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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

#191

Post by j_s »

msla wrote: post #170
lazysheepherd wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you insert your misleading message twice in the same topic within 15 minutes? It is hard to understand whether you are a disappointed Mozilla supporter or a paid troll for somebody. This is not exactly an accusation, but that's how it looks. On the other hand, after this move, now I'm seriously planning to switch to Mozilla.

Because it's a discussion we need to have, and I realized that my standalone comment wasn't going to accomplish that. My later comment did, BTW, even though it's now "hidden" to some extent for some unknown reason. HN mods being pro-Mozilla? (BTW, an accusation which you claim is not an accusation is a poor accusation indeed.)

There is a growing list of stumbles as Mozilla pursues additional market share, but the the company is building the browser pointed in the best direction. Hopefully there is a happy medium somewhere between "a mistake has been made" and "the end justifies the means" but it's still being sorted out. In case you missed it, the extensive discussion was here last month:

Unknown Mozilla dev addon "Looking Glass 1.0.3" on browser | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15931730

Firefox is on a slippery slope | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15940144

I hope that HN's 'downvote to disagree' squad doesn't reduce your collection of random internet points too severely! I personally try to upvote every comment worth replying to. I would love to see the ratio of upvotes to downvotes & number of 'flags' associated with each account as kind of a 'degree of genuine participation' indicator.

PS. It's not the mods... 'ain't nobody got time for that!'

Re: Mozilla Files Suit Against FCC to Protect Net Neutrality

#192

Post by smsm42 »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #147
smsm42 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

>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? The law defines common carriers in a vague way meant to refer to a telephone provider. The vague way allows one to argue that internet is also included,…

> So in 2015, the FCC labeled them common carriers.

Which gives me the impression FCC is empowered to decide what "common carrier" means, thus making both "yes" and "no" decisions with regard to ISPs equally legal. Is there some other law that breaks the symmetry?

Re: Mozilla Files Suit Against FCC to Protect Net Neutrality

#193

Post by smsm42 »

fjabre wrote: post #137
smsm42 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how they are putting customers at risk of discrimination "on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, or sex". I haven't seen any evidence that FCC intended to tolerate or actually tolerated such discrimination, or even that any of the ISPs ever attempted such discrimination. Could you explain why you think FCC violated this part of the mandate?

My reasoning was that those most affected by NN repeal and potential loss of access (slow access) are those who would not be able to afford ISP price increases for what most reasonable people would consider open and equal Internet access comparable to Internet for people with more means. This would effectively discriminate against a significant percentage of the population would it not? And put them at further disadv…

This sounds like "world ends, poor people hardest hit". Of course, any price increase would affect poor people, but that's not how "discrimination" works - you can't just claim that anything that increases the price of any good is "discriminatory" (otherwise we couldn't have most of regulations, since many of them do increase costs, whatever are their other perceived or real benefits).

And, "poor people" are not enumerated there anyway - it's "on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, or sex". You could of course claim that since there's more poor people among, say, blacks than whites, it's related to race, but that would extend "discrimination" way beyond point of any usability - you could then claim that producing and selling any expensive good is racist, which is insane.

Re: Mozilla Files Suit Against FCC to Protect Net Neutrality

#194

Post by boomboomsubban »

dragonwriter wrote: post #182
boomboomsubban wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, service, my mistake. The classification of broadband as an "information service" and not a "telecommunications service" has been shown to be valid in a 2005 Supreme Court case. The law should have been updated to make it clear that ISP's are common carriers after that ruling.

> The classification of broadband as an "information service" and not a "telecommunications service" has been shown to be valid in a 2005 Supreme Court case. The classification of cable modem service in the specific factual context surrounding the way it was found by the court to be provided, used, and perceived by users at the time as an “information service” by the FCC was upheld in NCTA v. Brand X as sufficiently…

I don't understand your point. The current law isn't clear enough, and should have been amended a long time ago to make this a non issue. That this case might work isn't the point, this case shouldn't be necessary.

Re: Mozilla Files Suit Against FCC to Protect Net Neutrality

#195

Post by boomboomsubban »

smsm42 wrote: post #192
boomboomsubban wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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? The law defines common carriers in a vague way meant to refer to a telephone provider. The vague way allows one to argue that internet is also included,…

> So in 2015, the FCC labeled them common carriers. Which gives me the impression FCC is empowered to decide what "common carrier" means, thus making both "yes" and "no" decisions with regard to ISPs equally legal. Is there some other law that breaks the symmetry?

The FCC doesn't get to decide, it just isn't currently clear whether they are a common carrier under the laws given. So the FCC chooses what side to back, enacts regulations based on it, and waits for the courts to decide who is right.

Re: Mozilla Files Suit Against FCC to Protect Net Neutrality

#196

Post by [deleted] »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #195
smsm42 wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So in 2015, the FCC labeled them common carriers. Which gives me the impression FCC is empowered to decide what "common carrier" means, thus making both "yes" and "no" decisions with regard to ISPs equally legal. Is there some other law that breaks the symmetry?

The FCC doesn't get to decide, it just isn't currently clear whether they are a common carrier under the laws given. So the FCC chooses what side to back, enacts regulations based on it, and waits for the courts to decide who is right.

[deleted]

Re: Mozilla Files Suit Against FCC to Protect Net Neutrality

#197

Post by dragonwriter »

smsm42 wrote: post #192
boomboomsubban wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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? The law defines common carriers in a vague way meant to refer to a telephone provider. The vague way allows one to argue that internet is also included,…

> So in 2015, the FCC labeled them common carriers. Which gives me the impression FCC is empowered to decide what "common carrier" means, thus making both "yes" and "no" decisions with regard to ISPs equally legal. Is there some other law that breaks the symmetry?

The FCC gets to apply the definition written into the law bases on the factual circumstances, and is entitled (under current case law) to significant deference in its application of the law, but it's decisions still need to be grounded in the facts and law.

Re: Mozilla Files Suit Against FCC to Protect Net Neutrality

#198

Post by Endy »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #110
Endy wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And because Alphabet Inc. (GOOGL) is trading at like $1K/share, it's out of most people's hands to even be eligible for the shareholders' meeting. On top of that, the float is almost 603 million shares, and ~81% are held by institutions rather than private investors. ~10% of the company is held by "people" rather than other companies - not enough to make a real change happen in terms of corporate policy. If you could…

Isn't nearly all voting power of Google still owned by the founding folks/executives? Non-voting shares has become a big thing these days to prevent shareholders from affecting company direction.

Basically, but there's a wonderful thing called a short sale. If tons of people sell Google short, or threaten to do so, it's very likely have an effect. Also, live long and prosper.

Re: Mozilla Files Suit Against FCC to Protect Net Neutrality

#199

Post by nitrogen »

wtallis wrote: post #176
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Net neutrality outlaws any conduct by the ISP to regulate or throttle off destinations by which site it is. Customers aren't doing it, the ISP is. Even Ajit Pai's proposal demands transparency so customers can make their own decisions, but net neutrality would indeed prohibit specific use Internet offerings. Nobody could offer one because net neutrality would prohibit an ISP from intervening if you popped the SIM int…

> because streaming video, of which these companies own the largest providers of streaming video, would be the primary thing limited plans would all definitely restrict. No, the primary thing limited plans would all definitely restrict would be the quantity of data transferred. That's what all the cellular providers already have the infrastructure to monitor and control. And once you've created an IoT-oriented tier o…

I also don't see any reason why a provider couldn't offer a customer-controlled firewall option that disables access to everything but specific endpoints for IoT devices, especially if the "customer" is the IoT device service provider.

Re: Mozilla Files Suit Against FCC to Protect Net Neutrality

#200

Post by ocdtrekkie »

drawkbox wrote: post #179
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Packet level" is a technical distinction, not an important one. Google controls whether or not websites effectively exist on the Internet, for all intents and purposes. Google controls how those websites operate, what they must look like, and what security protocols they must use. If in any way, a website doesn't obey Google, it ends up delisted from Google Seaarch, and then it loses all it's profitability and cease…

> "Packet level" is a technical distinction, not an important one. It is a very important discussion, it should never happen and ISPs want to do it to have the ability to slow you down and throttle you. NN prevents packet level bias. Even if you still want to beat the Google is a monopoly drum, I don't totally disagree that some of their tactics are that level, this is just a distraction from NN and local ISP monopol…

Again, packet level bias isn't a big deal when there's a company that controls the whole freaking Internet. There's no "distraction" with Google, Google is the problem, and they're distracting you by saying "Look at these little companies who aren't that big a deal. They're evil! Focus on them!"

Everything you are pitching is right out of their guidebook, Google has funded every net neutrality supporting organization out there today, and is behind every single move you see to defend it. Ask yourself why.

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