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posted by n1 on Tuesday March 03 2015, @06:11AM   Printer-friendly
from the it-takes-300-pages-to-redefine-neutrality dept.

The bloom may have already fallen off the Net Neutrality rose. As reported yesterday in the Wall Street Journal (paywalled):

When Google's Eric Schmidt called White House officials a few weeks ago to oppose President Obama's demand that the Internet be regulated as a utility, they told him to buzz off. The chairman of the company that led lobbying for "net neutrality" learned the Obama plan made in its name instead micromanages the Internet.

Mr. Schmidt is not the only liberal mugged by the reality of Obamanet, approved on party lines last week by the Federal Communications Commission. The 300-plus pages of regulations remain secret, but as details leak out, liberals have joined the opposition to ending the Internet as we know it.

It seems as though, in their zeal to "stick it" to the ISPs, most proponents didn't consider that when you allow 3 unelected people to issue rulings on something as large and ubiquitous as the Internet, bad things can happen:

Until Congress or the courts block Obamanet, expect less innovation. During a TechFreedom conference last week, dissenting FCC commissioner Ajit Pai asked: "If you were an entrepreneur trying to make a splash in a marketplace that's already competitive, how are you going to differentiate yourself if you have to build into your equation whether or not regulatory permission is going to be forthcoming from the FCC? According to this, permissionless innovation is a thing of the past."

The other dissenting Republican commissioner, Michael O'Rielly, warned: "When you see this document, it's worse than you imagine." The FCC has no estimate on when it will make the rules public.

 
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  • (Score: 5, Informative) by SGT CAPSLOCK on Tuesday March 03 2015, @08:35AM

    by SGT CAPSLOCK (118) on Tuesday March 03 2015, @08:35AM (#152393) Journal

    I'll gladly bet against everything you just said.

    You sound just like my old man after he has an extended session of listening to the fear-mongering and hate-spreading on FOX News, which is his primary hobby.

    There's no conspiracy here. Actually, there's not even any content in TFS whatsoever besides some random anti-Title II drivel. It didn't scare me; don't let it scare you.

    For now, the "Obamanet" crowd are just having a temper tantrum for the sake of having a temper tantrum, and there has been zero evidence [b]whatsoever[/b] that [b]any[/b] of their claims are substantiated. For now, this entire campaign against Title II is based solely on conjecture, lies, and a desire to enforce the sentiment that "the Government is taking over the Internet," hence the idea to reaffirm it through re-branding the Title II decision as "Obamanet" in the first place.

    I don't like the Government any more than you, but my distaste for them is rooted firmly in facts, not conspiracy.

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