Update: Net Neutrality Restrictions Struck Down by U.S. Appeals Court

[Vareoth]

That sucks for them. A large sum of money must have been involved. Wouldn't know why the judge would have crushed this basic freedom otherwise.

I guess the good thing is that this news made me like the European Union some more.

Interesting.

Well, before we all get up in a tissy, you guys should read this. [http://techliberation.com/2010/02/25/the-5-part-case-against-net-neutrality-regulation-debate-vs-ben-scott-of-free-press/] Remember, there's always two sides to every argument. And a lot of the time, they are both equal in validity.

In my opinion, this is not one of those times. And I say that after reading his arguments, with which I wholly disagree.

 

[Erttheking]

I'm kinda fuzzy on what this means, but the general consensus here seems to be that it's bad. God Bless the USA.

 

[Geekeric]

And alas, the great poopifier of our culture, corporate greed and advertising, descends upon the last great thing we had. I suppose it was only a matter of time; they ruined television decades ago, plaster hideous billboards no matter where you look, sucked YouTube into a dung-filled abyss of morono-ads, and now this. It was good while it lasted. One thing I've learned is that whatever good thing exists in this life, there's always some butthole that will ruin it trying to make a buck.

 

[OrionXIV]

Now to see what becomes of it.

I can see three outcomes here. First, the cable companies keep doing what they're doing, and nothing changes. Second would be if the cable companies decide to tier the internet, and the FCC does nothing. The third one would be the cable companies deciding to tier the internet, and the FCC pushes the nuclear option, and declares the cable companies as common carriers. One thing to note; the discretion to call a service to be a common carrier solely belongs to the FCC.

If they do, the ruling today would be rendered moot, because the laws that were applied today were not based on common carrier rules. The phone companies are already bound by the common carrier rules, and the cable companies would have to adopt the same restrictions. Since the common carrier restrictions are written and regulated by the FCC, they could force network neutrality on all common carriers.

We'll just have to wait and see what happens next.

 

[Akytalusia]

this is not good. this is bad. this is unforgivable. no. i refuse to let this happen. it won't happen. i won't permit it. you're going too far, united states. if you continue down this path, you will become the great villain of this age. you're already walking that line as it is. is your ego so inflated? are you so blind? are you so careless? is this what you want?

 

[Callate]

I mean seriously, do you think any ISP would get away with being too greedy with this new set of rules? Nope. There's still such a thing as competition...if one or even several ISPs start being dicks, people will migrate to other services.

A BBC News article notes that two-thirds of Americans who get broadband Internet do so through packages provided by their cable service providers, and that most markets "tend to be dominated by only one or two providers."

From this perspective, the picture you paint in decrying the "massive over-reaction" of others appears to be inaccurate.

[link]http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-24528383[/link]

 

[DarkhoIlow]

Ah, government, fucking people over regardless where you live.

This doesn't affect me, but I really hope this gets fixed soon.

 

[The Lugz]

"consumers [in the future] will have more choices to determine for themselves how they access and experience the Internet."

we're going to throttle this, cap that restrict all your most visited sites and make you pay every time you take a link to a heavily trafficked website, unless you pay us for the 'full web' package.

That's pretty-much what that statement says, and it should scare the ever loving gonads out of you if you have any sense whatsoever, time to start a new net neutrality petition folks it's small sites like this that will get munched in the end.

here, boogie covered it already:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YALKSyjHfFo

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

So, the American courts just gave corporations green light to destroy the internet. Great job, America. As always. Carry on.

 

[alj]

Does it bother anyone else that the cables are upside down in that picture?

Yes it does bother me.

This is kind of bad, it happens to me in the UK my ISP ruthlessly throttles youtube so i can barely watch a video in 720p. I have moved to downloading the video from youtube and then watching it in a player.

 

[gorfias]

I am very, very happy with my ISP. Thank g-d for that, as, it is a monopoly. I can't use another similar ISP. I could get dish or dial-up but those are entirely different technologies. I'm talking about competition for the same tech. It isn't there.

If it were, I'd support this ruling philosophically. Legally, I hear it's pretty air tight.

If this becomes a problem, I can only hope the citizens, through their legislature, rise up and stop it. We did it with sales calls and the Do Not Call list (one announcer gloated, 50 million people signed up for it. You can't get 50 million people to sign up for free beer.) Ordinary people can only be pushed so far.

For now, I read it will help innovation that will attract competition and better services. We'll see.

 

[shadowstriker86]

Well, better get some hard drives and start storing up whatever you find on the internet cause if they block sites they don't like (and when i say they i mean old farts who probably believe what the westboro baptist church says) a lot of stuff is going to be blocked.

 

[userwhoquitthesite]

The more promise anything has, the more it has to be ruined.

I'll just be over here, waiting for the doom of all I enjoy to arrive, whereupon my violent, and ultimately futile, rebellion against society will occur. Then, like Ahab, I will doggedly pursue my own spite and meet my destruction at the hands of the vast, uncaring leviathan than is the world at large.

 

[Lunar Templar]

I'm kinda fuzzy on what this means, but the general consensus here seems to be that it's bad. God Bless the USA.

I'm fuzzy on it to, but I'd hardly take the comments on this site at face value. Chances are, 99% of them are over reacting anyway.

 

[PainInTheAssInternet]

I'm kinda fuzzy on what this means, but the general consensus here seems to be that it's bad. God Bless the USA.

I'm fuzzy on it to, but I'd hardly take the comments on this site at face value. Chances are, 99% of them are over reacting anyway.

Before I respond, I must admit that I have overreacted before and I likely will again.

That being said, I don't think this is overreacting. It's a given (for good reason) that corporations will abuse whatever power they get to a truly ludicrous extreme and will never be held accountable under the blanket ideology "Too Big to Fail."

The reasons that everyone's so hostile to this have been given in posts before this and I'm not inclined to disbelieve them.

 

[Lunar Templar]

I'm kinda fuzzy on what this means, but the general consensus here seems to be that it's bad. God Bless the USA.

I'm fuzzy on it to, but I'd hardly take the comments on this site at face value. Chances are, 99% of them are over reacting anyway.

Before I respond, I must admit that I have overreacted before and I likely will again.

That being said, I don't think this is overreacting. It's a given (for good reason) that corporations will abuse whatever power they get to a truly ludicrous extreme and will never be held accountable under the blanket ideology "Too Big to Fail."

The reasons that everyone's so hostile to this have been given in posts before this and I'm not inclined to disbelieve them.

Well I'm not sure its not over reacting.

Not cause the corporations won't try to abuse it, but cause people tend to get really pissed off when they sudden have to pay for something that was free till then. Imagine the Sim City mess, only every one, not just gamers, complaining. That's not even factoring the people who'll say 'welp, guess now's a good to to find something else to do' and just can the an Internet connection completely.

Seriously, I don't expect much to come of this, I mean they can try, but that'll just give people a reason to go off line they to shell out more cash. Especially since we're still technically in a recession over here.

 

[sXeth]

Of course, there's also some potential that big corporations will bite back at the ISPs here. Google certainly would prefer you access there stuff freely, and while they can afford premiums, why would they want to spend their cash paying off ISPs? The same could be said for Amazon. Disney just inked a deal with Netflix giving them exclusive series, they're not likely to want their stuff held ransom by Verizon either.

 

[pirateninj4]

They'll find no one is going to want to visit a website that they have to pay for.