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The "no servers" clause, and its inconsistent enforcement, has been a part of literally every single consumer ISP ToS I have ever been a party to since the 90s.

by Natsu 13y ago

The "no servers" clause, and its inconsistent enforcement, has been a part of literally every single consumer ISP ToS I have ever been a party to since the 90s. I have a hard time seeing it as anything but a longstanding, standard practice of reasonable network management, because there is a reasonable concern that people might saturate their connections and cause issues for others. The thing people are really up in arms about is that their ISPs might charge them for access to Google, Skype, etc. selectively, even though they do absolutely nothing to run that service. I don't personally ascribe to whatever random definitions of Net Neutrality are out there, I just don't like the idea of ISPs charging for services they don't provide or otherwise selectively degrading them to make money. My principles are not in conflict and I simply do not care about whatever high-minded principles someone has come up with in a poor attempt to replicate that bit of common sense that ISPs shouldn't make up special fees for things they don't even provide. You may notice how that "things they don't even provide" bit means that I have no weird "is this actually neutral?" edge cases when people pay to run caches/proxies/whatever to actually improve services for people, even when there are fees involved, while people sometimes get concerned over whether or not something is truly "neutral" or not. This is because I do not care about "neutrality" as such, but rather a much simpler concept of fairness: don't charge for (or degrade) services you don't provide.

dragonwriter 13y ago
> The "no servers" clause, and its inconsistent enforcement, has been a part of literally every single consumer ISP ToS I have ever been a party to since the 90s. It hasn't been part of any of the ones I've been party two prior to 2000, or any of the ones after that except the ones from major telcos (but then, the ones prior to 2000 I was party two weren't, by any stretch, broadband.) But, even so, it doesn't really matter, since prior to the Open Internet Report and Order for which Google lobbied, there weren't FCC transparency requirements on fixed broadband providers, or neutrality rules which included transparency as a factor in determining whether a restriction was reasonable network management. There is now, and Google's decidedly non-transparent practice is inconsistent with the policy for which it lobbied. > I have a hard time seeing it as anything but a longstanding, standard practice of reasonable network management I have a hard time seeing it as "reasonable network management" given the way that term is used in the FCC Open Internet Report and Order, a policy for which Google lobbied. If you can defend the idea that it is such within that context, I would like to hear the argument. But simply repeating time and again the same old "everyone has always done it" argument isn't making that case.
- Natsu 13y ago
  > If you can defend the idea that it is such within that context, I would like to hear the argument. But simply repeating time and again the same old "everyone has always done it" argument isn't making that case. I have no interest whatsoever in defending principles I do not and have never held. Google can defend themselves without me, in any event. Rather, I advocate something entirely different than "neutrality" as a principle from which to confront the real threat net neutrality was formed to prevent. That happens to align with what Google is currently doing, if not why it is doing it. The idea of "neutrality" has a lot of weird corner cases that make no sense at all in practice. I'd rather advocate something good than something... neutral.

by Natsu 13y ago

dragonwriter 13y ago

> The "no servers" clause, and its inconsistent enforcement, has been a part of literally every single consumer ISP ToS I have ever been a party to since the 90s. It hasn't been part of any of the ones I've been party two prior to 2000, or any of the ones after that except the ones from major telcos (but then, the ones prior to 2000 I was party two weren't, by any stretch, broadband.) But, even so, it doesn't really matter, since prior to the Open Internet Report and Order for which Google lobbied, there weren't FCC transparency requirements on fixed broadband providers, or neutrality rules which included transparency as a factor in determining whether a restriction was reasonable network management. There is now, and Google's decidedly non-transparent practice is inconsistent with the policy for which it lobbied. > I have a hard time seeing it as anything but a longstanding, standard practice of reasonable network management I have a hard time seeing it as "reasonable network management" given the way that term is used in the FCC Open Internet Report and Order, a policy for which Google lobbied. If you can defend the idea that it is such within that context, I would like to hear the argument. But simply repeating time and again the same old "everyone has always done it" argument isn't making that case.

Natsu 13y ago
> If you can defend the idea that it is such within that context, I would like to hear the argument. But simply repeating time and again the same old "everyone has always done it" argument isn't making that case. I have no interest whatsoever in defending principles I do not and have never held. Google can defend themselves without me, in any event. Rather, I advocate something entirely different than "neutrality" as a principle from which to confront the real threat net neutrality was formed to prevent. That happens to align with what Google is currently doing, if not why it is doing it. The idea of "neutrality" has a lot of weird corner cases that make no sense at all in practice. I'd rather advocate something good than something... neutral.