The broadband industry has abandoned its lawsuit against California's net neutrality law after a series of court rulings went against Internet service providers.
The four broadband lobby groups that sued California "hereby stipulate to the dismissal of this action without prejudice," they wrote in a filing Wednesday in US District Court for the Eastern District of California. The ISP groups are ACA Connects (formerly the American Cable Association), CTIA-The Wireless Association, NCTA-The Internet & Television Association, and USTelecom.
"After losing three times in federal court, the ISPs have finally realized that they can't overturn California's net neutrality law and that they should just stop trying," Stanford Law Professor Barbara van Schewick wrote, calling the development "a historic win for Californians and the open Internet."
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 07 2022, @03:16AM
Fuck Spectrum, Fuck AT&T, Fuck Verizon, Fuck Cox.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by PinkyGigglebrain on Saturday May 07 2022, @04:01AM (9 children)
The next action the various ISPs, Telcos, etc who have been trying to overturn Cal's law will now be for them to get one of their pet Congresscritters to introduce some legislation, or just add a rider to some 'must pass' bill like defense spending, that prohibits States from passing or enforcing laws that interfere with Internet Traffic. Probably using some lame BS justification that since the network crosses state lines it is up to the Federal Government to regulate it as it is relates to "Interstate commerce"
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 07 2022, @04:53AM (1 child)
Followed by Calexit.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 07 2022, @06:09AM
Oh, are you talking about Ecotopia?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecotopia [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 5, Interesting) by krishnoid on Saturday May 07 2022, @06:57AM (2 children)
Too bad there isn't a three strikes law for filing cases like this, after which you lose your corporate charter to operate in California. I mean, they can get by without California's customer base, right?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Saturday May 07 2022, @11:23AM (1 child)
There really should be a progressive penalty schedule for stuff like that.
I've often pointed out that corporations exist at the sufferance of the people, and of the state. We the people should just liquidate companies, corporations, and other entities that we find inconvenient.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 08 2022, @01:10PM
If find Runaway1956's estate as inconvenient and insufferable.
I say we liquidate it, what say you?
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Saturday May 07 2022, @02:06PM (2 children)
All you need now is some cute acronym for it like SMILINGBABY and you could probably get a job in politics.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 4, Funny) by PinkyGigglebrain on Saturday May 07 2022, @04:44PM (1 child)
The most popular naming method used has to be the
Contrived Unsuitable Technical Names for Projects with the Acronym as Sole Target for the Effort
aka "CUTNPASTE"
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Saturday May 07 2022, @06:38PM
Just need to switch that T and N. Since those bills usually involve violating our liberties somehow...
Contrived Unsuitable Nominal Terminology for Projects with the Acronym as Sole Target for the Effort?
"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 May 08 2022, @01:06PM
Why? Alito's not good enough? I mean, look, the founding fathers said nothing about net neutrality.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 07 2022, @11:07AM (3 children)
We really, really don't want individual states regulating the Internet. What happens when Alabama decides that everyone has to block abortion rights information? Or when New York decides everyone has to block hate speech?
(Score: 2, Interesting) by tangomargarine on Saturday May 07 2022, @01:59PM (2 children)
Probably about the same thing as now, when the EU keeps demanding ridiculous things like "right to force people to forget you" and we tell them to go fuck themselves.
Or we bow to the GDPR? I forget what the end result is.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 07 2022, @11:53PM (1 child)
That would be nice, but I, as a United States citizen, located in the United States, visiting websites prepared by US companies and hosted in the United States, still have to click away idiotic cookie warnings because of European laws.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 08 2022, @06:17AM
They could easily have skipped that by using a geo-ip database to determine where you're connecting from. They chose not to do that.
I'm from Europe. Over here I've seen the advertising industry (who supply websites with cookie popups to use) try to make the dialogs as irritating as they could for visitors, in an attempt to turn people hostile to privacy laws. It has improved a lot because the EU authorities don't accept that: it must be exactly as easy to reject all cookies that aren't strictly necessary to make the web site function as it is to accept all cookies.
Currently, cookie popups from the majority of EU websites just need one click to get rid of them. That's still one click too many, as far as I'm concerned. A banner at the top or bottom of the page asking for permission without blocking the web site would comply to EU laws.
Cookie walls from many US web sites are ridiculously complex. To say "no", you typically get a huge list of categories of things to say "no" to, each with long lists of companies involved, and hidden somewhere in that maze is a section called "legitimate interest" which still has tracking cookies turned on after you thought you switched everything off. Whatever they call "legitimate interest" is not what the GDPR means by it. It doesn't mean that there is a low threshold like "I have a business to make money, making money is a legitimate interest, so I can do anything I like". If it meant something like that the entire GDPR would be meaningless.
Another dark pattern I sometimes encounter is a cookie popup reappearing at every interaction, as long as you reject cookies. Session cookies are allowed, it is perfectly legal in the EU to store a visitor's rejection of cookies during the session.
Cookie walls like these are not required by EU laws, they actually break EU laws. If you get to see dark patterns like these it's not because of European laws, it's because ad companies are campaigning against that kind of legislation, and making cookie walls as irritating for you as they can is part of that campaign.