7 ms·

This argument doesn't make complete sense. Not everyone can lay down cables or use phone lines or in general bring bandwidth to the house or peering with certai

This argument doesn't make complete sense. Not everyone can lay down cables or use phone lines or in general bring bandwidth to the house or peering with certain destinations. Bandwidth (intended as both the capability to transmit data and the infrastructure that enables it) is an essential (and limited) facility[1] and thus is susceptible to monopolies and it's hard to compete against those that have the infrastructure and agreements already in place. A similar case to net neutrality has already been ruled in the past, always from wikipedia: * The first case to use the idea was the Supreme Court's judgment in United States v. Terminal Railroad Association, 224 U.S. 383 (1912). A group of railroads controlling all railway bridges and switching yards into and out of St. Louis prevented competing railway companies from offering transportation to and through that destination. The court held it to be an illegal restraint of trade. * Associated Press v. United States, 326 U.S. 1 (1945), in which the Supreme Court found that the Associated Press bylaws which limited membership and therefore access to copyrighted news services violated the Sherman Act. * In Lorain Journal Co. v. United States, 342 U.S. 143, 146-49 (1951), the Lorain Journal was the only local business doing news and advertisements in town. The case was that refusing to place an ad for the customers of a small radio station was a Sherman Act violation. In the end, the court accepted an offer to simply accept the advertisements. If you hold a facility that can't be easily duplicated you are not really allowed to do as you please with it but you need to offer service to everybody equally or you'll violate the Sherman Act[2]. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essential_facilities_doctrine http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essential_facilities_doctrine [2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherman_Antitrust_Act http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherman_Antitrust_Act

gojomo 14y ago
So why not wait for someone who's harmed to bring a case like those above? Why preemptively invite the censorship-friendly, wiretap-friendly, incumbent-protecting FCC to start regulating even before there's any problem? If the US ever adopts a national website blacklist like China, Australia, the UK, and others, it would probably be the same FCC 'network neutrality' regulators who'd monitor ISP compliance. After all, how can the network be truly 'neutral' if it carries illegal information?
- dialtone 14y ago
  So, instead of preserving the neutrality of the essential facility, which allows anyone to prosper and reduces unfairness (as demonstrated by laws and past rulings), we should allow somebody to harm smaller competitors who may or may not have enough capital to develop themselves and, at the same time, keep up a lawsuit against a bigger and more loaded incumbent. It doesn't seem good for the free market (which is captured by a monopolist), not good for the competition, not good for the consumer, not good for the public good, not good for technological advancement and not good for business itself since new discoveries create new economies. In essence, ignoring network neutrality is a net loss for everyone except the incumbents. Somehow they also managed to make you believe that it's for your own good, and without any theoretical or practical basis. Whether the US adopts a blacklist is a matter of policy regarding criminal activities rather than its economic policy. What I believe is right or wrong in this case doesn't change the fact that, violating network neutrality for economic reasons is a huge fallacy. Personally I believe these blacklists are useless. I'm also not completely sure why you think that carrying 'illegal information' makes the network not neutral... Does it stop carrying legal information afterwards?

gojomo 14y ago

So why not wait for someone who's harmed to bring a case like those above? Why preemptively invite the censorship-friendly, wiretap-friendly, incumbent-protecting FCC to start regulating even before there's any problem? If the US ever adopts a national website blacklist like China, Australia, the UK, and others, it would probably be the same FCC 'network neutrality' regulators who'd monitor ISP compliance. After all, how can the network be truly 'neutral' if it carries illegal information?

dialtone 14y ago
So, instead of preserving the neutrality of the essential facility, which allows anyone to prosper and reduces unfairness (as demonstrated by laws and past rulings), we should allow somebody to harm smaller competitors who may or may not have enough capital to develop themselves and, at the same time, keep up a lawsuit against a bigger and more loaded incumbent. It doesn't seem good for the free market (which is captured by a monopolist), not good for the competition, not good for the consumer, not good for the public good, not good for technological advancement and not good for business itself since new discoveries create new economies. In essence, ignoring network neutrality is a net loss for everyone except the incumbents. Somehow they also managed to make you believe that it's for your own good, and without any theoretical or practical basis. Whether the US adopts a blacklist is a matter of policy regarding criminal activities rather than its economic policy. What I believe is right or wrong in this case doesn't change the fact that, violating network neutrality for economic reasons is a huge fallacy. Personally I believe these blacklists are useless. I'm also not completely sure why you think that carrying 'illegal information' makes the network not neutral... Does it stop carrying legal information afterwards?