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US Officially Repeals Net Neutrality Rules
The net neutrality rules said companies had to treat all data equally.
Enacted in 2015, the rules sought to stop providers giving preferential treatment to sites and services that paid them to accelerate their data.
And critics fear repealing them may see consumers charged extra for anything more than the most basic service.
Public protests greeted the Federal Communications Commission's plan to end use of the rules, with many saying it could have an impact on free speech.
But, in December, the FCC voted to repeal the rules. And the regulations expired on Monday.
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-44438812
Oddly The Trump FCC Doesn't Much Want To Talk About Why It Made Up A DDOS Attack
Last week, e-mails obtained via FOIA request revealed that yes, FCC staffers routinely misled journalists in order to prop up this flimsy narrative, apparently in the belief they could conflate consumer outrage with criminal activity. The motive? It was likely for the same reason the FCC refused to do anything about the identity theft and bogus comments we witnessed during the repeal's open comment period: they wanted to try and downplay the massive, bipartisan public opposition to what the lion's share of Americans thought was an idiotic, corruption-fueled repeal of popular consumer protections.
[...] One of the FCC staffers accused of making false statements about the DDOS attack was recently departed FCC IT chief David Bray. Original reports stated that Bray and other staffers had been feeding this flimsy DDOS narrative to gullible reporters for years, then pointing to these inaccurate stories as "proof" the nonexistent attack occurred. Under fire in the wake of last week's report, Bray first doubled down on his claims, adding that the 2014 "attack" hadn't been publicized because former FCC boss Tom Wheeler covered it up. But Wheeler himself subsequently stated in a report late last week that this was unequivocally false:
"When I was in the greenroom waiting to come in here, I got an email from David Bray, who said 'I never said that you told us not to talk about this and to cover up,' which was the term that got used. Which of course is logical, because as the Gizmodo article that you referenced pointed out, A) FCC officials who were there at the time said it didn't happen, [and] B) the independent IT contractors that were hired said it didn't happen. So if it didn't happen it's hard to have a cover up for something that didn't happen."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 13 2018, @11:04PM (7 children)
How many other countries ever had it? How is their internet different?
(Score: 5, Informative) by SpockLogic on Wednesday June 13 2018, @11:34PM
When the net started everyone had it, everyone.
Overreacting is one thing, sticking your head up your ass hoping the problem goes away is another - edIII
(Score: 5, Informative) by julian on Wednesday June 13 2018, @11:35PM (2 children)
Other countries have much more competitive markets for ISPs.
Most Americans have exactly one choice for broadband: the cable company. DSL, satellite, LTE, and dial-up don't count; they're too slow, have too high latency, have crippling bandwidth caps, or all three. We are not going to get to a competitive market in the USA through deregulation. So that's a non-starter. So using regulation to enforce fair play is the next best option.
Net-neutrality *should* be the conservative position because it fosters the growth of small businesses and allows the little guy to compete with the big, established, companies in every space the uses the Internet to sell goods and services. Conservatives turned against it because they were paid to by established industry players, and crafted specious rhetoric about government regulations run amok which would rile up their low-information base and get them to (once again) vote against their own interests.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 14 2018, @12:25AM
Conservatism is just reactionary fundamentalism to progress. Free market, free trade, small/big businesses... The only objective is to maintain and preserve (conserve) the existing status and power structures whatever the means. If it means tossing the liberals out of your party, so be it. If it means tariffs and supports big businesses, that's also fine. If a national healthcare system can be made to keep pushing money to the same people (i.e. themselves), then they'll support it.
Really, the name says it all.
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Thursday June 14 2018, @04:20AM
Canadian here. Less competitive market, I think, but net neutrality recently enshrined in law against the wishes of the Big telephone and cable companies.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday June 13 2018, @11:41PM (2 children)
I am not American, and as far as I am aware we don't actually have Net Neutrality rules as such, but I do know the national network infrastructure bit is owned by a heavily regulated company which provides access to the network for the retail providers who I actually deal with.
My home connection is 100/10 and costs me about $US50 per month.
My ISP provides me bandwidth to the Internet, and thats all. If I want to run a webserver or mail server I can, and anything coming in is just packets to them, so I am getting net neutrality in reality.
If anything changes, I have the choice of about 10 ISP's, all of which have good points and bad points.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday June 14 2018, @12:04AM (1 child)
Maybe, but you have No True Freedom [wikipedia.org] like the USA has.
(Score: 5, Touché) by PartTimeZombie on Thursday June 14 2018, @12:19AM
That's true.
I was just saying to Mrs. Zombie last night that strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.
You can't expect to wield supreme executive power just 'cause some watery tart threw a sword at you, I mean, if I went around saying I was an emperor just because some moistened bint had lobbed a scimitar at me, they'd put me away!