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Mozilla Files Suit Against FCC to Protect Net Neutrality

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Re: Mozilla Files Suit Against FCC to Protect Net Neutrality

#121

Post by tech2 »

smsm42 wrote: post #115

Can somebody explain to me what is the base of the lawsuit? I mean, it looks to me if FCC has the right to introduce certain rules for Internet providers that Mozilla supposedly liked, in 2015, then they have the right to revert those rules back to pre-2015 state as well? So what is the basis for the legal claim against them? Or is this a kind of lawsuit like "we don't like it so we sue you, and as for legal basis we…

Four principles of internet usage were codified (but not made law) by the FCC in 2005; these kinda represent what we commonly consider "net neutrality". In 2010 the Open Internet Order was put in place, making these principles law. It mandated three things, no blocking, no unreasonable discrimination, and transparency (disclosure of network management practises, expected performance, terms and conditions).

In 2014 Verizon challenged the order and managed to get the blocking and discrimination parts vacated. So the FCC introduced net neutrality to restore the intent of their order in the first place. There have been other such challenges by ISPs before as well, and various violations.

So, in 2015 we got NN as a replacement for the open internet order which was a legal description of the FCC's principles of network neutrality that harks back to 2005...

NN isn't arbitrary, and seeking to have it restored isn't; it's an attempt at restoring the spirit/intent of legislation, rather than how case law has caused some aspects to be interpreted.

Re: Mozilla Files Suit Against FCC to Protect Net Neutrality

#122

Post by Majora320 »

droopybuns wrote: post #100
habosa wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That has nothing to do with net neutrality. These companies are free under any form of the law to offer you a small-cap low-speed plan for a small fee but they don't bother. If they restricted the services you could access or their relative speeds, then you get into trouble.

This is the fundamental misunderstanding. Most in the ISP crowd agree with what you are agreeing with. But the net neutrality folks predominantly reject this approach. I want surgery over IP. I don’t want surgical packets treated the same as a YouTube packet.

You can pay for lower latency on your end.

Re: Mozilla Files Suit Against FCC to Protect Net Neutrality

#123

Post by curun1r »

smsm42 wrote: post #116
maxander wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look up the definition of a "monopoly." Google is giant, sure, but it's not the only search provider, or email provider, or anything else that it does (aside from some random niche things.) And everyone has perfect freedom to switch from Google to another provider of these services, which isn't true for ISPs if only one company has fiber going to your house.

Google is as much of a monopoly than Microsoft ever was. Microsoft never was the only OS provider or browser provider or sole provider of anything, yet the parent comment calls it a monopoly and praises the effort to hurt it. You can't have it both ways - if Microsoft was a monopoly, then Google is.

Microsoft was never a monopoly and Google can never be a monopoly. It's not something that a company is, it's something that a company has. In Microsoft's case, it was Windows and it was considered a monopoly not because it was the only operating system, but because of its market share. The only product that Google has that has anywhere near the required market share to be considered a monopoly is Google Search.

Even so, Microsoft didn't get in trouble with the Justice Department for its Windows monopoly, it got in trouble for leveraging its monopoly to support its other, non-monopoly products. If you want to argue that Google should be constrained under anti-trust rules, you need to show how they're abusing a monopoly to compete unfairly with other products. People have made that argument but it's less cut-and-dry than it was in Microsoft's case.

As it is, your lack of understanding of the basic definition of 'monopoly' makes what you're saying somewhat nonsensical.

Re: Mozilla Files Suit Against FCC to Protect Net Neutrality

#124

Post by ocdtrekkie »

curun1r wrote: post #123
smsm42 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google is as much of a monopoly than Microsoft ever was. Microsoft never was the only OS provider or browser provider or sole provider of anything, yet the parent comment calls it a monopoly and praises the effort to hurt it. You can't have it both ways - if Microsoft was a monopoly, then Google is.

Microsoft was never a monopoly and Google can never be a monopoly. It's not something that a company is, it's something that a company has. In Microsoft's case, it was Windows and it was considered a monopoly not because it was the only operating system, but because of its market share. The only product that Google has that has anywhere near the required market share to be considered a monopoly is Google Search. Even…

Google not only has monopoly-level market shares in Search, Ads, and Android, they also have a massively dominant market share with Chrome. The magic, and where Google runs afoul, is how they leverage those to assist each other in ways you clearly ignore.

- Chrome will soon start directly blocking Google Ads' competitors based on standards Google invented through an organization it runs.

- Chrome pushes Google Search default, Search pesters you to get Chrome like three times.

- Android devices are required to ship with nearly all of Google's products pre-installed. Literally through a confidential contract almost every phone manufacturer on the planet save like... Apple and Amazon have signed on.

There are more, mind you, but this is kinda a taste. Microsoft did nothing this illegal, ever.

Re: Mozilla Files Suit Against FCC to Protect Net Neutrality

#125

Post by arca_vorago »

droopybuns wrote: post #100
habosa wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That has nothing to do with net neutrality. These companies are free under any form of the law to offer you a small-cap low-speed plan for a small fee but they don't bother. If they restricted the services you could access or their relative speeds, then you get into trouble.

This is the fundamental misunderstanding. Most in the ISP crowd agree with what you are agreeing with. But the net neutrality folks predominantly reject this approach. I want surgery over IP. I don’t want surgical packets treated the same as a YouTube packet.

Then buy a dedicated line with SLA's and such in writing. I don't understand how people don't understand this by now.

Re: Mozilla Files Suit Against FCC to Protect Net Neutrality

#126

Post by thg »

earenndil wrote: post #103
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google is a global monopoly with it's hands in literally everything. A significant percentage of all inter-human communication, whether voice, internet, email, or messaging goes through Google. Possibly a majority. Regional/local monopolies are barely a concern worth mention in comparison. It's as if you're worried about the street dealer, and not worried about the head of the cartel.

> A significant percentage of all inter-human communication, whether voice, internet, email, or messaging goes through Google. Possibly a majority. Can't be a majority. 2/3 of all network traffic is netflix.

Netflix is a entertainment service, not a inter-human communication service. Streaming movies isn't communicating with other fellow humans.

Re: Mozilla Files Suit Against FCC to Protect Net Neutrality

#127

Post by smsm42 »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #119
smsm42 wrote: post #115

Can somebody explain to me what is the base of the lawsuit? I mean, it looks to me if FCC has the right to introduce certain rules for Internet providers that Mozilla supposedly liked, in 2015, then they have the right to revert those rules back to pre-2015 state as well? So what is the basis for the legal claim against them? Or is this a kind of lawsuit like "we don't like it so we sue you, and as for legal basis we…

>I mean, it looks to me if FCC has the right to introduce certain rules for Internet providers that Mozilla supposedly liked, in 2015, then they have the right to revert those rules back to pre-2015 state as well? So what is the basis for the legal claim against them? Basically, the law all of this is based on largely predates the internet. The 2015 rules the FCC pushed forward by saying they were considered "common…

> Mozilla is arguing that they're clearly common carriers

Does the law unambiguously define "common carriers" as including ISPs or does it empower FCC to make that definition? If the former, why FCC needed to make that definition at all and why it made it only in 2015 - the law clearly existed long before and so did ISPs?

> This was always going to be decided by the courts or congress, the FCC had no certain power.

I'm still not sure how it works - if FCC has no power to decide it, what happened in 2015? Congress certainly didn't do anything. So who is empowered to decide whether certain company or type of companies is "common carrier" or not? I thought that's FCCs job?

Re: Mozilla Files Suit Against FCC to Protect Net Neutrality

#128

Post by arca_vorago »

dcow wrote: post #99
dingo_bat wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I supported them until they kicked out Brendan Eich over his personal political leanings.

I spend a non-zero amount of time fantasizing about how I'll be socially lynched out of my well-earned livelihood someday for some comment I made 40 years ago on Facebook–like personalities are etched in stone. I never used to do that.

Think about the presidents and politicians of the future. Every internet comment scrutinized, diced and then selectively used to attack/discredit when some entity desires to. It's a little scary, because when you feel like you are being watched (even if the "watching" is future walking the cat back from NSA archives), your speech is chilled.

Re: Mozilla Files Suit Against FCC to Protect Net Neutrality

#129

Post by drawkbox »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #124
curun1r wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft was never a monopoly and Google can never be a monopoly. It's not something that a company is, it's something that a company has. In Microsoft's case, it was Windows and it was considered a monopoly not because it was the only operating system, but because of its market share. The only product that Google has that has anywhere near the required market share to be considered a monopoly is Google Search. Even…

Google not only has monopoly-level market shares in Search, Ads, and Android, they also have a massively dominant market share with Chrome. The magic, and where Google runs afoul, is how they leverage those to assist each other in ways you clearly ignore. - Chrome will soon start directly blocking Google Ads' competitors based on standards Google invented through an organization it runs. - Chrome pushes Google Search…

Net neutrality and ISP monopolies are important to observe here because only ISP monopolies can control packet level what goes through every single internet connection you make, that is why ISPs and local monopolies are important to the impact of net neutrality going away. ISPs inspecting packets to slow some down also leads to encroaching packet inspection that leads to more surveillance.

Talking about Google here is a distraction and a false equivalency as they control nothing in the lower level of your network like ISPs do.

Google is not a monopoly, they are a market leader with mind share. They were able to get the word "google" as a verb, that is through a good product and marketing.

It seems you really prefer companies that buy their monopolies via legislation and bribes like ISPs (Comcast/AT&T/etc) over companies that build market share in the actual market (Google/Apple/Facebook/Netflix/Amazon etc).

You need to read up on your Microsoft history, you are precluding lots of history, Microsoft is well known to do the "embrace, extend and extinguish"[1] technique back when they were essentially monopoly mind share level. Just one small thing in many that they did, they killed Quicktime, Real Player[2] when Windows player was created by making them not work on the OS level.

ISPs want to do the same thing with competitive products, it is a natural progression for a market leader, you can't blame them you have to prevent it with regulation/laws.

The only control Google has is to control technology via their browser, which Microsoft did with IE4 especially - and you can use others, and what kind of search results you can get. AMP is an overstep and their control but not monopoly level yet -- and they are overstepping on stomping internet standards in a new 'embrace, extend, and extinguish'. But even then, Google has less monopoly ability to control your network compared to ISPs that control everything you do on the internet and Microsoft could control OS level when Windows was 95% share and only desktop existed, which they pushed IE then as well and crushed competition, preinstalled and all that.

I like Google and Microsoft though, they earned their mind share through innovative products. ISPs just buy off legislators and create state assisted monopolies. The latter is very anti-business and anti-competitive much more than building support in an open market.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguis...

[2] https://www.cnet.com/news/real-hits-microsoft-with-1-billion...

Re: Mozilla Files Suit Against FCC to Protect Net Neutrality

#130

Post by qaq »

drawkbox wrote: post #63
qaq wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's highly market specific. Moving to NoVa from MI I have now like 5 ISP options with very competitive pricing and variety of high speed option including Comcast Xfinity 2000 Mbps, Verizon FIOS etc.

Your local anecdote is nice but the VAST MAJORITY of the US only has 0 or 1 valid ISP with decent speeds if that at 25-100 Mbps[1][2]. Removing NN will also increase revenues for ISPs that currently are already or on their way to monopolies, which will create even more fake ISP competition. Everyone saw what happened when Google Fiber was threatening, suddenly competition... [1] https://arstechnica.com/information-te…

I used to think the same it is likely though that in large metro areas e.g. NYC, LA, DC, Philadelphia ... etc. there is strong competition and wide availability of interesting options. Given the population numbers the VAST MAJORITY is more like 50/50
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