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.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by mr_bad_influence on Saturday August 01 2015, @03:49PM
The fact that these ISPs are fighting net neutrality regulation so vigorously shows their intentions all along have been to manipulate the internet for their own gain. You can bet if they are successful in this suit, the internet will become a victim of corporate greed.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by schad on Saturday August 01 2015, @05:06PM
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.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Gravis on Saturday August 01 2015, @06:21PM
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
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
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
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
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.
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
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.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by physicsmajor on Saturday August 01 2015, @03:55PM
This had better be struck down hard, because if it goes anywhere at all it sets a precedent ending with is deregulation of every last other "telecommunications" service. Your cell phone? Definitely uses "computer processing." Landlines? Yup, those too. In fact, because it's so much more efficient, almost every possible service has moved to digital by now.
It could even be argued that an old-school fully analog switchboard is an computor. Remember, the definition of the word "computer" is simply a programmable machine. This is the very definition of a slippery slope.
(Score: 4, Informative) by captain normal on Saturday August 01 2015, @07:20PM
"The ISPs argued that Internet access must be treated as a more lightly regulated “information service” because it involves “computer processing.”
This is a specious argument. The telcos have been using computer processing in telecommunications since at least the 1950s. Crossbar switching, arguably a type of computational processing, became common after WWII. In the 1950s packet transmission on toll and microwave transmissions required "computer processing". The cable companies from the beginning used processing to handle signals from receivers to the Head End to the distribution lines. With the advent of satellite transmission in the 1970s, virtually all distribution of television signals involved "computer processing".
When life isn't going right, go left.
(Score: 2) by CirclesInSand on Saturday August 01 2015, @08:54PM
The term "computer" originally referred to the humans that mathematicians used to do computations. It was a job title. I'd be quite curious about a telephony system that doesn't use humans at some point.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 01 2015, @11:04PM
The term "computer" originally referred to the humans that mathematicians used to do computations.
And now it refers to disposable items that will be discarded as soon as something faster and cheaper comes along. So I guess it still does refer to humans.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Saturday August 01 2015, @08:56PM
To strike it down hard, perhaps the telecoms should be counter-sued for frivolous litigation.
More than that, the telecoms should be broken up, or regulated more, or nationalized. What they are doing is abusing their monopoly power. If they weren't big monopolies, they wouldn't even be trying this crap.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 01 2015, @10:57PM
Let's say this did happen, they were broken up. Do you recall what happened last time they were broken up?
It would happen again. It would start with backroom deals, unofficial and off-the-books, allowing the CEOs of each of the small companies to arrange illegal agreements... power is power, money is money, and they seek each other out like you wouldn't imagine.
(Score: 2) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Saturday August 01 2015, @11:21PM
Let's say this did happen, they were broken up. Do you recall what happened last time they were broken up?
It would happen again. It would start with backroom deals, ...
So that leaves more regulation and nationalisation as our options. Time to try the former and, if it doesn't work well enough, follow up with the latter .
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Sunday August 02 2015, @06:17AM
The nice part is we already have an air tight reason for doing so, the massive fraud of the telecos in stealing 200 billion from the American people [pbs.org] for a nationwide broadband rollout which we never got. Instead what we got for our $200 billion was massive bonuses to CEOs and a low res Goatse in return!
That bullshit has pissed me off for years because as some here may know I've been fighting 20 damned years to get high speed run to my mother's house. the lines were a block and a half when she built her home, how far were they at the first of this year? If you said a block and a half you're winnar! In fact neither cable nor DSL has moved an inch in the 20 years I've been fighting them, both having cherry picked the neighborhoods they wanted and left the rest to rot. Its led to all kinds of fucked up situations like apt buildings that are nicer going for half the price of crappy ones simply because the high speed is only on the side of the street where the crappy ones are, its just a fucking mess.
But I'm happy to say after 20 years of fighting I'm finally gonna be moving in to that 3 bedroom I've left sitting for over a decade next to mom's while having high speed, how did I do it? I'm proud to say by being a sneaky little fucker, that's how! I found out from a lineman friend that one of the managers at the local cableco had put his wife in a cushy secretary job at the front desk and was miserable because she is a "townie" and the rest of the girls there are all in the same sorority so exclude her. All I had to do was send the wife to buddy up to her and I got the lines run for the $2500 the lines actually cost instead of the $15k "installation cost" they have been quoting me, along with a free home theater install for the manager's wife of course. I'm even getting a grand of that back in free cable TV and net for a year.
Isn't it sad that 20 years after we paid for nationwide broadband the only way I could get it run a lousy block and a half is good old fashioned bribery?Oh well, the wife is happily picking out paints and I'm gonna finally have that music studio I've always wanted, but I can't help but feel sorry for all those that don't have insider knowledge and know how to manipulate the system, because it'll be a cold day in hell before they ever get a line run around here. Oh and some will be happy to know I'm not a cold hearted bastard (or at least I'm not married to one) who left the manager's wife to suffer just because I got what I want, she and the wife hit it off and so they go out to lunch a couple times a month to gossip and let the manager's wife talk shit about the "stuck up college bitches" she works with. She's happy, the wife is happy, its just a shame that in 2015 there are still places where you can literally see the lines from your front door and not get any service without playing the system.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 3, Funny) by tangomargarine on Sunday August 02 2015, @07:55AM
Instead what we got for our $200 billion was massive bonuses to CEOs and a low res Goatse in return!
I demand my goatse is of a higher resolation! This a travesty, I say, A TRAVESTY!!!1
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 02 2015, @03:21PM
Duh, they're businesses not charities. They're not going to do anything that would not make them money, and they'll especially never do anything that would cause them to lose money, like run lines to poor areas.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 02 2015, @03:18PM
The US is run by Capitalists (with a capital "C", those with capitalism as their religion, who worship dogma and ignore facts), and they'll never allow regulation or especially nationalization. Free markets can't exist without regulation keeping them free, but Capitalists don't want free markets, they want more money, more power, and more control. That requires them to continue deregulating everything they can and every opportunity.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Sunday August 02 2015, @07:53AM
But but but...next you'll argue that all those patents "with a computer" are invalid!!
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 5, Informative) by doublerot13 on Saturday August 01 2015, @03:57PM
I was pretty fucking sure that modern phone calls, the definition of 'telecommunications', use digital switches[aka computers and computer processing] instead of older analog tech.
So, yeah. If the ISPs want to go back to this --> https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CAcQjRxqFQoTCN7X2cWfiMcCFYidiAod8s8HYQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FTelephone_switchboard&ei=Cuy8Vd6qK4i7ogTyn5-IBg&bvm=bv.99261572,d.cGU&psig=AFQjCNFhSigVmgOdl7oST1OgLtm5OxN-DQ&ust=1438530952501484 [google.com]
...they can overturn Net Neutrality.
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Saturday August 01 2015, @04:49PM
Because no-one ever called the phone company operator and asked to be connected to a service or person, without knowing the number of that service or person.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 01 2015, @05:37PM
And is the vid kiddyporn?
(Score: 2) by khedoros on Saturday August 01 2015, @07:01PM
"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."
So, by their own admission, if I know the IP address of a non-ISP DNS server and I use that server exclusively, then my broadband provider is only providing me a transmission service. Cool, it sounds like I'm covered, since my ISP itself is providing me solely a "primitive and limited form of 'access'" that "would be unrecognizable to consumers", and I'm getting my "information processing" through an entity unrelated to my ISP.
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Saturday August 01 2015, @07:26PM
We could just as well argue that DNS is simply a more complex 411 service.
When life isn't going right, go left.
(Score: 3, Informative) by khedoros on Saturday August 01 2015, @09:59PM
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 01 2015, @07:10PM
For those who aren't telecom policy wonks, the internet was previously regulated as a "telecommunications service" until the FCC arbitrarily changed it in the mid-2000s. It went to the SCOTUS which ruled that the FCC has the authority to choose which method of regulation it feels like. [wikipedia.org] At the time there was plenty of worry that the FCC's decision would destroy competition [nytimes.com] in the ISP market. Looks like they were right - when was the last time you got ISP service from a company other than the one managing the physical plant? Mindspring, Earthlink, Internet America, and hundreds more little guys who leased access to the cable plant, all faded memories now.
So any time you hear the telecom lobby complain that the FCC can't decide which way to classify internet service, remember that the SCOTUS has already ruled that they have exactly that right and at the time, the telecom lobby was over joyed with that ruling. Karma, bitches!
(Score: 2) by Francis on Saturday August 01 2015, @08:11PM
The FCC has little to do with that. The reason why those options are largely no longer available has more to do with the right of weigh. Those poles that the electric company puts in to carry power can only support so many wires and so much hardware, so you wind up with a smaller number of companies providing the wires. Whereas in olden times, you didn't really need the extra wire, you could just use the phone line and get the best speeds that were available.
I don't hear people whining about the FCC being unable to make the classification, I hear people whining that the ISPs continually take them to court to strip the meager protections out so they can continue to screw the consumers. That and the franchise agreements prevent 3rd parties from even trying to offer service.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 01 2015, @08:17PM
I'm not sure I get your point.
But you are 100% wrong about right of way. It has never been about running additional lines. It has always been about leasing access to the lines that are already there.
(Score: 2) by Francis on Saturday August 01 2015, @10:08PM
My point is that we'd have terrible choices no matter what the FCC decided to do as running lines is the only way of setting up competition. Either you run them on the poles or the more expensive underground, but either way you need access to the right of way and the funds to do so. That's not to say that the FCC hasn't held things back, just that the franchise agreements and right of way have been a bigger problem over all. Companies buying and leasing space on the lines have always been at a significant advantage over the owners when it comes to providing service.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 02 2015, @12:09AM
> My point is that we'd have terrible choices no matter what the FCC decided to do as running lines is the only way of setting up competition.
Ok, are are saying what I thought you were saying and you are just 100% wrong.
I'm not sure how to say it so you will understand, I've already said twice that leasing access to the lines is how it used to work and can still work - not leasing space on the poles, leasing access to the lines that are already there, the cable plant itself. Both older DSL systems which are mostly implementations of ATM which is a packet-switched network and modern fiber based systems are capable of routing data from the end user to a central location where the 3rd party ISP's equipment then routes to the internet. You don't need any more lines on the poles or in the ground, you only need equipment on the termination points.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 02 2015, @04:53AM
There is great irony in that Brand-X ruling. Scalia took the minority opinion and said (paraphrasing) "duh, of course ISPs are telecommunications services" but Thomas disagreed with him (a rarity) as did the majority of the court which said (paraphrasing) "the original text is not specific enough to decide." So, Mr "textual originalist" Scalia gets over-ruled by the majority who think he's making up stuff that isn't in the actual text. Classic case of Scalia believing his own bullshit where he makes up exceptions to his own cherished principles but can't recognize that he's doing it - except for once he actually deployed his bullshit to come to a reasonable conclusion instead of his usual dick-move conclusions.
(Score: 1) by similar_name on Sunday August 02 2015, @02:23AM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 02 2015, @03:27PM
Time to get everyone at the local ISP arrested for trafficking CP.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 02 2015, @05:16PM
1) There are free DNS services, Google offers one for example
2) The World Wide Web is certainly NOT the only function of internet connectivity.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 02 2015, @10:02PM
Yes, DNS is so unique as a service that telecommunication providers don't offer things like The White Pages or the Yellow Pages...
Or wait, its a look up service! That is more unique... er.. wait, I can dial 411 on my phone and get a number...