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posted by janrinok on Saturday August 01 2015, @03:16PM   Printer-friendly
from the squirming-a-bit dept.

Just like the title says, ISPs are once again trying to take down net neutrality by claiming that because the Internet uses computers, it is not a telecommunications service, but rather an information service, which would make it subject to lighter regulation.

Internet service providers yesterday filed a 95-page brief (PDF) outlining their case that the Federal Communications Commission’s new net neutrality rules should be overturned.

One of the central arguments is that the FCC cannot impose common carrier rules on Internet access because it can’t be defined as a “telecommunications” service under Title II of the Communications Act. The ISPs argued that Internet access must be treated as a more lightly regulated “information service” because it involves “computer processing.”

“No matter how many computer-mediated features the FCC may sweep under the rug, the inescapable core of Internet access is a service that uses computer processing to enable consumers to ‘retrieve files from the World Wide Web, and browse their contents’ and, thus, ‘offers the ‘capability for... acquiring,... retrieving [and] utilizing... information.’ Under the straightforward statutory definition, an ‘offering’ of that ‘capability’ is an information service," the ISPs wrote.

Internet providers are now common carriers, and they're ready to sue. "If broadband providers provided only pure transmission and not information processing, as the FCC now claims, the primitive and limited form of 'access' broadband customers would receive would be unrecognizable to consumers," the ISPs also wrote. "They would be required, for example, to know the IP address of every website they visit. But, because Domain Name Service ('DNS') is part of Internet access, consumers can visit any website without knowing its IP address and thereafter 'click through' links on that website to other websites."

Since all of the ISPs are trying so hard to stop net neutrality, these laws are probably worth keeping on the books.

Source: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/07/isps-net-neutrality-rules-are-illegal-because-internet-access-uses-computers/


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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by schad on Saturday August 01 2015, @05:06PM

    by schad (2398) on Saturday August 01 2015, @05:06PM (#216788)

    if they are successful in this suit, the internet will become a victim of corporate greed.

    I've got bad news for you: the Internet is already a victim of corporate greed.

    The Internet probably peaked in utility fairly shortly after the dot-com bust. All the pie-in-the-sky ideas that nobody would pay even $0.01 to support disappeared almost overnight, and for a blissful year or two we had the old Internet -- the part that was never about profitability -- and the parts of the new Internet that were actually worth something -- like Google and Amazon. Ever since then it's been in a decline, slow at first but accelerating each year. While the inevitable next bust will get rid of a lot of the chaff again, unfortunately the old Internet has been effectively gone for probably a decade now. I don't see it ever coming back, certainly not when practically everyone is focused on "the consumer" to the exclusion of all else.

    But this is the pattern of things, at least in the modern world. I'm starting to think that in this one area the hipsters might actually be right: As soon as a thing becomes mainstream it turns to shit.

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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Gravis on Saturday August 01 2015, @06:21PM

    by Gravis (4596) on Saturday August 01 2015, @06:21PM (#216807)

    The Internet probably peaked in utility fairly shortly after the dot-com bust.
    ...
    unfortunately the old Internet has been effectively gone for probably a decade now

    the internet to be a fantastic source of utility specifically because anyone can host content. it may not be popular but there are sites for everything that aren't trying to analyze everything you do. if you want to cry about specific sites, go ahead but don't discount the rest of the evergrowing internet. it has never been easier to get the content you want than it is right now.

    • (Score: 2) by shortscreen on Saturday August 01 2015, @07:52PM

      by shortscreen (2252) on Saturday August 01 2015, @07:52PM (#216825) Journal

      On the real internet, people could host their own stuff. Now the content is locked up in shitty "free" corporate hosts. Joe User uploads all his videos to youtube, photos to photobucket, pdfs to scribd, code to sourceforge, music to soundcloud, and miscellaneous files to mediafire (*barf*).

      There is more and better stuff on the internet. But the sites that are "trying to analyze everything you do" claim a huge proportion of it and crowd other sites out of search results (wikipedia being one exception).

      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by takyon on Saturday August 01 2015, @08:11PM

        by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Saturday August 01 2015, @08:11PM (#216830) Journal

        Is anything stopping you from hosting your Web 1.0 style site? You can find or exploit free hosting (such as using Google Drive to host static web pages) or use your own server to host a site. Nothing is forcing you to use YouTube, photobucket, scribd, sourceforge, soundcloud, etc. but all of those platforms have value.

        If you're complaining about popularity... the "old and real" internet wasn't that popular. If you're complaining about search results, you need to find someone who has curated some of these places, and do some curation yourself.

        --
        [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 01 2015, @11:11PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 01 2015, @11:11PM (#216882)

          Those platforms have value to ignoramuses who don't understand or don't care about how much the corporations are exploiting them and their data.

        • (Score: 2) by shortscreen on Sunday August 02 2015, @01:42AM

          by shortscreen (2252) on Sunday August 02 2015, @01:42AM (#216903) Journal

          I HAVE my own web 1.0 site. The vast majority of people do not. When they want to share content, they are handing it over to the previously mentioned corporate middle men. Remember that line "you are not the customer, you are the product" that someone would post on the green site seemingly everyday? These people are products.

          If you're complaining about popularity... the "old and real" internet wasn't that popular. If you're complaining about search results, you need to find someone who has curated some of these places, and do some curation yourself.

          I don't follow.

          This thread was about whether the internet will (or did already) fall victim to corporate greed. Poster Gravis implied that there is a part of the internet which is free of corporate greed, owing to the thoery that "anyone can host content." This is where I point out that, in practice, people are using these "free" hosting sites which are run by corporations for their own purposes, and this contradicts his point. For people to host their own content, they would need to pay extra for shared hosting or a non-crippled ("business class") internet connection. Most people do not. (No, Google Drive is not the same as hosting it yourself.)

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 02 2015, @03:12PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 02 2015, @03:12PM (#217016)

            I HAVE my own web 1.0 site. The vast majority of people do not. When they want to share content, they are handing it over to the previously mentioned corporate middle men.

            So what? Not everyone has the ability or interest in hosting their own site. If somebody doesn't want to host their own site, that's their choice. If they actually want their content viewed they'll definitely have it hosted at a popular site because there's no way to stumble onto somebody'd random website.