Net Neutrality

[h3rm35]

Original URL: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/05/07/...third_way/
FCC chair floats 'Third Way' to regulate net

'Narrow and tailored'

By Rik Myslewski in San Francisco

Posted in Networks, 7th May 2010 00:23 GMT

Get Free BlackBerry Enterprise Server Express

US Federal Communications Commission chairman Julius Genachowski has issued his much-anticipated response to the April federal appeals court decision (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04/06/...st_order/) that threw a spanner into the works of his net-neutrality crusade.

That decision said that the FCC had exceeded its authority when it ordered Comcast to stop choking (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/08/01/...reaction/) BitTorrent and other P2P services back in 2008. According to the appeals court, the FCC does not have the authority to "regulate an Internet service provider's network management practices."

Internet pipe providers such as Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and Cablevision applauded the April decision. Pipe users such as Google and Skype - not so much. Genachowski, whose office had just released its long-awaited National Broadband Plan (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/03/15/...lan_two/), found himself suddenly shorn of the range of powers he needed to implement it.

And so on Thursday, Genachowski revealed his response, a "narrow and tailored approach" to broadband regulation that will fully please neither pipe owners nor pipe users. The FCC chairman dubs his approach "The Third Way (http://www.broadband.gov/the-third-way-n...ski.html)."

Genachowski contends that there is a broad national consensus that the FCC's role in internet-access regulation should be limited - but not absent. His Third Way envisions what he refers to as a light-touch approach. "Heavy-handed prescriptive regulation can chill investment and innovation," he writes, "and a do-nothing approach can leave consumers unprotected and competition unpromoted."

But the Comcast decision, Genachowski writes, makes it difficult for the FCC to do its job because it "creates serious uncertainty about the Commission’s ability ... to perform the basic oversight functions, and pursue the basic broadband-related policies, that have been long and widely thought essential and appropriate."

From his point of view, the debate over what to do about this conundrum has focused on two primary solutions. The first, named after Title I of the FCC-enabling Communications Act, would be to simply accept what has become known as the FCC's "ancillary" authority, which classifies the internet not as a telecommunications service but as an information service, a classification that gives the commission only limited powers.

The second solution, Title II, would be for the FCC to reclassify internet communications as telecommunications, thus bringing them under the same direct FCC authority as are phone companies.

"I have serious reservations about both of these approaches," Genachowski writes.

The first solution would, in his opinion, "involve a protracted, piecemeal approach" that would as likely as not result in multiple court battle - and also as likely as not ending up with the same result as the Comcast case.

The second, since it would treat internet-access providers like phone companies, would "subject the providers of broadband communications services to extensive regulations ill-suited to broadband."

And so Genachowski suggests his aforementioned "Third Way," a legal framework (http://www.broadband.gov/third-way-legal...emma.html) drawn up by FCC General Counsel Austin Schlick. In a nutshell, the Third Way is a compromise between the "ancillary" and reclassification approaches, and provides the FCC with a limited extension of regulatory powers.

The next step, Genachowski writes, will be a "public process seeking comment on this narrow and tailored approach" - but the FCC chairman didn't have to wait long for that process to begin. Of the five-person FCC board, the two Republicans, Robert McDowell and Meridith Baker, issued a joint statement (http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/at...948A1.pdf) (PDF) that characterizes Genachowski's approach as a "dramatic step to regulate the Internet," and which says it crosses "a regulatory Rubicon" to bring the Internet under Title II.

Which, of course, is exactly what Genachowski says his Third Way doesn't do. But McDowell and Baker apparently don't believe him, calling his proposal "a stark departure from the long-established bipartisan framework," "onerous," and "an attempt to foist burdensome rules excavated from the early-Ma Bell-monopoly era onto 21st Century networks [that] will usher in a tumultuous new age of regulatory uncertainty," pose "serious ramifications across the globe," and invite a "stinging rebuke" from the courts for "attempting to shatter the boundaries" of the commission's authority.

Comcast's VP of government communications, Sena Fitzmaurice, was more diplomatic: "While we are disappointed with the inclination not to lean in favor of Title I regulation, we are prepared to work constructively with the Commission to determine whether there is a 'third way' approach that allows the Commission to take limited but effective measures to preserve an open Internet and implement critical features of the National Broadband Plan, but does not cast the kind of regulatory cloud that would chill investment and innovation by ISPs."

Fitzmaurice also noted that "We ... appreciate the Chairman's desire to take extremes off the table and to try to develop a path to providing ISPs and others in the Internet ecosystem with clear rules of the road about what consumers expect of them, including the Commission's need to have authority to address complaints should any arise, while avoiding the elements of Title II that are destructive to our business."

While Fitzmaurice may appreciate Genachowski's desire to take extremes off the table, the FCC chairman may be hoping that the two Republicans on his panel might do the same. In any case, though, he needs only three votes on the Comission to approve his Third Way: his own, and those of his two fellow Democrats, Michael Copps and Mignon Clyburn.

And those votes are apparently in the bag. Copps issued a generally supportive statement (http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/at...46A1.pdf), but noted: "Frankly, I would have preferred plain and simple Title II reclassification." Clyburn showed his hand when speaking (http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/at...949A1.pdf) Thursday at the New Media Entrepreneurship Conference, asking his audience: "Exactly what kind of Internet do you want going forward? One that is yours or one that is controlled, policed, and regulated by industry? For me, the choice is simple."

And that choice isn't the internet preferred by fellow commissioners McDowell and Baker. ®
Related stories

* US court rules FCC can't ban BitTorrent busting (6 April 2010)

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04/06/...ast_order/
* Big Phone to US: 'Give us spectrum. Then shut up' (24 March 2010)

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/03/24/att_at_ctia/
* FCC shows off spectrum map (18 March 2010)

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/03/18/...dashboard/
* FCC plans spectrum-flog to fund broadband (17 March 2010)

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/03/17/..._plan_two/
* US broadband seeks ISP speed stickers (17 March 2010)

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/03/17/..._plan_one/
* US National Broadband plan goes to Congress (15 March 2010)

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/03/15/..._plan_two/
* FCC talks National Broadband (2 March 2010)

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/03/02/..._plan_one/
* 60 million Americans don't use the interwebs (23 February 2010)

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/02/23/...nd_survey/
* Schmidt denies Google wants 'dumb pipe' carriers (17 February 2010)

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/02/17/..._carriers/
* Net Neutrality: Now cures all wickedness - and Loompa scurvy, too (18 January 2010)

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/01/18/..._firehose/
* FCC boss stumps for free and open internet (10 January 2010)

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/01/10/...ki_at_ces/
* FCC seeks delay to US broadband plan (8 January 2010)

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/01/08/...band_plan/
* FCC rescues American football fans (31 December 2009)

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/12/31/..._football/
* Watchdog spanks FCC over US wireless (10 December 2009)

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/12/10/...rt_on_fcc/
* FCC launches war of net ideologues (22 October 2009)

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/10/22/...eut_rules/
* FCC flooded with anti-net neut letters (17 October 2009)

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/10/17/...rs_oct_09/

[itsaname]

This was a very serious ruling for jewish owned comcast. A lot of people don't understand the magnitude of it and the repercussions it could have on the net. This ruling gives comcast the right to censor downloads at a whim. In other words, if comcast doesn't like what your downloading they can just stop you from downloading it. I will just direct you to this article to show exactly who controls/owns comcast.

http://pakalert.wordpress.com/2010/04/18...a-in-2010/

Where it goes from here is anyone's guess. It could go from stopping one from downloading P2P to stopping one from downloading 'occupation 101' or anything else they don't want you seeing. No, it might never get that bad, but who knows. just them having the "right" to censor any material they want isn't good at all.

[Infinite]

No I do not want the FCC to regulate the internet. I don't think corporations will have the ability to censor content as efficiently as the government would

[h3rm35]

They wouldn't have the desire to target dissenters as much, as that takes people and resources which hurts the bottom line, but what they will do is price the lower end of the income scale out of that information as well as many other places through giving preferred access to larger sites through a tier system and fucking over bandwidth for P2P. This essentially will end up censoring everything the government would, and then some. Neither are good solutions, but the one based on profit margin are guaranteed to continue to find new ways to further restrict access while charging more for the services provided.

[FastTadpole]

Quote:FCC Gives Government Power to Regulate Web Traffic
DECEMBER 21, 2010, 3:19 P.M. ET
By AMY SCHATZ

WASHINGTON—Federal telecommunications regulators approved new rules Tuesday that would for the first time give the federal government formal authority to regulate Internet traffic, although how much or for how long remained unclear.

A divided Federal Communications Commission approved a proposal by Chairman Julius Genachowski to give the FCC power to prevent broadband providers from selectively blocking web traffic.

The rules will go into effect early next year, but legal challenges or action by Congress could block the FCC's action. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) on Tuesday called the FCC's action "flawed" and said lawmakers would "have an opportunity in the new Congress to push back against new rules and regulations."

The new FCC rules, for example, would prevent a broadband provider, such as Comcast Corp., AT&T, Inc. or Verizon Communications Inc., from hobbling access to an online video service, such as Netflix, that competes with its own video services.

The rules would also require Internet providers to give subscribers more information on Internet speeds and service. Broadly, the rules would prohibit Internet providers from "unreasonably discriminating" against rivals' Internet traffic or services on wired or wireless networks.

The rules would allow phone and cable companies to offer faster, priority delivery services to Internet companies willing to pay extra. But the FCC proposal contains language suggesting the agency would try to discourage creation of such high-speed toll lanes.

Companies that operate mobile wireless networks would have fewer rules to contend with. Phone companies wouldn't be able to block legal websites from consumers. They also can't block mobile voice or video-conferencing applications. Wireless providers would be allowed to block other applications, however, that they say could take up too much bandwidth on wireless networks.

The five-member Federal Communications Commission board approved the new rules on a 3-2 vote, with the agency's two Republican members rejecting the measure.

"For the first time, we'll have enforceable rules of the road to preserve Internet freedom and openness," FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said Tuesday morning. He said the rules offered "a strong and sensible framework—one that protects Internet freedom and openness and promotes robust innovation and investment."

Republicans at the FCC and on Capitol Hill blasted the FCC's new rules, saying that they could stifle new investments in broadband networks and are unnecessary since there have been few complaints about Internet providers blocking or slowing web traffic.

The FCC's action "is not motivated by a tangible competitive harm or market failure," said Commissioner Meredith Attwell Baker, a Republican, who said she couldn't support the rule because the agency was intervening to regulate the Internet "because it wants to, not because it needs to."

At the same time, advocates of strong net-neutrality rules complained that Mr. Genachowski's proposal didn't go far enough, a sentiment echoed Tuesday by the agency's other two Democrats.

Specifically, the two Democratic FCC commissioners wanted the same rules to apply to both wireless and wireline broadband networks. However, they agreed to approve the rules anyway, saying that passing Mr. Genachowski's proposal was better than nothing.

"In my book, today's action could, and should, have gone further," said Democratic Commissioner Michael Copps.

Big phone and cable companies have expressed qualified support for the compromise, but they have said there was no real need for government regulation of web traffic.

Although this is the first time the FCC has passed formal rules on "net neutrality," or the idea that Internet providers can't deliberately block or slow web traffic, it is not the first time the agency has tried to act as an Internet traffic cop.

In 2007 the agency sanctioned Comcast for deliberately slowing the web traffic of some subscribers who were downloading large files over peer-to-peer networks. Comcast sued and in April, a federal appeals court sided with the cable giant, saying that the FCC didn't have clear authority to enforce net neutrality.

The rules passed Tuesday are also likely to be legally challenged, and it isn't clear if they will be upheld. Congress has never given the FCC explicit authority to regulate Internet lines, so the agency is using older rules to justify its authority.

http://digg.com/news/politics/fcc_gives_...ic_wsj_com
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424...68654.html

FCC Ruling News Release (dead link at time of posting but managed to dig it up and convert it)

  DOC-303745A1.pdf (Size: 157.76 KB / Downloads: 41)
FCC URL: http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/at...303746.pdf

FCC Statements (PDFs):

Genachowski Statement: http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/at...3746A1.pdf
Copps Statement: http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/at...3746A2.pdf
McDowell Statement: http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/at...3746A3.pdf
Clyburn Statement: http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/at...3746A3.pdf
Baker Statement: http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/at...3746A5.pdf

EFF.org and Michael Geist have yet to comment on the decision.

[h3rm35]

the EFF might not have commented, but freepress.org predicted it last night and live-blogged it today (filled with real time comments by paid shills and democratic employees) and released this statement when all was said and done:

Quote:Free Press: FCC Net Neutrality Order a ‘Squandered Opportunity’

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Date: December 21, 2010
Contact: Jenn Ettinger, 202-265-1490 x 35

WASHINGTON -- By a 3-2 vote Tuesday, the Federal Communications Commission approved new rules intended to prevent Internet providers like AT&T, Comcast and Verizon from acting as gatekeepers on the Web. The rules, however, heavily favor the industry they are intended to regulate, and leave consumers with minimal protections. Democratic Commissioners Mignon Clyburn and Michael Copps voted with Chairman Julius Genachowski, while Republican Commissioners Robert McDowell and Meredith Attwell Baker voted against.

Free Press Managing Director Craig Aaron made the following statement:

“We are deeply disappointed that the chairman chose to ignore the overwhelming public support for real Net Neutrality, instead moving forward with industry-written rules that will for the first time in Internet history allow discrimination online. This proceeding was a squandered opportunity to enact clear, meaningful rules to safeguard the Internet’s level playing field and protect consumers.

“The new rules are riddled with loopholes, evidence that the chairman sought approval from AT&T instead of listening to the millions of Americans who asked for real Net Neutrality. These rules don't do enough to stop the phone and cable companies from dividing the Internet into fast and slow lanes, and they fail to protect wireless users from discrimination. No longer can you get to the same Internet via your mobile device as you can via your laptop. The rules pave the way for AT&T to block your access to third-party applications and to require you to use its own preferred applications.

“Chairman Genachowski ignored President Obama's promise to the American people to take a 'back seat to no one' on Net Neutrality. He ignored the 2 million voices who petitioned for real Net Neutrality and the hundreds who came to public hearings across the country to ask him to protect the open Internet. And he ignored policymakers who urged him to protect consumers and maintain the Internet as a platform for innovation. It’s unfortunate that the only voices he chose to listen to were those coming from the very industry he’s charged with overseeing."

[FastTadpole]

Just posted this on a contest for free software. Figured it was a good change to get some people asking questions and maybe step it up a notch.

What does internet freedom mean to you? Give us your comments and win a Premium Security Suite.

Not an FCC over-regulated net neutrality, internet/blogging tax and certainly not the other end of stick with a ComCast monopoly, duopoly or cartel.

Perhaps having a Carrier Pigeon with a USB stick strapped to it's leg is the best way to go given our future alternatives with this fake wrestling match to usurp control of the internet from the common public.

I have an inkling people will realize it's all a rigged game of ping pong and stop being the ball. Netziens will stand up and be heard before we lose our internet freedoms outright.

There is no Kill Switch for human will. Engage.

http://www.facebook.com/avira/posts/184021078296719

[FastTadpole]

Pardon the lazy and belated picking of partisan MSM coverage but these articles pretty much give the overview and an update to the game of ping pong between "greedy evil" corporations and the "we know what's best for you and will protect your rights" government in this rigged wrestling match to get the government tentacle in the door by way of (more) crony funding, taxation and regulation like it had done with every other type of media that came before it from the printing press to the radio to the television to free speech zones.

All being done in a cowardly move by an arms length appointed committee, the FCC. This would effectively to shirk public accountability and debate over the first ruleset patch, Net Neutrality 1.0 being applied to kick things off.

Quote:The Net Neutrality Coup
December 22, 2010
By JOHN FUND

The campaign to regulate the Internet was funded by a who’s who of left-liberal foundations.

The Federal Communications Commission’s new “net neutrality” rules, passed on a partisan 3-2 vote yesterday, represent a huge win for a slick lobbying campaign run by liberal activist groups and foundations. The losers are likely to be consumers who will see innovation and investment chilled by regulations that treat the Internet like a public utility.

There’s little evidence the public is demanding these rules, which purport to stop the non-problem of phone and cable companies blocking access to websites and interfering with Internet traffic. Over 300 House and Senate members have signed a letter opposing FCC Internet regulation, and there will undoubtedly be even less support in the next Congress.

The FCC has approved rules that would give the federal government authority to regulate Internet traffic and prevent broadband providers from selectively blocking web traffic. WSJ’s Amy Schatz explains what the new rules really mean.

Yet President Obama, long an ardent backer of net neutrality, is ignoring both Congress and adverse court rulings, especially by a federal appeals court in April that the agency doesn’t have the power to enforce net neutrality. He is seeking to impose his will on the Internet through the executive branch. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, a former law school friend of Mr. Obama, has worked closely with the White House on the issue. Official visitor logs show he’s had at least 11 personal meetings with the president.

The net neutrality vision for government regulation of the Internet began with the work of Robert McChesney, a University of Illinois communications professor who founded the liberal lobby Free Press in 2002. Mr. McChesney’s agenda? “At the moment, the battle over network neutrality is not to completely eliminate the telephone and cable companies,” he told the website SocialistProject in 2009. “But the ultimate goal is to get rid of the media capitalists in the phone and cable companies and to divest them from control.”

A year earlier, Mr. McChesney wrote in the Marxist journal Monthly Review that “any serious effort to reform the media system would have to necessarily be part of a revolutionary program to overthrow the capitalist system itself.” Mr. McChesney told me in an interview that some of his comments have been “taken out of context.” He acknowledged that he is a socialist and said he was “hesitant to say I’m not a Marxist.”

For a man with such radical views, Mr. McChesney and his Free Press group have had astonishing influence. Mr. Genachowski’s press secretary at the FCC, Jen Howard, used to handle media relations at Free Press. The FCC’s chief diversity officer, Mark Lloyd, co-authored a Free Press report calling for regulation of political talk radio.

Free Press has been funded by a network of liberal foundations that helped the lobby invent the purported problem that net neutrality is supposed to solve. They then fashioned a political strategy similar to the one employed by activists behind the political speech restrictions of the 2002 McCain-Feingold campaign-finance reform bill. The methods of that earlier campaign were discussed in 2004 by Sean Treglia, a former program officer for the Pew Charitable Trusts, during a talk at the University of Southern California. Far from being the efforts of genuine grass-roots activists, Mr. Treglia noted, the campaign-finance reform lobby was controlled and funded by foundations like Pew.

“The idea was to create an impression that a mass movement was afoot,” he told his audience. He noted that “If Congress thought this was a Pew effort, it’d be worthless.” A study by the Political Money Line, a nonpartisan website dealing with issues of campaign funding, found that of the $140 million spent to directly promote campaign-finance reform in the last decade, $123 million came from eight liberal foundations.

After McCain-Feingold passed, several of the foundations involved in the effort began shifting their attention to “media reform”—a movement to impose government controls on Internet companies somewhat related to the long-defunct “Fairness Doctrine” that used to regulate TV and radio companies. In a 2005 interview with the progressive website Buzzflash, Mr. McChesney said that campaign-finance reform advocate Josh Silver approached him and “said let’s get to work on getting popular involvement in media policy making.” Together the two founded Free Press.

Free Press and allied groups such as MoveOn.org quickly got funding. Of the eight major foundations that provided the vast bulk of money for campaign-finance reform, six became major funders of the media-reform movement. (They are the Pew Charitable Trusts, Bill Moyers’s Schumann Center for Media and Democracy, the Joyce Foundation, George Soros’s Open Society Institute, the Ford Foundation, and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.) Free Press today has 40 staffers and an annual budget of $4 million.

These wealthy funders pay for more than publicity and conferences. In 2009, Free Press commissioned a poll, released by the Harmony Institute, on net neutrality. Harmony reported that “more than 50% of the public argued that, as a private resource, the Internet should not be regulated by the federal government.” The poll went on to say that since “currently the public likes the way the Internet works . . . messaging should target supporters by asking them to act vigilantly” to prevent a “centrally controlled Internet.”

To that end, Free Press and other groups helped manufacture “research” on net neutrality. In 2009, for example, the FCC commissioned Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society to conduct an “independent review of existing information” for the agency in order to “lay the foundation for enlightened, data-driven decision making.”

Considering how openly activist the Berkman Center has been on these issues, it was an odd decision for the FCC to delegate its broadband research to this outfit. Unless, of course, the FCC already knew the answer it wanted to get.

The Berkman Center’s FCC- commissioned report, “Next Generation Connectivity (3MB PDF),” wound up being funded in large part by the Ford and MacArthur foundations. So some of the same foundations that have spent years funding net neutrality advocacy research ended up funding the FCC-commissioned study that evaluated net neutrality research.

The FCC’s “National Broadband Plan,” released last spring, included only five citations of respected think tanks such as the International Technology and Innovation Foundation or the Brookings Institution. But the report cited research from liberal groups such as Free Press, Public Knowledge, Pew and the New America Foundation more than 50 times.

So the “media reform” movement paid for research that backed its views, paid activists to promote the research, saw its allies installed in the FCC and other key agencies, and paid for the FCC research that evaluated the research they had already paid for. Now they have their policy. That’s quite a coup.

http://deadlinelive.info/2010/12/22/the-...lity-coup/

As this whitewash from NYT reports with a bit of controlled opposition to make for a good show of democracy. Locked and loaded ..

Quote:F.C.C. Is Set to Regulate Net Traffic
December 20, 2010 by Kristen

The Federal Communications Commission appears poised to pass a controversial set of net neutrality rules that broadly creates two classes of Internet access, one from fixed-line providers and the other wireless.

The proposed rules would prevent fixed-line broadband providers like Comcast or Qwest from blocking Web sites and applications. The rules, however, would allow wireless companies more latitude in determining what services their customers can use.

Ahead of a vote scheduled for Tuesday, two Democratic commissioners said Monday that they would back the rules proposed by the F.C.C. chairman, Julius Genachowski, that try to satisfy both sides in the protracted debate over net neutrality.

But analysts said the debate would soon resume in the courts, as challenges to the rules are expected in the months to come.

Net neutrality, broadly speaking, is an effort to ensure equal access to Web sites and cutting-edge online services. Mr. Genachowski said these proposed rules aim to both encourage Internet innovation and protect consumers from abuses.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/21/busine...21fcc.html

[springhawk]

It's really simple.

If you own an ISP and the means
to deliver TV, then you have a
conflict of interest.

Why won't the powers that be;
acknowledge this simple fact.

[icosaface]

Saturday 9 April 2011
by: Nadia Prupis, Truthout


The Republican-controlled House of Representatives on Friday, with the support of a handful of Democrats, passed a joint resolution to repeal the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) net neutrality regulations that would enforce competitive behavior among Internet companies.

Democrats who voted in favor of the resolution along with their Republican colleagues are Reps. Dan Boren (D-Oklahoma), Sanford Bishop (D-Georgia), a conservative Blue Dog, David Scott (D-Georgia), Kurt Shrader (D-Oregon), Bennie Thompson (D-Mississippi) and Collin Peterson (D-Minnesota).

H.J. Res. 37, which disapproves of FCC rules “relating to the matter of preserving the open Internet and broadband industry practices,” passed 240-179. The resolution will now be sent to the Senate for a vote, where it is unlikely to be approved by the Democratic majority.

As Truthout previously reported, the resolution of disapproval is a rarely used procedure that allows Congress to formally reject and reverse the actions of a federal agency. House Republicans previously introduced a resolution of disapproval last November to overturn the Dodd-Frank financial reform law, but were unsuccessful.

Rep. Greg Walden (R-Oregon), chairman of the House Communications Subcommittee, said the anti-net neutrality resolution amounted to Congress recognizing that it had not “authorized the FCC to regulate the Internet.”

“If not challenged, the FCC's power grab would allow it to regulate any interstate communications service on barely more than a whim and without any additional input from Congress,” Walden said.

Parul P. Desai, policy counsel for the Consumers Union, said FCC regulations are necessary to prevent Internet providers from limiting or blocking access to legal websites.

“When consumers spend money on Internet service, they expect to be able to surf the web openly,” Desai said. “Internet providers should not limit your choices to their preferred sites. That's why we need rules, like the FCC’s framework, to maintain an open Internet.”

Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-California), whose district includes Facebook and Google as constituent companies, said that if the resolution “were about innovation, jobs, competition, or consumers, the majority wouldn't really be offering it, because it disables a free and open Internet,” noting that “more than 150 organizations... have lined up against it.”

During a House committee hearing on April 4, Eshoo said that “without the FCC's basic 'rules of the road,' nothing will prevent large corporations from carving the Internet into fast and slow lanes, deciding which sources of news, information, and entertainment consumers and business can access.”

One of the major backers of the anit-net neutrality resolution is Freedom Works, a right-wing nonprofit organization, that has received funding from Verizon and AT&T, who stand to benefit if the law is overturned, and the Koch Brothers family fountain.

The group's president, Matt Kibbe, said net neutrality, “is likely to cripple competition, restrict innovation, reduce employment and raise costs for all consumers... The FCC's net neutrality regulations would restrict the freedom of all Internet users while further harming our fragile economy.” .

While a majority of Democrats and Republicans voted on the resolution along party lines, several representatives did agree that the timing of the vote symbolized the potentially destructive sparring in Congress.

“We would not be here today if the Democrats in the last Congress had bothered to take up a budget and pass it or even vote on it,” Walden said; Rep. Norman Dicks (D-Washington) asked his colleagues, “Why are we considering H.J. Res. 37 when we are on the verge of shutting down the House of Representatives?”

Rep. Henry Waxman (D-California), ranking member of the Energy & Commerce Committee, said that H.J. Res. 37 “would give big phone and cable companies control over what websites Americans can visit, what applications they can run, and what devices they can use. The Internet may be the greatest engine in our economy today... [because] it is open.”

One question that remains unanswered is whether the FCC actually has the authority to regulate the Internet. A federal appeals court in April 2010 ruled that the commission does not have that power, stating that Congress must have explicitly authorize it to do so; rather, the FCC has “ancillary jurisdiction” granted by sections of the Telecommunications Act of 1996

[springhawk]

(04-10-2011 12:20 AM)icosaface Wrote:  Saturday 9 April 2011
by: Nadia Prupis, Truthout

Skipping over some stuff

Rep. Greg Walden (R-Oregon), chairman of the House Communications Subcommittee, said the anti-net neutrality resolution amounted to Congress recognizing that it had not “authorized the FCC to regulate the Internet.”

One of the major backers of the anit-net neutrality resolution is Freedom Works, a right-wing nonprofit organization, that has received funding from Verizon and AT&T, who stand to benefit if the law is overturned, and the Koch Brothers family fountain.

The group's president, Matt Kibbe, said net neutrality, “is likely to cripple competition, restrict innovation, reduce employment and raise costs for all consumers... The FCC's net neutrality regulations would restrict the freedom of all Internet users while further harming our fragile economy.” .

More stuff skipped over

One question that remains unanswered is whether the FCC actually has the authority to regulate the Internet. A federal appeals court in April 2010 ruled that the commission does not have that power, stating that Congress must have explicitly authorize it to do so; rather, the FCC has “ancillary jurisdiction” granted by sections of the Telecommunications Act of 1996

Starting at the bottom.

1) Wouldn't Congress giving the FCC the power to enforce
Net Neutrality be explicit authorization?

Moving up.

2) The GOP is worried about the lack of competition? Get
real, they want to stifle any all competition their paymasters
might face including competing ideas.

3) Another article about the bill being repealed

[Infinite]

Why would we want the FCC to control the internet, just because the Republicans are against it? This is the same agency that fines people millions of dollars for petty stuff like saying 'curse words'. And censors free speech.

[Infinite]

'Net Neutrality' means the FCC regulating the internet. I'm not sure what else it's supposed to mean. I've never been blocked from a site by my provider Verizon. It's just more nonsense from the left in my opinion. What would make the internet more fair if anything would be more competition, and I'm sure that the big internet providers most likely get subsidies from the government and what not. But what we don't need is the government controlling the internet and that's what net so-called neutrality is. If they get control they'll probably go after copyright violations i.e. downloading more aggressively too.

[springhawk]

(04-11-2011 05:48 AM)Infinite Wrote:  'Net Neutrality' means the FCC regulating the internet. I'm not sure what else it's supposed to mean. I've never been blocked from a site by my provider Verizon. It's just more nonsense from the left in my opinion. What would make the internet more fair if anything would be more competition, and I'm sure that the big internet providers most likely get subsidies from the government and what not. But what we don't need is the government controlling the internet and that's what net so-called neutrality is. If they get control they'll probably go after copyright violations i.e. downloading more aggressively too.

We are having a similar debate in Canada where sites
have been blocked by providers

http://thetyee.ca/News/2005/08/04/TelusCensor/

The point of Net Neutrality is to let the content
flow. Otherwise, your ISP could block any site
they feel might hurt their bottom line.

[springhawk]

(04-11-2011 05:44 AM)Infinite Wrote:  Why would we want the FCC to control the internet, just because the Republicans are against it? This is the same agency that fines people millions of dollars for petty stuff like saying 'curse words'. And censors free speech.

But corporations censoring free speech is acceptable?