Like Altman, I am amazed that this is not inflaming the community again. In order to pass an unpopular law, you just need to try to pass it several times, until the public gets tired of protesting?
Keep the Internet Open
251–260 of 415 posts
Re: Keep the Internet Open
#252Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Your examples are all safety (including public safety), or shared-resources (radio spectrum). Fiber I lay in the ground isn't a shared resource, and no one's safety is impaired by prioritizing my on-network traffic over off-network traffic. That's true, sort of. The fiber you lay in the ground isn't a shared resource, but the internet as a whole IS. Mediating my access to it without reasonable alternatives removes…
> I'm trying to interpret this charitably I couldn't easily think of a non-public-safety, non-shared resource regulation that exists. (because most of those things aren't regulated). If you can think of a better example, I'm fine with using that. > local monopoly Local monopolies are because local governments restrict who can trench or otherwise install in an area. I believe there are local/state/federal restrictions…
> If you can think of a better example, I'm fine with using that.
Comparisons between regulation of telephone service and internet service seem like the closest analog, and there are certainly examples of the former. Early telephone network providers were forced to peer by government regulation, for instance. An even more closely related example is the regulation that cell network providers may not charge extra fees for tethering; that's actually quite close to the net neutrality argument, where the cell network provider is being forced to act as a "dumb pipe" and accept traffic at the same cost regardless of the source (though admittedly they have metered usage billing, which I would be totally fine with from my ISP if that solves the problem). That we as a society accepted regulation in both of these cases is not a sufficient argument for why net neutrality is necessary, but it defeats the argument that such regulation is unprecedented.
I think we're in agreement about what we want, and the argument that net neutrality will fail to produce this is reasonable since we aren't currently in the goal state. My fear of anti net-neutrality legislation is based on the fact that what we have now, though not ideal, is acceptable, and it's quite plausible that things could become much worse rather than better unless this is addressed very, very thoughtfully. I'm open to the idea that net neutrality as it currently stands is unsustainable, but that needs to be paired with a clear explanation of how revoking it won't lead us to the nightmare scenario I've described above in which a small monopoly of providers serve as unelected gatekeepers. As I mentioned earlier, if the answer is metered billing where the high costs of the long tail are amortized by the low costs of popular content, then that seems perfectly appropriate. You also gave an example in a sibling comment about net neutrality only being waived when consumers had access to a certain number of providers.
Re: Keep the Internet Open
#253Earlier quoted context omitted.
It can be argued that the ISP's equipment is useless unless it runs data lines through state-owned land, therefore no, it doesn't get to do absolutely anything it wants with it.
The equipment that would be modifying the traffic would be in privately-owned exchanges or the ISP's datacenters. None of it would happen on the fiber crossing over (or running under) state owned land.
By that same logic, there should be no laws governing radio broadcasting, since the equipment that emits the photons is located in a private building, not in the public airspace through which the photons travel. Yet the FCC still exists.
Re: Keep the Internet Open
#254To the folks on HN who don't vehemently, vehemently oppose a non-neutral system, your line of thinking puzzles the hell out of me. Is the idea that government regulation is bad in all cases but corporate regulation is OK in all cases? Why? Because you've bought into free market forces making all things better no matter what ? Those forces only make things better unless they don't. To me, it's crazy that's not immedia…
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Re: Keep the Internet Open
#255Earlier quoted context omitted.
How about any criminal activity of any kind? Do you plan to be held liable for spammers/scammers using your network? Why was your vetting process for new users so poor? Why are you controlling unsolicited SIP telephony traffic? You either follow net neutrality or you can try and get along without common carrier protections.
Exactly. You can't have it both ways: you want total control over the traffic on your network, you get total liability for it too. You want to be a blind carrier, immune from liability? You can't have any control over the content. We figured this out with the telephone company many decades ago, and the principle hasn't changed.
This particular set of options doesn't reflect the immunity in §230 of the CDA, which both immunizes intermediaries and authorizes them to remove content they find objectionable. (While that doesn't mean that intermediaries can't be required to be neutral by other legislation or regulations, the particular either/or principle you describe hasn't been the law in the U.S. for a couple of decades.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230_of_the_Communicati...
47 USC §230(c)(1) provides that "[n]o provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider" and then (c)(2) immediately says that "[n]o provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be held liable on account of [...] any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected [...]".
Edit: to be precise, the content immunity in §230 isn't a generic common-carrier immunity; if you read the introductory text, it's a very Internet-specific immunity for "interactive computer services" such as Internet services!
Re: Keep the Internet Open
#256Earlier quoted context omitted.
Does Sonic.net not provide service in Berkeley? Back when I lived in the Bay Area, I switched from Comcast purely because Sonic.net isn't an utterly loathsome company. Turns out with Sonic I didn't have to reboot my modem every other week either.
sonic speeds in many parts of the bay area (even in SF) is not competitive with comcast. they are rolling out fiber in select neighborhoods and can't wait until they come to my part of town.
Perhaps if comcast were deliberately strangling youtube, sonic's speeds would be competitive with comcast's.
Re: Keep the Internet Open
#257Earlier quoted context omitted.
> "net neutrality" extremism So the NN side are the extremists. Not the side that wants to radically change the way the internet has worked for 40 years. Not the side that wants to upend the most innovative segment of the economy in favor of dinausour monoplies, radically reshaping the foundations of billions of dollars in investment and billions more in created wealth. Those guys are "conservative" right?
I think you misunderstand - NN is new, the internet worked fine on its own prior to it. NN is not a colloquial "neutrality" agreement, its a "lets force carriers to do things because we don't understand how it works". I've worked on the carrier side, on the last mile side and on the consumer side and I'm not a fan of most of the proposed legislation. We need to prevent anticompetitive practices, but thats about it.
> "lets force carriers to do things because we don't understand how it works"
Are you suggesting pro-NN people don't understand how it works? This is a strange summary of NN to me.
Re: Keep the Internet Open
#258We see the consequences of a non-open Internet every day where we work in Uganda. It is common there for people to have "social bundles" that only work for Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter, etc. Our users believe they have Internet access but don't understand why data from our app is not syncing when Facebook is working. It's a large barrier for us and adds a huge moat for the incumbents. We're considering more integratio…
This is eye opening and a perfectly plausible future for new startups in the us and europe.
Re: Keep the Internet Open
#259The utility should be the fiber (or spectrum). Regulate that; leave the ISPs to then compete openly. Today's software can enable multiple ISPs to share the fiber/spectrum. I could then have 10 ISPs today and 15 ISPs tomorrow. I might use ISP #1 for certain content, and ISP #2 for certain services. ISPs essentially become a function of the services and content they provide, and how they provide it, in an ultra-competi…
Isn't that what happened to the DSL market? No one will bother laying new infrastructure because anyone can use it.
Good point but much larger overall pie with fiber; enough for the infrastructure owner and the ISPs to eat, and eat well.
Also the OSS/BSS/ops implementations for shared DSL were too costly and ineffective; we can do much better with today's software.
Re: Keep the Internet Open
#260Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do Google and Facebook really sell data? From my understanding, they keep the data for ad targeting, feature/content recommendations. Like if I place an ad on Facebook I could put 18 to 35, who likes travel, etc to promote a hotel booking site as an example. Even if you do retarget with Facebook advertising, they don't even show you the names of the people. You have like a retargeting list, it tells you how many peop…
Yes. Giving the NSA direct access to their databases doesn't seem like caring about user privacy to me. I don't perceive the 'consent' issue the same way; sending an email or uploading a picture to the internet shouldn't require 100 different data points on my device and location. YMMV, but I find working for companies who's business model is to exploit other people's personal information for profit is an enormously…
I haven't been following the whole NSA/CIA stuff as much lately, but from my understanding Google, Facebook never directly sold people's information. Yes, they monetize it I knew that but It was from my understanding companies mostly "rent" the data without getting a copy of the data(just using it).
> YMMV, but I find working for companies who's business model is to exploit other people's personal information for profit is an enormously distasteful thing to do.
For the record, I don't work for any company's that abuse people's personal information. I do have a bit of knowledge on how Facebook ads work because I've used them before.
I don't even view Google or Facebook as doing bad compared to the large data brokers.