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posted by CoolHand on Tuesday March 29 2016, @07:02PM   Printer-friendly
from the dealing-with-hypocrites dept.

From CNET:

Angry Netflix customers are a force to be reckoned with, and they're the ones owed an explanation about why the company would slow the transmission of video streams to some wireless customers without informing them.

Netflix found itself in the hot seat after admitting, in a Wall Street Journal story Thursday, that for five years it had been tamping down service to Verizon and AT&T customers. What's more, the Los Gatos, California, company said the policy excluded customers of T-Mobile and Sprint.

Critics immediately cried foul on Netflix, seeing hypocrisy on the part of a company that two years ago led a fight to require the Federal Communications Commission to adopt "strong" Net neutrality rules that would ban Internet service providers from slowing traffic under almost any circumstances. Netflix also wanted the FCC to require operators to be more transparent in how they manage their networks.

But the most galling aspect may be that Netflix never notified its customers that it was imposing a slowdown.

"There is nothing wrong with what Netflix is doing," said Berin Szoka, president of TechFreedom, a group that has opposed the FCC's Net neutrality regulations. "Except for not making it public."


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  • (Score: 2) by SrLnclt on Tuesday March 29 2016, @09:20PM

    by SrLnclt (1473) on Tuesday March 29 2016, @09:20PM (#324526)

    IMHO allowing "zero rated" streaming services is a violation of net neutrality rules. It's still allowing ISPs/wireless caries to create fast/slow lanes that prioritize some services over others. I'm actually one of the idiots with T-Mobile that disabled this feature because of my views on Net Neutrality, even though it costs me nothing and could save me from hitting data caps. I'm actually curious why T-Mobile hasn't had their hand slapped yet for this. Is it because they offer this feature for free? Because you can opt out? Or are they waiting for someone with cause to sue?

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  • (Score: 2) by slinches on Tuesday March 29 2016, @09:56PM

    by slinches (5049) on Tuesday March 29 2016, @09:56PM (#324538)

    What complaints do you actually have with T-Mobile's video zero-rating feature? I mean it may violate the letter of net neutrality, but it doesn't appear to violate the intent, IMHO. The most questionable aspect I see is that streaming video providers must sign up to get the zero rating, but all streaming video protocols are throttled whether it's from a participating provider or not. But that seems a relatively minor quibble since the requirements to sign up are clear and non-restrictive.

    Over all, it really does seem like the most reasonable and customer friendly approach to managing congestion due to the increases in video streaming that I can think of. And the ability to opt-out does make a big difference to the point that I probably would be against it without that option. Nobody should be forced into a deal, even if it's likely in their best interest.

    • (Score: 2) by Tork on Tuesday March 29 2016, @10:00PM

      by Tork (3914) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday March 29 2016, @10:00PM (#324541)
      The complaint is that if T-Mobile can do it then so can AT&T, aka the new owners of a television service that competes with Hulu, Netflix, and the like.
      --
      🏳️‍🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️‍🌈
      • (Score: 2) by slinches on Tuesday March 29 2016, @10:16PM

        by slinches (5049) on Tuesday March 29 2016, @10:16PM (#324545)

        I don't know if the slippery slope argument works here. The neutrality issue only comes into play if competing services are unfairly disadvantaged or a web service's customer base is held for ransom by an ISP. If AT&T or Verizon implement that feature the same way T-Mobile has, they wouldn't be giving their own services an advantage at all since there's essentially no cost to participate and there are no unnecessary limitations to participation in the program.

        • (Score: 2) by urza9814 on Thursday March 31 2016, @10:51PM

          by urza9814 (3954) on Thursday March 31 2016, @10:51PM (#325515) Journal

          The neutrality issue only comes into play if competing services are unfairly disadvantaged or a web service's customer base is held for ransom by an ISP.

          Whether or not that is true in this situation depends on how you define "competing services". Competing video services? Competing entertainment services? Or competing network services? If I want to stream home videos to my relatives from my own server, that video counts while Netflix doesn't. If someone is nearing their bandwidth cap they might skip an online game in favor of a free video stream. Or a VoIP call might get throttled because the network is over capacity serving all those free video streams. Seems like any data flowing over those pipes is competing in some way.

          The point of net neutrality, as I understand it, is that since all these various services are all utilizing the same infrastructure, they should all get equal access to it. Not merely that you can't privilege your own video streaming service over others. If I pay for x GB a month, it shouldn't matter if I use that to stream video, play games, or download research papers. Net neutrality means the service provider gives me a dumb pipe that just carries whatever bits I tell it to carry.

          Of course...if ANY streaming video service can so easily become zero-rated...seems like there's a good market for an app to encode large downloads as YouTube videos or something. Where's that stenography guy? :)

  • (Score: 2) by Gravis on Thursday March 31 2016, @09:10PM

    by Gravis (4596) on Thursday March 31 2016, @09:10PM (#325471)

    IMHO allowing "zero rated" streaming services is a violation of net neutrality rules.

    i agree but that is not the issue at hand.