[ambush]

http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9588_22-6...feed&subj=zdnn


thanks, republicans!

[JoshuaZ]

Any regulation will stifle internet fun for everyone. Fools. They will destroy what they don't understand.

[ambush]

Again, economy ruling every single aspect of our lives.

[Chuckit]

Aren't they turning down the idea of actively controlling the Internet with this vote? From the article, it doesn't sound like they're mandating bias for ISPs — they simply aren't enacting "fairness" standards for them.

[Doofy]

Originally Posted by Chuckit

Aren't they turning down the idea of actively controlling the Internet with this vote?

That's the way I read it.

[Kevin]

The way I read it too. I doubt ambush really knew what the article was about.

Did you even read it ambush?

"The future Sergey Brins, the future Marc Andreessens, of Netscape and Google...are going to have to pay taxes" to broadband providers, said Rep. Ed Markey, the Massachusetts Democrat behind the Net neutrality amendment. This vote will change "the Internet for the rest of eternity," he warned.

Yes, by all means. TAX TAX TAX.

"I want a vibrant Internet just like they do," said Rep. Lamar Smith, a Texas Republican. "Our disagreement is about how to achieve that. They say let the government dictate it...I urge my colleagues to reject government regulation of the Internet."

So ambush, you are FOR a gov regulated internet?

[andi*pandi]

it's not FOR a government-regulated internet, but AGAINST service provider bribes.

How would you like it if comcast decided that since MacNN hadn't paid them their dues this month, your connection to MacNN would be cut off, or rendered at dialup speeds?

This is why the sites (google, ebay, amazon) were for net neutrality, but the service providers (verizon, comcast, etc) were against it. Service providers are looking for another way to get money, and the internet would suffer.

[ambush]

Again, I have been following this debate for months now and I have weighed the pros and the cons carefully. This is (big surprise) really about the big telcos wanting more money (remember, there is no such thing as enough for capitalists) and controlling more efficiently what we see and think.


This is all about creating a fast lane for the sites that have more money. This is the bottom line. This is IT. The next logical step (10 years, max.) is just banning sites that don't pay taxes.

Zimphire, I urge you to just stop systematically accepting what the republicans do.

[Shaddim]

Did he actually READ the article? No, he just knee-jerked his way through it in typical fashion.

[davesimondotcom]

Originally Posted by ambush

Zimphire, I urge you to just stop systematically accepting what the republicans do.

Yeah, Kevin! Start systematically rejecting anything Republicans do and like all the sensible people on here!

[Shaddim]

Originally Posted by ambush

Again, I have been following this debate for months now and I have weighed the pros and the cons carefully. This is (big surprise) really about the big telcos wanting more money (remember, there is no such thing as enough for capitalists) and controlling more efficiently what we see and think.


This is all about creating a fast lane for the sites that have more money. This is the bottom line. This is IT. The next logical step (10 years, max.) is just banning sites that don't pay taxes.

Zimphire, I urge you to just stop systematically accepting what the republicans do.

Sure you have. You just got caught with your knickers down, nice attempt at recovery, though.

[Railroader]

Originally Posted by ambush

Zimphire, I urge you to just stop systematically accepting what the republicans do.

If you'd open your mind you'd understand that he certainly doesn't.

But the reverse could easily be applied to you: ambush, I urge you to just stop systematically dismissing what the republicans do.

EDIT: davidsimondotcom beat me to it.

[davesimondotcom]

I'd, personally, prefer the government to stay the f*ck out of the Internet in any form. Let the free market work, don't fiddle with it by giving either "side" (telcos or websites) an advantage.

And no, that's not saying I'm for a "net neutrality" act. I'm for the Congress just staying out of it.

[Kevin]

Originally Posted by ambush

Zimphire, I urge you to just stop systematically accepting what the republicans do.

ambush actually it seems like you are systematically denying anything that Repubs do. BTW, you know I am not a Repub right?

Nice attempt at a backpeddle however.

I am against any gov control. No matter what side wants it.

You need to listen more, and run your "mouth" less.

[Chuckit]

Yeah, and if the companies all start working together to establish an "Internet tax"…well, that's already a crime.

[olePigeon]

No, Ambush is right. Kevin, Doofy, MacNStein, et. al. have it wrong. This is a rejection of the Net Neutrality Bill. The result of this is going to be the removal of competitive pricing, and the installment of government regulation and "tolls" (i.e. taxes) at every junction. It paves the way for tiered internet access and packet discrimination. Corporations who pay the big ISPs more money will have their website load faster than others, or, have competitors' webpages blocked entirely. Internet traffic will become taxed and filtered at the same time.

The Net Neutrality Bill was suppose to keep the internet open and not regulated by a single corporation or government body, to keep it how it was intended to be used: information for everyone to access without limitations.

Unfortunately, it looks like the FCC and AOL will get to choose who gets to see what on the internet. It's going to become a Captalistic version of China's internet. Instead of filtered content because of political standings, it'll be filtered content to the highest bidder.

[Chuckit]

Antitrust laws still exist, don't they?

[Dakar]

Originally Posted by Chuckit

Antitrust laws still exist, don't they?

Its the people who enforce them that don't.

[olePigeon]

Originally Posted by Dakar

Its the people who enforce them that don't.

The first thing Bush did (and this isn't a Republican thing, mind you, this happens every time a new administration comes in) was replace the veteran lawyers on the case with college grads and disbanded the committe investigating the allegations. They litterally let Microsoft off the hook because they gave money to the campaigns.

That was what was so baffling to a lot of far-left Democrats. Microsoft gave almost as much money to Kerry as they did to Bush. It was a close race, so Microsoft had to have their bases covered. Regardless of who would've won, Microsoft was off the hook.

"Soft money" is practically required for a politician. It helps get them elected in exchange for special favors when they're in office. In this case, AT&T and AOL gave more money to key Congress members than Cisco and Google. Corporations are not allowed to, well, let's face it, they bribe people. So they bribe "lobby groups" who "support" a politician. The money still makes it to them, it's just legally embezzled through a middle-man.

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by Dakar

Its the people who enforce them that don't.

Making more laws is not the solution when the problem is laws not being enforced.

[Dakar]

Originally Posted by Chuckit

Making more laws is not the solution when the problem is laws not being enforced.

I'm going to assume that wasn't a direct response to me.

[dcmacdaddy]

Originally Posted by davesimondotcom

I'd, personally, prefer the government to stay the f*ck out of the Internet in any form. Let the free market work, don't fiddle with it by giving either "side" (telcos or websites) an advantage.

And no, that's not saying I'm for a "net neutrality" act. I'm for the Congress just staying out of it.

Yes, but right now the telcos are trying to introduce new pricing schemes that would in effect create a tiered structure for internet access. That I oppose. While I like to keep government interference away from the Internet, I think the "greater good" in this instance is ensuring that access to the internet does not become stratified. I think maintaining a uniform level of access is more important than ensuring market forces completely determine how Internet access pricing is accomplished.

[Dork.]

I thought I'd never see the words "Alyssa Milano" and "one of the technical pioneers of the Internet" in the same sentence.

[Chuckit]

What are you talking about? She pioneered the technology of suing huge numbers of Web sites.

[davesimondotcom]

Originally Posted by dcmacdaddy

Yes, but right now the telcos are trying to introduce new pricing schemes that would in effect create a tiered structure for internet access.

Free markets are teh solution for this. Comcast wants to raise what you pay? Move to someone else who is willing to offer access less expensively.

[itai195]

Originally Posted by davesimondotcom

Free markets are teh solution for this. Comcast wants to raise what you pay? Move to someone else who is willing to offer access less expensively.

Unrealistic. Comcast is the only broadband provider where I live. And I live in the middle of Silicon Valley, I can only imagine the choices (or lack thereof) people elsewhere may have.

As far as net neutrality goes, I am trying to keep an open mind. I wouldn't have much of a problem if Congress forced telcos to at least maintain the current level of service to the entire Internet as a baseline and gave the telcos the option to offer additional premium services alongside. The Internet is too important to allow the telcos control over which content users can access.

[Dakar]

My technical knowledge may be lacking here, but if companies already have to pay for bandwith for their site, then isn't what the telcos would like to do essentially charging twice for the same service?

[OAW]

Originally Posted by Dakar

My technical knowledge may be lacking here, but if companies already have to pay for bandwith for their site, then isn't what the telcos would like to do essentially charging twice for the same service?

Exactly. But some are so enamored with the ideology of the Republican party and all of its "free market" and "competitive pricing" platitudes that this simple fact escapes them. Along with the simple fact that the vast majority of people have at most 3 choices for broadband service. 1. Telco, 2. Cable, and 3. Satellite (if you even want to consider that an option given the latency issues). And many areas really only have one option.

Remember back in the dial-up days when there were all kinds of choices for ISP service? Well that is gone as a direct result of the de-regulation advocated by the right. When the telcos were no longer mandated to play fair they didn't and drove the vast majority of the CLECs and independent ISPs out of business.

As it stands now, people and companies pay for bandwidth. You need faster speeds? Buy more bandwidth. All the telcos and cable companies need to do is provide the bandwidth ... and they have every right to charge a fair price for it. But they should not be doing any kind of packet discrimination whatsoever. I have Charter cable modem service and I happen to have their VOIP service too. But if they pissed me off I would like the option to be able to dump their VOIP service and use Vonage or Skype. And Charter should not be able to block or degrade the traffic coming from Vonage or Skype in order to promote their own service. The Net Neutrality bill would have ensured that this could not be done by mandating this into law. As it stands now, we have to rely upon the good graces of the telcos and cable companies not to go there. The "free market" is not the answer to every problem. I'm all for competition ... but a minimum set of rules serve a legitimate purpose and there should be enforcement.

What would an NFL game turn into if there weren't rules and referees on the field to ensure that they are followed?

OAW

[Doofy]

Originally Posted by olePigeon

No, Ambush is right. Kevin, Doofy, MacNStein, et. al. have it wrong. This is a rejection of the Net Neutrality Bill. The result of this is going to be the removal of competitive pricing, and the installment of government regulation and "tolls" (i.e. taxes) at every junction. It paves the way for tiered internet access and packet discrimination.

So... ...a single lawsuit against a blocker by a blogger won't stop the entire process in its tracks then?

Blogger = providing news.
Freedom of the press = constitutional right.

[Chuckit]

Freedom of the press is a Constitutional right, but that only means the government can't stop the press. Corporations are free to respect or ignore the press as they see fit.

[pooka]

Originally Posted by OAW

What would an NFL game turn into if there weren't rules and referees on the field to ensure that they are followed?

Something worth watching?

[Doofy]

Originally Posted by Chuckit

Freedom of the press is a Constitutional right, but that only means the government can't stop the press. Corporations are free to respect or ignore the press as they see fit.

You reckon they'd take the risk of getting the negative publicity?

[OAW]

Originally Posted by pooka

Something worth watching?

Perhaps. Depends upon what you like to watch though. Personally I wouldn't want to "let the market decide" on whether or not players should be allowed to grab an opponent's face mask and snap his neck. I don't think we should leave it up to the "marketplace" determine whether or not a player is allowed to clip an opponent and cave in his knee and ruin his career. I'm all for the "free market". I'm all for "competition". What I'm against is unbridled capitalism, because that inevitably leads to abuse and exploitation. In an NFL game, a good ref isn't out their throwing flags unnecessarily and interfering with the flow of the game. But he is ensuring that there is level playing field and that the rules are being followed. The FCC should be a "good ref" in this regard when it comes to Net Neutrality.

OAW

[CharlesS]

Originally Posted by Kevin

The way I read it too. I doubt ambush really knew what the article was about.

Did you even read it ambush?

"The future Sergey Brins, the future Marc Andreessens, of Netscape and Google...are going to have to pay taxes" to broadband providers, said Rep. Ed Markey, the Massachusetts Democrat behind the Net neutrality amendment. This vote will change "the Internet for the rest of eternity," he warned.

Yes, by all means. TAX TAX TAX.

Am I the only one who finds this extremely ironic?

[tie]

Originally Posted by Kevin

The way I read it too. I doubt ambush really knew what the article was about.

Did you even read it ambush?


Yes, by all means. TAX TAX TAX.

So ambush, you are FOR a gov regulated internet?

What? I don't think you read the article!

davesimondotcom: I'm only for the free market if there is competition. If there isn't competition, then the free market has nothing going for it.

[olePigeon]

Stop making sense, OAW, Kevin doesn't wanna hear that malarky. I'm waiting for Spliffdaddy to explain why it's a good idea, and how in 10 years he's going to tell us all "I told you so." Then Doofy will blame it on the Mexicans.

[davesimondotcom]

Originally Posted by tie

davesimondotcom: I'm only for the free market if there is competition. If there isn't competition, then the free market has nothing going for it.

Even in my market here in Montana, there is competition. I can choose from two different wireless providers, a couple different DSL providers, cable and a number of dialup providers.

[baw]

If this thing passes and I can no longer access macnn.com, I guess I'll just have to go outside and ride my bike.

[Doofy]

Originally Posted by olePigeon

Then Doofy will blame it on the Mexicans.

Yes, of course I would.

[andi*pandi]

Originally Posted by olePigeon

The Net Neutrality Bill was suppose to keep the internet open and not regulated by a single corporation or government body, to keep it how it was intended to be used: information for everyone to access without limitations.

Unfortunately, it looks like the FCC and AOL will get to choose who gets to see what on the internet. It's going to become a Captalistic version of China's internet. Instead of filtered content because of political standings, it'll be filtered content to the highest bidder.

this is how I heard it.

[pooka]

Originally Posted by OAW

Perhaps. Depends upon what you like to watch though.

Not that ****. I'd think I'd rather just **** another man and get it over with (10-20seconds) vs watching them run around in tight pants and grope at one another for 3 hours.

As for everything else...

**** a tiered internet, **** tiered email service and **** any company or angency that wants it. I prefer as little regulation as needed, but if Ma' Bell starts with her bullshit again, well, I guess we gotta do what we gotta do. I mean, honestly, who trusts telcos?

[macbook_13]

I like how the reps bashed the thread starter and then shut up when it's time to argue.

*this* *is* a tax, except the government isn't the one who will be profiting from it.

Who trusts telcos, you ask? The government trusts them. We don't.

http://www.savetheinternet.com/blog/...-the-internet/
interesting.

HELLO ALL.
When will people quit voting against their own best interests? www.savetheinternet.com did a wonderful job of creating a grassroots movement YET to no effect. WHY? because special interests and lobby groups control what legislation is passed.

WAKE UP If we don’t start making some changes in this country the country as we know it, as we love it, is lost. If you’re not registered to vote-register. If you don’t vote in elections than you will get the world you deserve.

I am so frustrated by the “sheep” and ‘herd’ mentality in this country. When a real leader is running for office–they don’t get the votes. When a person running for office who has money or says what voters want to hear they get elected.

We’ve got some hard choices facing us in the next 10-15 years…healthcare, medicare, SS, etceteras. and apathy and ignorance will get middle america exactly what it has coming–nothing.

If any good can come out of this I hope that at least a small portion of those on this site begin to take note and say we’re not going to take it anymore. …I may retain hope–but I’ll not hold my breath.

Another disappointing day for Americans & a great day for corporate american.

[Dork.]

The way I understand it, without a strong net neutrality concept, ISP's would be free to alter the bandwidth available to certain TCP streams, or deny them altogether, based on where they are going or what service those streams are providing, and whether the destination or the entity runnign the service has a special contract with the ISP. Without net neutrality, an ISP can theoretically decide to block all VOIP calls, no matter where those calls are going, if it happens to offer its own voice service. Or it can get paid by Yahoo! to make all traffic to Google extremely slow.

It's like setting up a toll road, but billing people and posting speed limits not by how far they drive on that road, but by what their destination is. So someone driving from Boston to Chicago would get charged a different rate and be permitted to drive a differnt speed on the NYS Thruway than someone driving from Boston to Milwaukee, even though both may have used the same section of road in New York State, just because of some back-room deal between New York and Wisconsin.

One of the reasons why the Internet has become so ubiquitous right now is that you can get to the same content in virtually every place. I can type in www.mets.com into a web browser from anywhere on the planet and get to the same web site. And now ISP's want to destroy that, (and destroy their usefulness and value as well) in order to make a few extra bucks in the short-term. Odds are, the geniuses who thought this up will be long gone with their golden parachutes when it all hits the fan and the Internet is balkanized to the point of being useless....

[Doofy]

Originally Posted by lolingram

I like how the reps bashed the thread starter and then shut up when it's time to argue.

Silly Lib. Ain't no Reps up there.

[CRASH HARDDRIVE]

I dunno, it smells a lot like this entire issue is well beyond the scope of politicians of any stripe. Specifically, this latest round sounds like a bunch of misleading FUD flung up over the Markey amendment- not the full bill in the house.

I doubt either side, Rep or Dem, really has a full grasp of the issue, but you'll have to forgive many of us that trust the likes of Nancy Pelosi, et al least of all . Nor do I trust partisan Democrats not to hijack the issue and leap on and redefine it with their usual bumper-sticker bullcrap. It smells quite a bit like that's what going on with the Markey amendment.

A counter-argument minus a lot of fear-mongering is here.
and here.


Anyone have a reasonable refute of anything he says? Because honestly, the other side sounds a LOT like the usual "the sky is falling we're all losing all our freeeeeeeedoms wahhhhhhhhhhhhh!!" blather that we hear with just about every issue that's reduced to dumbed-down doomsday scenarios by team "cry wolf".

And if the MoveOns and the Pelosi-types of the world don't realize they DO have a 'cry wolf' reputation and therefore aren't trusted by many to present virtually any issue in anything other than a fear-mongered way: tough.

Not that I trust Republicans to get it right either- this is something politicians should probably just stay the F out of for the most part.

Once again, I'll personally tend to believe the truth of the issue lies somewhere in the middle of the extremes of FUD.

[jcadam]

**** like this is why I'm an ex-Republican.

[Moderator]

For the record. Every Massachusetts (my home state) congressman voted yes for neutrality. The rep in my district here in nyc also voted yes. Feels good to be on the right side.

http://gargles.net/net-neutrality-who-voted-for-what/