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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.
(Score: 2) by TheGratefulNet on Tuesday March 03 2015, @02:43PM
trusting the big businesses is going to be BETTER than trusting the government?
they both suck, but we have no real control over big business, they are independant and there is no 'voting' or any say in how they do business.
otoh, business cannot arrest or detail you or truly ruin your life like a government can.
both of them suck, when it comes to our freedom.
thing is: the gov has not been much involved and the net has been mostly run by business, to this point. they have done a VERY bad job on it, too, trying to monetize every last fucking cent from it. ads everywhere! do you think that if the net was government run, you'd be flooded by popups and ads and malware? spyware, yes, but not ads, at least. and the businesses still install spyware, so that's a 'constant'.
lets give the other big bad guy a chance. the big bad guy running things (mr. big isp) has done a bad job and we want him out of the loop, as much as possible.
the new guy, we'll watch over him carefully. we know to be cautious. but right now, he's helping us reel in the wrongdoings of the bad guy #1.
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday March 03 2015, @02:56PM
Nah, I'd say go trust-busters on them like Teddy Roosevelt did back in the day. Monopoly powers in practice if not by the literal definition are what have caused this to ever become an issue and competition alone would solve it quite nicely.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 03 2015, @04:42PM
It is the very nature of businesses is to invest in their future success, which includes doing whatever is possible to ensure little to no competition can arise, like raising the barrier to entry in any way possible. Monopolies are an inevitable result of markets; the free market cannot be free without regulations to prevent this.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Tuesday March 03 2015, @05:37PM
You don't have any influence with the government either. You may think you do because you can vote for the people who confirm the appointments. But that is a weak tool.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.