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The Federal Communications Commission will vote next month to start the process of reversing the commission's 2015 net neutrality order, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai announced in a speech today.
Pai said he will seek public comment about the blocking, throttling, and paid prioritization rules, but the act of eliminating the Title II classification of ISPs would also eliminate those rules. Going forward, he said, he wants broadband to be classified as a lightly regulated "Title I information service."
Pai today said that "[r]epealing Title II will simply restore the FTC’s authority to police broadband providers’ privacy practices." But that isn't necessarily true.
The FTC is prohibited from regulating common carriers, but removing the common carrier designation from broadband won't necessarily give the FTC all the authority it needs. A court ruling last year let AT&T escape FTC oversight entirely because it's still a common carrier for phone service. Action by Congress might be necessary to let the FTC regulate the Internet businesses of mobile and landline phone companies. Pai did not mention this complication.
The only ray of light is response might be so overwhelming that he's forced to reconsider. I don't know how much that impacted Wheeler but considering no one expected him to actually implement TII maybe there's a chance.
The only ray of light is response might be so overwhelming that he's forced to reconsider. I don't know how much that impacted Wheeler but considering no one expected him to actually implement TII maybe there's a chance.
If you're involved in any efforts to effect this, please let me know so I can join you. I'll be giving a small sum the the ACLU and EFF to help them mobilize and to signify my support.
One day after a large protest of his plan to gut net neutrality rules, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai was asked if the number of pro-net neutrality comments submitted to the FCC might cause a change in course.
In response, Pai maintained his stance that the number of comments is not as important as the content of those comments.
The Federal Communications Commission has denied a request to extend the deadline for filing public comments on its plan to overturn net neutrality rules, and the FCC is refusing to release the text of more than 40,000 net neutrality complaints that it has received since June 2015.
…
Instead, the FCC yesterday denied the motion for an extension and said that it will only provide the text for a fraction of the complaints, because providing them all would be too burdensome. Pai has previously claimed that his proposed repeal of net neutrality rules is using a "far more transparent" process than the one used to implement net neutrality rules in 2015. Pai has also claimed that net neutrality rules were a response to "hypothetical harms and hysterical prophecies of doom" and that there was no real problem to solve.
From the same administration that doxxed everyone who submitted comment to the election fraud commission.
The US Federal Communications Commission says it has no written analysis of DDoS attacks that hit the commission's net neutrality comment system in May.
In its response to a Freedom of Information Act (FoIA) request filed by Gizmodo, the FCC said its analysis of DDoS attacks "stemmed from real time observation and feedback by Commission IT staff and did not result in written documentation." Gizmodo had asked for a copy of any records related to the FCC analysis that concluded DDoS attacks had taken place. Because there was no "written documentation," the FCC provided no documents in response to this portion of the Gizmodo FoIA request.
And it happened, 3-2. Not one (R) broke with the party line to vote with the public.
Nothing will happen right away, lawsuits will tie up the decision. In particular, the FCC ignored (or abetted) widespread comment fraud in the required public comment period. And has obstructed attempts by Attorney Generals to investigate the fraud. Also the FTC is currently fighting a court decision that would preclude it doing anything about common-carrier violations, with no guarantee it will win on appeal. So if the decision stands, NO ONE has regulatory authority to address bad behavior.
The FCC is likely to have an uphill battle in court about this. They're vulnerable on the public-interest issues in a big way.
I think the brazen way they carried it out will be a huge boon to the court case. Ignoring comments, ignoring that people were impersonated, no open hearings... it looks pretty bad in totality.
In an internal email to all of the FCC commissioner offices, CTO Eric Burger, who was appointed by Pai in October, said the No. 1 issue with the repeal is concern that internet service providers will block or throttle specific websites, according to FCC sources who viewed the message.
"Unfortunately, I realize we do not address that at all," Burger said in the email. "If the ISP is transparent about blocking legal content, there is nothing the [Federal Trade Commission] can do about it unless the FTC determines it was done for anti-competitive reasons. Allowing such blocking is not in the public interest."
I came to the realization that I would punch this guy in the face if given a chance but not Donald Trump. I'm not sure what the psychology behind this is but I'm pretty sure his face is a key reason
Pai has a smugness that I find incredibly annoying. Others' feedback and concerns are of no importance, he knows what he wants and the rest of us can weep away.
If you punched him, I would refuse to testify. We the public don't seem to have any leverage here.
I wonder if this will impact the prices of AWS, GCP, or Azure? Maybe we'll start to see data centers outside of the US grow in size/stature, and lean startups no longer placing their services in Virgina, S. Carolina, Oregon, etc. Amazon recently opened a Montreal data centre, perhaps it soon might be the fastest way to get bandwidth in the north east of the US (and Canada) without a lot of extra pay to play?
As health care costs rise and the tire fire of US politics continues, young tech businesses need incentive to operate in the US, not disincentive. A video like this showing how Joe Sixpack will not be impacted in watching Netflix is cute and all, but incredibly disingenuous as far as what this actually means to businesses.
As health care costs rise and the tire fire of US politics continues, young tech businesses need incentive to operate in the US, not disincentive. A video like this showing how Joe Sixpack will not be impacted in watching Netflix is cute and all, but incredibly disingenuous as far as what this actually means to businesses.
The impact on business will be very subtle, because you will have a comparative lack of new entrants to markets, and that is much more difficult to measure than the impact on existing businesses. It is almost paradoxical, but it makes me wish for the tech companies crushing the telcos, but that satisfaction would be short-lived: we would have vertical integration in simply another direction (tech rather than media), and it is not clear that the interests of the tech industry so clearly align with the interests of the consumers as they do now.
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it.
I’m trying to find the article in which the porn site operators are afraid the ISP’s are going block their sites.
I wonder if ISPs might go there. On the other hand, the guy from Comcast specifically said "lawful" and, last I heard, porn is still legal/lawful in the US.
If I had to guess on what types of websites might feel the pain first, I'd put Canadian (and other offshore) pharmacies on the list. They're already being denied US-based credit card service. I could also see the DOJ putting pressure on ISPs to block CBD makers/distributors.
Porn won't be blocked. Conservative states consume as much of it if not more than liberal ones. In short, everyone wants porn. If people are cut off from their porn, you might see Net neutrality make a swift comeback.
I have plenty of more important things to do, if only I could bring myself to do them....
I wonder what Montana will do if no ISP agrees to the order and pulls their services? Sounds like nice little showdown in the making. I’m not saying the ISPs would collude to force the issue, but...
I wonder what Montana will do if no ISP agrees to the order and pulls their services? Sounds like nice little showdown in the making. I’m not saying the ISPs would collude to force the issue, but...
The beauty of market forces means a new ISP would pop up to fill the void and take those juicy contracts. Plus a statewide monopoly.
I have plenty of more important things to do, if only I could bring myself to do them....
Some sanity. Montana is the first state to enforce NN rules indirectly, as an end run around the FCC preemption order.
This is on top of the 21 states suing the FCC. Montana has a Rep Attorney General, so they're not in the lawsuit.
Aside from not knowing Montana had a Dem governor, I'm split on whether his gambit will hold-up if challenged in court.
Montana is not one of the states suing the FCC. Montana has a Republican attorney general, and only states with Democratic attorneys general have joined the lawsuit.
Anyone remember during the public comment period for repealing Net Neutrality, the FCC claimed their comment site had been crashed by a DDOS attack?
John Oliver had brought attention to the matter, suggesting people comment. FOIA requests have now revealed the FCC made up the DDOS attack. Apparently to hide the fact so many people opposed the repeal. Now two Senators (Ron Wyden, Brian Schatz) are asking the FCC to explain itself.
The bad news, they're both Democrat Senators. No Republicans have been asking questions yet, despite 75% of Republican voters oppose the repeal.
This will doubtless come up in the state lawsuits against the FCC.