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This is great from a legal standpoint for net neutrality. ISPs (and their FCC champions) like to claim they are not telecom services that funnel data back and
by rsingel 3y ago
This is great from a legal standpoint for net neutrality.
ISPs (and their FCC champions) like to claim they are not telecom services that funnel data back and forth which makes them Title II common carriers, subject to strong FCC oversight.
Instead they say they are information services who process and change data. Then they are Title I services that the FCC has little authority over.
One way they do this is by saying they have DNS, that translates domains into IP addresses.
Of course that's incidental but the more that people actually use alternative DNS, the clearer it is that DNS services aren't core to their offers, and the more evidence there is to show to a court that ISPs are Title II services.
So if you want to support the upcoming return of federal net neutrality protections and FCC oversight of ISPs, one thing you can do is choose DNS NOT provided by your ISP.
- l33t233372 3y agoHow many judges are able to make deep technical adjudications about which use of DNS is sufficient to be a title I or title II carrier?
- pests 3y agoProbably a lot? Judges are perfectly capable of learning technical topics and are pretty smart in general. The judge who presided over Google vs Oracle taught himself to program. Some may be old but don't forget the people who invented the internet are 70s+ right now.
- cvoss 3y agoDeep technical adjudication is exactly what judges in higher courts are equipped to do. No matter the domain, they are presented with tortuous technical language and jargon about a specialized topic (the statute), a collection of nuanced facts, and two or more carefully organized logical arguments, prepared by the parties' capable lawyers, about why those facts activate or don't activate this or that clause of the statute.
- rsingel 3y agoThat's a good question. Tech issues are tough, which is why you see lots of friend of the court briefs to explain it. For FCC matters around net neutrality, there's generally two courts: the DC Circuit Court of Appeals and then the Supreme Court. And, yes, they deal with it and have clerks to help. For instance, in the biggest decision about net neutrality, the BrandX case, where the FCC was allowed to determine that Cable companies were Title I information services, DNS is mentioned 13 times in the majority decision. https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/545/967/#tab-opinion-1961903 https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/545/967/#tab-opi... And if you find that interesting, I recommend reading the Scalia dissent, where he said that it's totally clear that broadband is a Title II service, and letting the FCC say otherwise was wickedly wrong.
- MrYellowP 3y agoIt's like you're utterly unaware of the massive corruption. US telecom companies have been getting a lot of US taxpayer money for (literally?) nothing in return, which was of course an absolute accident by whoever set this whole deal up. Absolutely an accident by whoever made this happen. I adore that you believe that arguments matter at all.
- candiddevmike 3y agoThe average consumer clearly understands that US ISPs are email, DNS, and security(?) providers who also provide free internet access with speeds dependent upon how much customers pay.
- riley_dog 3y ago/s?
- Espionage724 3y agoIf you want to involve another 3rd-party in your data collections, also choose DNS NOT provided by your ISP. My ISP has an interest in keeping me online and naturally need to provide their own DNS servers that work well-enough to not question. A 3rd-party DNS's interest is in people using it because...?