbad]

 

The big brother you fear is answerable to the voter...for whatever a vote is worth.

The point is Democracy, even if "representative" is far better than corporate plutocracy.

 

Except that it isn't. You may have a vote on these internet measures, but non-US citizens like me don't. At least I can vote with my wallet against a given plutocratic corporation that offends me.

[dlaing]

Except that it isn't. You may have a vote on these internet measures, but non-US citizens like me don't. At least I can vote with my wallet against a given plutocratic corporation that offends me.

[DeBenGuzzi]

this could get ugly, but leave it to the US to figure out a way to make money on something thats free. The government might not look too bad here for say taxes but they get thier money, oh you better believe they get thier money coming, going, eating drinking breathing. I wish there was a way to check the uncheckable if you have 2 dollars, you need 1 to buy air, but you owe the IRS 2 dollars you better pay the IRS and learn to hold your breath. I wanna move to norway I've heard good things about those guys the fjordes the free healthcare the laid back warm beer drinkin scandanavians

[Guest Nogbad]

I wanna move to norway I've heard good things about those guys the fjordes the free healthcare the laid back warm beer drinkin scandanavians

 

In Norway beer is nearly $13 a pop.

[DeBenGuzzi]

In Norway beer is nearly $13 a pop.

JESUS CHRIST .... good thing I don't drink beer.