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Mozilla Files Suit Against FCC to Protect Net Neutrality

blog.mozilla.org

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Re: Mozilla Files Suit Against FCC to Protect Net Neutrality

#141

Post by dragonwriter »

smsm42 wrote: post #131
tech2 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 Ve…

> In 2014 Verizon challenged the order and managed to get the blocking and discrimination parts vacated "Vacated" means these parts are no longer the law, right? > NN isn't arbitrary, and seeking to have it restored isn't; it's an attempt at restoring the spirit/intent of legislation OK, but the courts have decided that legislation of 2010 was not correct, right, isn't that what "vacated" meant above? So, does it mea…

> So, does it mean FCC in 2015 created some rules in the absence of the law

No, actually, the court striking down the 2010 Open Internet Order as impermissible given the FCCs citation of Title I authority as it's basis specifically pointed to Title II common carrier classification as a basis that would support the kind of rules that the FCC had adopted.

(Why the FCC resisted Title II classification up through the 2014 draft of what became the 2015 order is an interesting question, of course.)

Re: Mozilla Files Suit Against FCC to Protect Net Neutrality

#142

Post by lmm »

zbraniecki wrote: post #25
maxlybbert wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m sure there are many people working at Facebook, Google and Apple who also genuinely care about freedom and privacy, while there are developers working at Mozilla who are just as willing to sell out users as anyone. It is true that Mozilla’s a nonprofit, but that doesn’t mean a lot to me when I try to guess what they’ll do in the future.

> It is true that Mozilla’s a nonprofit, but that doesn’t mean a lot to me when I try to guess what they’ll do in the future. It should tho. Mozilla is not free of mistakes, but they're recognized as such, and handled as such. Thanks to the non-profit status none of the bad decisions Mozilla made was a result of conflict of interests. source: I work for Mozilla

Plenty of bad decisions from Mozilla were the results of conflicts of interest - between their desire to be useful to users in the immediate term and their desire to push for a better web in the long term, or between individual employees' views and the organisation's interests, or even between their users' interests and the organisation's desire for money (the default search provider) - being a nonprofit doesn't mean you don't want money, it just means you spend everything you get, managers who want to empire-build still want to increase their revenue even in a non-profit.

Mozilla is exempt from one very specific set of interests that other web organisations have. They still have a vast number of competing interests to consider in their decisionmaking. Indeed Google's controlling shareholders, being mostly billionaires, may well exert less pressure in practice than Mozilla's donors.

Re: Mozilla Files Suit Against FCC to Protect Net Neutrality

#143

Post by orcdork »

dingo_bat wrote: post #91
urda wrote: post #2

Mozilla is one of the few groups on the internet I'm proud to support. Keep up the good fight!

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

How dare they kick out the guy that's so anti-gay marriage, he donated money to that "cause".

Re: Mozilla Files Suit Against FCC to Protect Net Neutrality

#144

Post by boomboomsubban »

dragonwriter wrote: post #139
boomboomsubban wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

> The 2015 rules the FCC pushed forward by saying they were considered "common carriers" under the 1934 Communications act More precisely, “telecommunications carriers” under the 1996 Telecommunications Act, which substsntially revised and restructured the 1934 Communications Act; the 1996 Act specifies that telecommunication carriers are, when acting as telecommunication carriers, common carriers. > The political th…

>Their authority over the internet is based on a law adopted in 1996 whose major motivations included updating the 1934 Act to cover modern communications including the internet.

The 96 update specifically lays out another class, information carriers, meant for things like broadband, that aren't regulated as common carriers. It did not see internet access essentially replacing cable and phone access, and did not explicitly give the FCC the authority currently needed.

Re: Mozilla Files Suit Against FCC to Protect Net Neutrality

#145

Post by dingo_bat »

orcdork wrote: post #143
dingo_bat wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

How dare they kick out the guy that's so anti-gay marriage, he donated money to that "cause".

Do you want a world in which you're kicked out of your job because of the politics you support? It's antithetical to a society based on free speech.

Re: Mozilla Files Suit Against FCC to Protect Net Neutrality

#146

Post by orcdork »

dingo_bat wrote: post #145
orcdork wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How dare they kick out the guy that's so anti-gay marriage, he donated money to that "cause".

Do you want a world in which you're kicked out of your job because of the politics you support? It's antithetical to a society based on free speech.

I want a society where this kind of backwards, reductive and downright hateful notions, passed as "free speech", "politics" or just "speaking my mind, bro" have no place.

And i do want (and in some cases expect) organizations to support that kind of society and show the door to people holding these views.

Re: Mozilla Files Suit Against FCC to Protect Net Neutrality

#147

Post by boomboomsubban »

smsm42 wrote: post #127
boomboomsubban wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

>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, but it's all on interpretation. Which is why it's in the courts.

>what happened in 2015?

Before 2014, ISPs were not labeled common carriers, but the FCC enforced net neutrality through some other vague part of the bills. In 2014, the courts ruled on a case between Verizon and the FCC, stating they could not grant the privileges of common carriers while not designating them common carriers, ending that. So in 2015, the FCC labeled them common carriers.

Re: Mozilla Files Suit Against FCC to Protect Net Neutrality

#148

Post by dingo_bat »

orcdork wrote: post #146
dingo_bat wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you want a world in which you're kicked out of your job because of the politics you support? It's antithetical to a society based on free speech.

I want a society where this kind of backwards, reductive and downright hateful notions, passed as "free speech", "politics" or just "speaking my mind, bro" have no place. And i do want (and in some cases expect) organizations to support that kind of society and show the door to people holding these views.

I think it's you who is being "hateful". And I'm scared that I'll be persecuted for my views and denied from participating in something I'm good at and enjoy, probably by somebody who thinks like you.

Re: Mozilla Files Suit Against FCC to Protect Net Neutrality

#149

Post by leeoniya »

javitury wrote: post #138
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?

Different groups of customers can have on average different preferences. ISP content discrimination could be correlated in favor of the preferences of some groups but against the preferences of others. Even if the dont do this on purpose. Let's assume that facebook pays a lot of money to ISPs to be prioritized. Meanwhile github/gitlab can't afford to make any payment and these websites feel slugish. Let's also assume…

> ISPs would de facto be discriminating based on gender, even when it is not explicit.

is discrimination based on preference a real thing that the law can protect you against? my understanding is that you cannot discriminate against things a person has little control over (race, gender, etc.)

i imagine you'd have to prove that preference discrimination was being used specifically as a proxy for the others to have any legal footing and it's a steep hill to climb because some preferences can be more expensive to deliver than others, too.

Re: Mozilla Files Suit Against FCC to Protect Net Neutrality

#150

Post by metafunctor »

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…

Not your point, but what law is not based on a certain political theory?

Laws codify values. They are always evaluated in the context of what society wants, what the leaders want, what previous law exists, and how it all fits together.

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