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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: 2) by DECbot on Tuesday March 03 2015, @04:47PM

    by DECbot (832) on Tuesday March 03 2015, @04:47PM (#152585) Journal

    I agree with the need to post this article. I'm not much for the slant, but we Americans now have an additional 300-pages of secret laws that the government can hold against us. What do they regulate and what rights do they take from the people? Who knows, they're secret. This is the bull shit that should get both sides pissed at Legislative and Executive branches, and then get pissed at the Judicial branch for not allowing the people to have the precedent to challenge such legal atrocities.

    I guess the second half of the story is this issue is getting spun as a partisan issue when really it should be a bi-partition outrage to learn that title II reclassification came with nasty strings attached. Now while the Republicans and Democrats bicker outside the china shop about the merits of title II reclassification, I mean the merits of Italian porcelain verses Chinese china--to keep the allegory, the bulls still have full reign in the china shop.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 03 2015, @04:55PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 03 2015, @04:55PM (#152593)

    but we Americans now have an additional 300-pages of secret laws

    What secret laws? You mean the Communications Act of 1934? [fcc.gov]

  • (Score: 2) by fnj on Tuesday March 03 2015, @07:22PM

    by fnj (1654) on Tuesday March 03 2015, @07:22PM (#152688)

    we Americans now have an additional 300-pages of secret laws

    Please do not spread BULLSHIT. Most of the 300+ pages everyone is talking about - over 98% if it - is supporting reasoning. No one has pointed to 300+ pages of actual regulation.