[News] The FCC votes to move forward with gutting net neutrality

[StyM]

https://www.engadget.com/2017/05/18/...et-neutrality/

Today, during an open commission meeting, the FCC voted to move forward with its plans to undo many rules enacted under the Obama administration meant to protect the principle of net neutrality. The most important part of this proposed rollback is changing broadband internet from being classified as a Title II service back to a Title I service. Title I has fewer rules regarding how traffic over the network is treated. Under Title II internet is regulated like a utility and requires that all data across the network be treated equally so long as it doesn't violate any laws. Under Title I however, ISPs are free to prioritize data as they see fit and even charge more to guarantee better service. This is of growing concern as the line between service providers and content providers continues to blur.

The agency is also wants responsibility for enforcing privacy rules back to the FTC. Under President Obama, responsibility for dealing with privacy complaints against ISPs shifted to the FCC, the agency already responsible for the primary regulation of the industry and the one with the technical expertise to address these new concerns.

The Internet Conduct Standard is also on the chopping block. That broad rule was used by the FCC to investigate mobile providers "zero-rating" plans, which exclude certain streaming services from monthly data caps.

Commissioner Mignon Clyburn, the FCC's lone Democrat, voiced her serious opposition to these moves and sounded alarm that that "no economist or technologist [was] consulted during the drafting." Of course with only three of five seats currently filled on the commission, Clyburn faced an uphill battle.

[Sparky]

I just want everyone to leave it all alone.

Seriously.

I don't want the government involved, I don't want companies screwing with it, just.... STOP. Leave it alone like it had been for years before!

[zanzabar]

I just want everyone to leave it all alone.

Seriously.

I don't want the government involved, I don't want companies screwing with it, just.... STOP. Leave it alone like it had been for years before!

without title 2 you have companies breaking peering and using deep packet inspection to break things. maybe if we all changed to ipv6 right now it would get a little better, but peering would still be ed and QOS at hubs would not be far behind.

[Sparky]

The thing I hate is how the assumption is we have to have government intervention as the "solution" - when that just opens yet another can of worms for when the government now decides to meddle in stuff.

It is a no win situation.

[drmrlordx]

The thing I hate is how the assumption is we have to have government intervention as the "solution" - when that just opens yet another can of worms for when the government now decides to meddle in stuff.

It is a no win situation.

The gub'ment did create the Internet, though (no, not Al Gore). In order for it to function as intended, it's going to need someone to police it to enforce baseline standards for agnostic packet routing etc. Were it still a DARPA project available only to the military and select universities, there would be no such problems. Now that it is treated as civilian infrastructure, eventually something is going to have to be done to prevent corporate interests from tearing it apart.

[AliG]

without title 2 you have companies breaking peering and using deep packet inspection to break things. maybe if we all changed to ipv6 right now it would get a little better, but peering would still be ed and QOS at hubs would not be far behind.

The problem is people still found sneak paths around it. Like how TMobile started offering LTE packages that don't charge data for certain streaming services.

They don't actually offer a fast/slow lane - but they do highly incentivize picking their target services.

[zanzabar]

The thing I hate is how the assumption is we have to have government intervention as the "solution" - when that just opens yet another can of worms for when the government now decides to meddle in stuff.

It is a no win situation.

it would be great if we had some kind of competition so you could change companies if things went south, but that wont happen and they also wont break up the large companies that illegally collude. the entire reason those rules came down was from large isps being bad actors after warnings for over a decade to keep things going how they were intended.

as of now we got title 2 from things like TWC intentionally miss routing game packets to increase ping unless the companies paid them to fix it
https://www.polygon.com/2017/2/9/145...egends-netflix

comcast illegally breaking peering with netflix and sling
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...peering-deals/

and comcast using QOS to block/kill off port connections (i dont want to find an old link to that one.)

The problem is people still found sneak paths around it. Like how TMobile started offering LTE packages that don't charge data for certain streaming services.

They don't actually offer a fast/slow lane - but they do highly incentivize picking their target services.

that was/is also illegal if you do it like ATT with the direct tv one, or how comcast zero rates its own internet services. the tmobile one was kind of iffy since they allowed any service that opted in with no fees (initially with no throttling.) for example almost every streaming platform was on it even and free/pirate . but then early on they targeted you tube and QOSed the out of them even though they did not opt in and it broke the service.

if we did not have companies do content creation, distribution, and internet at the same time none of this would likely be a problem, but they are and that is why we need title 2 and a legal frame work for NN.

[Darakian]

*snip*

[AliG]

Yeah, combined with a bunch of facts.

[Sparky]

Yeah this is going down the drain really fast.

Back on topic, please. And can it with unrelated political garbage. I don't care which side you're on, just knock it off...

[Sparky]

My comment was to him just as much.

As my dad used to say, "It takes two."

Put him on ignore if he bothers you so much. Also known as, "Don't feed the troll."

[bluestang]

Wow, about as mature as your "President"

Only nice thing that will come out of this is your forum termination

[Buckeye]

<yawn> sorry I was away... Contact In The Desert...

What the heck. Having some coffee and will look through this.

Ok cleaned up, knock it off please.

[AbortRetryFail?]

[News]The FCC votes to move ...
. . . . . . . . . forward with gutting net neutrality

Ladies and Gentlemen . . .
There seems to be a bit of confusion as to who, in fact, is actually in charge, here. Let me help explain it to you in a single chart/link:



Telecom 'Services' Lobbying from Open Secrets

If BigTelCableCo buys a politician they stay bought and if they wanted to be classified as an essential utility for you peons, morons, imbeciles, errrr, fine folks, please tell it to our lawyers.



And on a completely unrelated topic . . .
Man in Trump Hat Kicked Off Flight
Crowd Chanted: ?LOCK HIM UP!?

Like some bizarre parody of a Trump rally, a belligerent man in a ?Make America Great Again? hat was booted off a plane in Shanghai Sunday ? defiantly waving as a crowd of passengers jeered in the terminal: ?Lock him up! Lock him up!?

It?s unclear whether Chinese police did jail the man or who he was. As others on the United Airlines flight described it, he started arguing before he stepped onto the plane.

. . . . Shanghai ?

[alfaunits]

The thing I hate is how the assumption is we have to have government intervention as the "solution" - when that just opens yet another can of worms for when the government now decides to meddle in stuff.
It is a no win situation.

And leaving the market to iron it out on its own has always worked for the consumers
By that logic, let's ditch the military. It just opened another can of worms

[AliG]

The even bigger issue is that the people at the top of FCC and cable company board of directors play musical chairs. Literally the same group of people have been running those organizations at some point or another.

[Warboy]

I just want everyone to leave it all alone.

Seriously.

I don't want the government involved, I don't want companies screwing with it, just.... STOP. Leave it alone like it had been for years before!

I guess time for a history lesson

2005 - Madison River Communications was blocking VOIP services. The FCC put a stop to it.

2005 - Comcast was denying access to p2p services without notifying customers.

2007-2009 - AT&T was having Skype and other VOIPs blocked because they didn't like there was competition for their cellphones.

2011 - MetroPCS tried to block all streaming except youtube. (edit: they actually sued the FCC over this)

2011-2013, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon were blocking access to Google Wallet because it competed with their bull. edit: this one happened literally months after the trio were busted collaborating with Google to block apps from the android marketplace

2012, Verizon was demanding google block tethering apps on android because it let owners avoid their $20 tethering fee. This was despite guaranteeing they wouldn't do that as part of a winning bid on an airwaves auction. (edit: they were fined $1.25million over this)

2012, AT&T - tried to block access to FaceTime unless customers paid more money.

2013, Verizon literally stated that the only thing stopping them from favoring some content providers over other providers were the net neutrality rules in place.

2014, Verizon throttling Netflix traffic, in an extortion scheme to force Netflix to pay 'tolls' for delivering their service unthrottled.
blaming Netflix and other peering & CDN providers (Level3, Cogent, Akamai) for the degradation in service. They ed up and inadvertently admitted to committing tomfoolery. (footer 1)

2016, Netflix already has to pay ISPs to not with their traffic to you.

2017, Time Warner Cable slowed down connections to League of Legends servers, while they were negotiating contracts with Riot in an effort to strong-arm Riot into paying TWC money. Spectrum ( bought TWC ) is now being sued by the state of New York over this.

[Sparky]

I'm aware of past shenanigans, especially from particular ISPs (Comcast has been trouble for years for example).

A lot of the stuff has been in more recent years, hence my "leave it alone like years BEFORE" - I guess I should have said "like many years before" and clarified "except these instances" or something. Sorry that I wasn't so specific.

[AliG]

I'm aware of past shenanigans, especially from particular ISPs (Comcast has been trouble for years for example).

A lot of the stuff has been in more recent years, hence my "leave it alone like years BEFORE" - I guess I should have said "like many years before" and clarified "except these instances" or something. Sorry that I wasn't so specific.

Unfortunately I think you need some regulations to enforce that. Capitalism on its own would dictate companies should do everything in their power to generate more revenue off internet traffic. Even if you got a gentleman's agreement among the big players not to do any monkey business, it would only be a matter of time before someone flipped the script.

[Sparky]

My grumping is because the reality is anyone - government or businesses - are suspect, and I don't trust any of them. Heck this whole thing of gutting it just goes to prove the point - all it takes is a change of who's sitting in that seat and all the "protections" and "rules" can change just like that.

I just wish for a perfect world, which is impossible in this life, so... <sigh>

[AliG]

My grumping is because the reality is anyone - government or businesses - are suspect, and I don't trust any of them. Heck this whole thing of gutting it just goes to prove the point - all it takes is a change of who's sitting in that seat and all the "protections" and "rules" can change just like that.

I just wish for a perfect world, which is impossible in this life, so... <sigh>

Which is why you settle for the small wins in life

[zanzabar]

My grumping is because the reality is anyone - government or businesses - are suspect, and I don't trust any of them. Heck this whole thing of gutting it just goes to prove the point - all it takes is a change of who's sitting in that seat and all the "protections" and "rules" can change just like that.

I just wish for a perfect world, which is impossible in this life, so... <sigh>

i would blame cisco and the bush era FTC removing restrictions on content providers buying isps. i dont see the breakups that need to happen going through and i dont see cisco not pushing their traffic management hardware.

[drmrlordx]

I'm aware of past shenanigans, especially from particular ISPs (Comcast has been trouble for years for example).

A lot of the stuff has been in more recent years, hence my "leave it alone like years BEFORE" - I guess I should have said "like many years before" and clarified "except these instances" or something. Sorry that I wasn't so specific.

Party like it's 1999 . . .

[AbortRetryFail?]

How Congress dismantled federal Internet privacy rules

...after weeks of closed-door debates on Capitol Hill over who would take up the issue first ? the House or the Senate ? Republican members settled on a secret strategy, according to Hill staff and lobbyists involved in the battle. While the nation was distracted by the House?s pending vote to repeal Obamacare, Senate Republicans would schedule a vote to wipe out the new privacy protections...

The rules required Internet service providers to get explicit consent before they gather their customers? data ? their browsing histories, the locations of businesses they physically visit and the mobile applications they use ? and sell it to third parties. Proponents said the rules were necessary because consumers must use a provider to access the Internet.

The requirements were modeled after a law passed decades ago by Congress that prohibited telephone companies from collecting customers? calling histories and selling the information to third parties. ?There has been an expectation from the beginning of the telecommunications era that your privacy is not up for sale,? said Sen. Edward J. Markey, (D-Mass.) who fought to preserve the rules...

The industry, Republican FCC commissioners and lawmakers said the restrictions were too broad and should be limited to highly sensitive data, such as personal medical information, not data gathered from activities like online car shopping. The rules, they said, would cause consumers to miss out on customized promotions...

[Darakian]

At least there's torbrowser.