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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 Jeremiah Cornelius on Tuesday March 03 2015, @05:52PM

    by Jeremiah Cornelius (2785) on Tuesday March 03 2015, @05:52PM (#152646) Journal

    Pick your Trojan horse:

    The US Regulators - working for Total Information Awareness and NSA capture

    or

    The Telco Industry - working to charge you the most while offering the least and still leasing access for elimination of privacy

    Everybody hated Comcast/Verizon so much, they ran RIGHT into the "alternative" - which was another trap. It has nothing to do with left/right, business/consumer, or any other ideological dichotomy.

    It has to do with who has first harvest rights to the crop.

    --
    You're betting on the pantomime horse...
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   2