finance.yahoo.com — WASHINGTON (AP) -- A federal appeals court has ruled that the Federal Communications Commission lacks the authority to require broadband providers to give equal treatment to all Internet traffic flowing over their networks.
Apr 6, 2010 View in Crawl 4
colincornabyApr 7, 2010
...I don't want ads on my internet.
poonjobApr 7, 2010
why is the majority of digg always wrong?IT IS GOOD FOR US THAT THE FCC LOST. WE DO NOT WANT NET NEUTRALITY.The markets will work itself out for everyone. And if it did not we would all gladly pay more money for tiered internet than government censoring on obscene websites. riddle me this. Of the worlds governments that control the internet, how many have bans on the internet. THAT WOULD BE JUST ABOUT ALL. Even in Australia they are trying to ban a ton of websites. Are you all naive enough thinking our government wouldnt do this? Look at radio, look at TV. We gave them that and we cant even hear a REAL FART ON TV. come on guys get your heads out of your ass and stop following the majority on digg, and actually think about the real consequences of this law.
imricApr 7, 2010
@emmeron - no, and neither have you (though I've HAD no money and even been homeless at times - and no, I took no handouts from the evil, evil government. I've also been on the affluent side of middle class. So what?). As for not making an argument, totally free-market capitalism only works when you can ALWAYS chant "monopolies are impossible, and when they occur they are temporary". That can only happen in an infinite market, where you always have an option not to purchase something. When there is always an available job. You know, the "invisible hand that compensates for the fact that there IS no infinite market, and not everything that you pay for is a luxury" part. The argument that you put in my mouth doesn't make any sense, I suppose now you are going to destroy it?I WAS one of you idiots, back before college. I still believe in the market, but absent infinite markets, there need to be rules and boundaries - or you have to consider workers rioting with shotguns, employers hiring armed guards as strikebreakers (late 19th, early 20th), starvation, death, unions, and yes, government intervention to not only be products of the market, but part of it.The consequences of libertarian philosophy carried to it's conclusion are monopolies and a two-class system where one class is riddled with disease, starvation, ignorance and all it's consequences, and early death for the vast majority of the people. The rest have a ready supply of servants though! The vast majority of the people reject this for some strange reason. Thats why people reject libertarian 'solutions' when they think about it... Unless of course you WANT those conditions. Since it means cheap labor and lots of personal power for monopolists (other consequences), they latch onto free-market 'thought'. Onto YOU. Economic libertarians are nothing more than tools. Corporatist patsies.
s73v3rApr 7, 2010
I said your ISP, not the market. Of course, if you'd prefer that Digg, Slashdot and Reddit would have to bid to your ISP to get to see you, then I guess you'd not like Net Neutrality.
hblaskApr 8, 2010
If you can't tell, why would you care?
Closed AccountApr 8, 2010
You'd know something occasionally didn't work, but you wouldn't know why. You'd notice that some videos occasionally took longer to load than others, but you wouldn't know if that was due to your ISP, network problems in your home networking equipment, or your PC. And the desired effect would be that some users would decide start watching movies via VOD and can their Netflix accounts. Or get their news via MSNBC instead of Fox. Or have their web traffic contributing to ad revenue for their ISP instead of the actual sites they visit.Maybe none of those things matter to you. If that's the case then great, you'll be happy regardless of what happens with net neutrality. If those things do seem like a problem to you then congratulations, you support network neutrality.
zanzzzApr 8, 2010
The ruling is technically correct. The reason is partly due to the FCC"s past decision to categorize Internet services as a Title l "information service" instead of Title ll "telecommunication service". This puts it in a legal category that does not invoke "common carrier" restrictions which the FCC is legally entitled to enact.Title l information services vs. Title ll telecommunications services is nothing more than a petty political distinction. Look up the meaning of telecommunications. The rapid convergent evolution of cable, fiber, telephone, cellular, and Internet services makes the anachronistic regulations covering each business area unfair and anti-consumer. Most US citizens have access to 2 or fewer ISP providers which is not a healthy competitive industry. There are practical limits to how many companies can string lines through every town and hamlet. The only sensible approach is regulate to open up the "last mile" as they do in many other countries. This is what the oligopolies stridently resist and claim will stifle incentive and innovation. So we are faced with the prospect of regulation as hindrance or catalyst. Given the current conditions it is hard to argue that common carrier rules shouldn't be applied. The prospects of that happening are slim due to the delusional beliefs held by many politicians that the industry is in fact truly competitive and the extensive influence the affected handful of wealthy corporations wields through lobbying and political donations. Net neutrality is a complex subject because network management not only affects "consumers" but is applied at the peering backbone level most people know little of. The details of the peering agreements are kept mostly secret. One problem typically overlooked is the possible conflict of interest that an ISP that is also a content provider can find itself in. Why not tilt the playing field to favor your own content? Except that who holds the upper hand here is not always clear or perhaps rapidly changing. Content providers can turn the tables and charge a "fee" to an ISP for special/favorable service or vice versa. In a better world perhaps most could agree on how quality of service for each different protocol would be treated. VOIP, streaming video, gaming with priority and email, P2P, ftp, etc. delivered with greater latency. Except some would cheat the system and misrepresent their traffic and others would want caps or bans on certain protocols. So let's just allow traffic shaping and throttling in a bit agnostic manner, hence "net neutrality". All bits treated equally. Please refrain from deep packet inspection, that is invasion of privacy and should be illegal without a court warrant
hyraxApr 8, 2010
Do you realize every piece of legislation passed gives the consumer, the American citizen, less and less freedom? Throttling is a bad practice, but I am glad I have the option to vote with my dollar to the company that doesn't throttle. Perhaps what the government should do is allow more competition by eliminating barriers of entry to ISP entrepreneurs that the government has put up.
felsApr 9, 2010
So, Land just got a call out and a massive info-chocked post and he chooses to reply to the guy with 'Chavez' in his name.Hilarity.Running for the hills? Rhetorical Coward.
trueeyesApr 10, 2010
I feel sad for the U.S. today.You started the internet and yet you are one of the first in the developed world to go against it.I just hope noone follows you..
buddywlkr3Apr 11, 2010
Congress gave no authority to the FCC to regulate the internet. Court ruled that FCC therefore had no authority to regulate the internet. End of question. The only question now is how Obama will try to somehow avoid the law one more time by having the FCC regulate things in a different way. The man has no limits on ways to avoid or break the law. Then the internet providers will be barred from stopping people from downloading illegal movies through social networking sites, and making it impossible for people to get high speed service for their businesses.
middleamericamsApr 12, 2010
True, they want a plan for high bandwith websites, but that's not the plan I'm talking about that will change the way anyone with a website pays & how much. The telecoms have said openly that they want a CPC system for most websites. Just watch....
mohan12Apr 16, 2010
I keep reading comments about "voting with your wallet", but what most people don't acknowledge (or realize or care to know) is that in MANY MANY MANY MANY parts of the US, there is ONLY ONE CABLE/INTERNET PROVIDER TO CHOOSE FROM (caps intended)- legalized municipal monopolies. What do you recommend the millions of people in that scenario do? To 'vote with their wallet' is to have no internet connection, which is worse then tiered/preferred network access (or is it..........??)
princeamorApr 16, 2010
can anyone verify the source of this? Is there any indication that they are really planning on providing inet service like this?