legal Net Neutrality Has Been Repealed!

[Silentptnr]

I just read that...

F.C.C. Repeals Net Neutrality Rules
WASHINGTON — The Federal Communications Commission voted on Thursday to dismantle rules regulating the businesses that connect consumers to the internet, granting broadband companies the power to potentially reshape Americans’ online experiences.

The agency scrapped the so-called net neutrality regulations that prohibited broadband providers from blocking websites or charging for higher-quality service or certain content. The federal government will also no longer regulate high-speed internet delivery as if it were a utility, like phone service.

Full Story: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/14/technology/net-neutrality-repeal-vote.html

How will this change things?

 

[enlytend]

Comcast has edited their net neutrality page. Here's what it looked like before...

Here it is now:
http://corporate.comcast.com/openinternet/open-net-neutrality

See anything missing?

PS 17 states are suing them and congress could reverse the decision.

 

[pokainc]

well for one, I read that as long as the ISP announces it or says it in advance, they can shut down a site... they apparently said they would never do that.. but welcome to the 1st step of testing the waters for internet censorship...

 

[enlytend]

That didnt take long

Right?

They couldn't be trusted before, that's why net neutrality was enacted. Verizon used to disable the ability to use your phone as a hotspot - a feature of the phone you paid for - unless you paid them a hotspot fee. That's just one example.

 

[pokainc]

We saw it happen with meta data and surveillance that was supposed to be very selective and needed mandates and so-on being much more freely used against people who were against some special interests... imagine a congressman that's for some policies against some of these ISP's ... "ohhh there's an outage on their campaign site.. it's the 5 th time in 1 week, so close to the elections.. what a shame".... it's like controlling the valve to the water supply to a thirsty crowd... sort of like the last mad max movie analogy... nothing good is going to come out of this... maybe down the road it'll change again... if there's a change in power..

Fun times: so funnnnyy (sarcastic) check this link.
http://fortune.com/2017/12/09/fcc-head-ajit-pai-verizons-puppet-net-neutrality/

 

[Michael M]

Silliness guys... Pure ignorance and propaganda.

Net Neutrality only existed for a very short time, and did nothing except for make people think without it the world was going to end and NetFlix was going to be throttled.

You will not notice ANY difference minus Political stunts.

Your internet is fine, and is actually back to its original state - as intented.

The internet was free and neutral before net neutrality, and it is much free-er without it.

Keep screaming that the world is ending - but you know you are mad because of political beliefs and not logical ones... Or maybe you don't at this point.

None-the-less: Enjoy the Internet that the free market made - as you scream for the government to come in and save you from that free market. Sigh.

 

[LarryDomain]

This will make premium domain names more expensive cuz only the best gets on the web now..

hahaha.. (j/k, I don't know jack what's this going to do)

 

[anantj]

I think this will essentially force companies like Apple or Facebook to start offering their own internet to try and maintain control...Instead of paying Comcast or Verizon to access Facebook, people will start paying Facebook to access the internet.

Just uneducated speculation of course...

Facebook already tried to launch a service that goes against net neutrality (Facebook Free Basics). In India, they were banned from launching the service after massive protests and subsequent regulation by the regulatory authority here. A majority of the large corps pretty much only pay lip service to Net Neutrality commitment to avoid negative PR. They'll all jump at the chance to take advantage of fast lanes (cos they pretty much can afford to do so).

 

[Michael M]

I just wrote before your post.. I don't hate you guys..

Some plans are hatched 10-20 years in advance by the way.

Ok - December 15th, 2027 we meet back here and we can settle who was right.

Then 2037 for a followup.

 

[Arca]

I do not understand why some users here take such a blanket negative view towards regulations. Regulations are needed to protect consumers from the unfettered economic greed of corporations.

We as domainers benefit from domain name regulations. For example, ICANN has frozen .COM (operated by Verisign) registration and renewal prices until 2024, and thanks to this piece of regulation, we can pay relatively affordable .COM fees.

In contrast, a price freeze is not in place for .NET domains (also operated by Verisign), and they are allowed to increase prices by 10% yearly. Verisign has increase the price at every opportunity they have had so far (the wholesale price was just $4.65 in 2011), and in 2023, .NET is going to renew around $15-16 retail unless Verisign stops hiking the price every time they have the chance, while .COM is still going to renew at $8-9. If there was not a price freeze regulation in place, or if Verisign had any kind of option to increase .COM prices they would have increased prices as much as possible at every opportunity; the history of .NET price increases have shown us that. It's merely thanks to regulations that we still just pay $8-9 for our renewals, not due to the benevolence of Verisign...

Now if we move into the area of unregulated domains, in terms of registration and renewal prices, we have the ngtlds, that register and renew at $5 $50, $500, or even $5000 if the registry is greedy enough. And the renewal price may change from $50/year to $500/year based on the greedy whims of the registry. The ngtld space is a complete mess and will never succeed due to the unregulated nature of the ngtld program, where registry greed goes completely unchecked.

 

[eyedomainous]

Nothing prevents any local government from providing Internet service as a utility to their citizens.

One of the main reasons Net Neutrality was passed two years ago was ISPs were making it virtually illegal for local governments to provide internet service for citizens... in HALF of the country!

The sad, but true, irony is virtually all of those states are 'Red' / Trump states, where many Republican voters are now applauding the repeal of Net Neutrality rules that just nullified those protections... so the old ISP driven State policies blocking municipal, or virtually any other competition, now go back into force.

[2014 / Before Net Neutrality]
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy...-won-limits-on-public-broadband-in-20-states/

https://arstechnica.com/information...-internet-will-be-invalidated-fcc-chair-says/

https://gigaom.com/2015/02/26/fcc-votes-3-2-to-override-state-bans-of-city-broadband/

[NOW. AGAIN.]
MUNICIPAL BROADBAND ROADBLOCKS
25 State Laws that Protect Corporate Interests and Impede Competition
34 million Americans don’t have access to broadband Internet. In fact, 62 percent of those who can get broadband only have one provider to “choose” from. This means that, for the majority of the US, our only option is to pay up… or go without.
https://broadbandnow.com/report/municipal-broadband-roadblocks-by-state/

ISPs won’t promise to treat all traffic equally after net neutrality
https://www.theverge.com/2017/12/15...ns-without-net-neutrality-comcast-att-verizon

Meanwhile, a $15K citizen campaign FOR municipal broadband just beat a Million $ ISP attempt to kill it!
http://fortune.com/2017/12/10/municipal-broadband-fort-collins-colorado/

 

[Michael M]

Simply put...

The Internet was founded and thrived as an unregulated and generally decentralized system..

NN seeked to regulate this system. You can not say the world and Internet is going to end without it - when it was not founded in this system, did not thrive in this system, and where this regulatory switch had yet to really be turned on to this point.

The Internet you know and love is here because NN did NOT exist.

I imagine that all of you who think this regulation is required to move forward are also 100% against blockchain or P2P technology - as it is decentralized.

Can't have things both ways guys...

 

[pokainc]

@Michael M

The whole net neutrality part that we are for is regarding throttling and shutting down sites because the ISPs decide to do so.

It's taking the power away from a very minimal amount of hundred billion dollar companies from basically "doing what they want" in terms of slowing down sites and shutting down sites and manipulating a resource that runs today's business world.

Look at Apple, it just came out officially that they had the power to throttle the speed of old i phones without notifying them (under the pretext of saving the battery life.. ya ok), and it was indirectly forcing people to upgrade because their phone as a result was way too slow..

Multi-Billion dollar companies + no oversight = Abuse of power in the name of maximizing shareholder returns

History has proven that time and time and time again.

 

[eyedomainous]

It didn't take long for one local ISP to flex its new muscle.

Armstrong Zoom, a northeastern US ISP with about a million subscribers, has sent its customers warnings that they have been accused of copyright infringement, and that subsequent accusations would lead to having their network connections slowed to the point of uselessness.

“Please be advised that this may affect other services which you may have connected to your internet service, such as the ability to control your thermostat remotely or video monitoring services.”

Accused pirates who want their full service restored have to answer some copyright questions, read an educational piece about copyright infringement, and sign an agreement acknowledging that they have done so. However, if more complaints come in later, the consequences will be more severe.

In other words, its really gonna cost you. The old copyright enforcement scam is back. All it takes is an accusation. No due process. In most cases not even an official looking letter. Just an 'email notice', from any alleged copyright holder, with a For Your (ISP) Eyes Only 'confidentiality clause' in the footer.

https://boingboing.net/2017/12/27/winter-is-coming.html

 

[Dondomainer]

 

[Asfas1000]

More shrinkage of the Internet, less value for the domains.

 

[HotKey]

Total bs. This will eventually make the Internet suck. All traffic will be tolled. All sites will be in perpetual nanny-state, subject to anyone's complaint. Like the political-correctness fervor taking over.

If it is no longer regulated, to whom will the ISPs be accountable? Who to turn to if they screw up on a decision?

 

[pokainc]

Why not just remove the bureaucracy regarding nuclear weapons... so much red tape.

The internet is no longer a random luxury... it's a must for millions if not billions of people to operate their businesses.

 

[pokainc]

hahhaha... after all this convo. I still don't hate you guys lol Life at Namepros lol

 

[dorisjulba]

well good they will increase investment in Internet innovation

 

[Michael M]

Just a thought experiment:

NN (badly and falsely named) comes back into existence due to the backlash of comments... (oddly many are from people who do not live in the country that this regulation is up for debate at - but I digress)

A year passes, and people decide domainers are hogging all the good domains and hurting the economy. The US government's FCC moves in decidedly to update the regulation to include verbiage that "Domain Hording" is no longer legal. The people of the world cheer! Greedy domain corporations can no longer keep the little guy from registering "their" domain name.

No one voted on this law, just a bunch of people signed a petition because they were mad they couldn't register their desired domain name. They saw a post on Google and Twitter that the internet could not grow any further without some action. They acted!

Now on the other end are many domainers who supported this wide sweeping regulation (for whatever reason) start to scream foul! We are out 100k+ in inventory costs - but hey you can still stream your NetFlix.

All in the name of "progress"

Moral of the story - people blindly support things until they start to effect them personally. Then and only then can they see the light - and 99% of the time that will be too late.

If you open a can of worms, be ready to eat them.

NN is not Net "Neutrality" - it is a wide sweeping Internet Regulation who's main purpose is to give regulatory control over to the government - for your protection of course.

If you want Net Neutrality, then we need to work on passing a simple law to accomplish this. It could be done in ONE straight forward page of text. Period.

 

[Michael M]

Need/Want for safety is not and should not be a political view.

If you are going to govern safety over every imaginable circumstance - it then becomes political.

 

[NamesMax]

It amazes me that many on this thread are arguing for the government to regulate business more and more, which is against their own interests. If the government regulates one business then they can reegulate other business.

Today cable companies and ISPs....Tomorrow domain registrars and hosting companies...The next day domain owners and investors.

Remember, the US Supreme Court ruled in 2005 that it was permissible to take a property, under eminent domain, from an owner, just because the government could get more tax revenue from the person that wanted to have the land instead of the current owner that did not want to sell. Kelo vs the city of New London, CT (link)

Think of this same argument in the domain world. back in 2009 Rick Swartz sold Candy.com for $3 Million plus other considerations. What if the buyer was frustrated at when Rick would not sell at $2 million and ran to the government for help. The government realizes that they are not getting any tax revenue from it sitting idle in Rick's portfolio, So it uses the "Kelo" decision to justify grabbing the name and moving it to the new owner so that they could get the tax revenue from the sale of candy on the site. Same principle being used.

A government that has the right and ability to interfere in one part of the internet structure from one business has the right and ability to interfere in all parts of the internet structure. Government regulators love to grab more and more and more control over everything they have their hands in. When is the last time you remember a government agency saying, "let's give up this power" we don't need it anymore? The recent FCC vote is one of the few I can recall.

 

[Michael M]

I personally assigned T as the time value. I believe that is allowed. I did not know I was supposed to pull out textbook variables to respond to that.

I never thought of T & A as Time and Acceleration - but I must admit T & A does seem to speed up time!

 

[Michael M]

Because it had to be written correctly so as define what the rules would actually do would be my guess....

Mine would be that the FCC knew they were over-reaching... But we are both guessing. Who knows who is right. It is all so convoluted seems none of us know what we are debating.... Again hmmm....

(corrected for grammar)