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Behind Closed Doors, Ford, UPS, and Visa Push for Net Neutrality
- kchoudhu 12y agoBank of America couldn't even be bothered to send an MD to present its case?
- jobu 12y agoIt's surprising that these companies aren't openly supporting net neutrality (instead of "behind closed doors"). It seems like the only companies openly against it are telecoms and cable companies - generally the most hated companies in the country.
- Robadob 12y agoFrom the article; "It’s not surprising that these companies don’t want to talk openly about net neutrality. They have little to gain by alienating business partners such as Verizon, AT&T (T), and Comcast. Groups like the Telecommunications Users Committee exist to shield them from those conflicts, even as the companies quietly pursue policy goals in talks with the FCC."
- dsl 12y agoI have been working with my employer to use our lobbying resources to push net neutrality. It took me months of work to even get it started. Getting the company to take a stance publicly would be years of work. What they are doing right now is nothing short of monumental in a large corporate environment where the same telecoms you are opposing may be your customers, suppliers, or partners.
- droopybuns 12y agoWhy are you all in on this? The problem w/ all of the proposals from Obama is that when you get into the details, they hinge around traffic that is "illegal". No Snowden disclosures, no wikileaks. If you distill the proposal to it's basics, it has very little to do with the kinds of functionality that people think they are fighting for.
- Retric 12y agoThere is nothing sinister about allowing illegal traffic to be blocked. Currently ISP routers often block massive DDoS attacks and without that exclusion they would have to let them through. Realistically, routers are the best place to deal with such attacks and not carving out that exclusion would open up a lot of valid criticism.
- johndevor 12y ago>There is nothing sinister about allowing illegal traffic to be blocked. Isn't this what China says?
- dsl 12y agoThe fact that the president even recognizes it as a problem is the result of an incredible amount of work and millions of dollars in lobbying efforts. I can tell you right now you're not going to get the libretarian paradise that everyone wants, but you're not going to get a Verizon 5% ecommerce tax either.
- yuhong 12y agoFor fun, click on the username and read the about box.
- atmosx 12y agoI'm missing something. The author writes: and all four deny advocating for net neutrality behind closed doors with the FCC. Okay, so does the author know about this?!
- apayan 12y agoThe article points outs that the FCC is required to disclose what was discussed at those meetings, and even has links to the slides of the presentation that the representatives made to the FCC while they were there. If you click on those links, you can view the PDFs that were presented, and they clearly outline strong support for net neutrality. http://apps.fcc.gov/ecfs/document/view?id=60000979857 http://apps.fcc.gov/ecfs/document/view?id=60000979857 edit: added a link to the PDF of slides
- atmosx 12y agok thanks!
- sliverstorm 12y agoThey denied it; that's practically proof they did it! /tongue in cheek
- sschueller 12y agoI am worried that the net neutrality rules the president is now pushing will eventually kill the free and open internet. ISPs will be required to not block traffic that is lawful but what is the definition of lawful? Would wikileaks be considered lawful? What about the Snowden documents? What about encryption? This is a dangerous road we are going down.
- waterlesscloud 12y agoI'm in favor of Net Neutrality, but from what I've read and discussed, Title II sounds like a bad path to go down. Basically it would give the FCC all sorts of regulatory powers we'd just have to trust they wouldn't enforce. Yeah, I got no faith on that topic.
- click170 12y agoYou've got a very good point. I guess the reason I'm not as worried about it as you is because I feel like it will be easier to get the FCC to bow to public pressure (eventually?) if they do something stupid, more than I trust any of the ISPs which IMO have been behaving stupidly for quite a while now. Edit: typo
- zyxley 12y agoSame. I generally trust the FCC to be stupid rather than (as ISPs are right now) actively malicious.
- webXL 12y agoSo we give more power to an incompetent agency to solve what, exactly? To get what we pay for? Is the level of service going to improve, or will prices fall to match the current level of service? Or will service degrade and prices increase?
- nunyabuizness 12y agoISPs act the way they do because they've bought the right from the "publicly accountable" people we're expecting "bow to public pressure." I personally trust GoDaddy to bow to public pressure way before the FCC.
- userisme 12y agohttps://www.torproject.org/about/sponsors.html.en https://www.torproject.org/about/sponsors.html.en the ford foundation sponsors tor
- GabrielF00 12y agoI don't think the Ford Foundation has had much affiliation with Ford Motor Company for decades.
- smutticus 12y agoIf they want Title II they should promise Wheeler a job that pays more than head Comcast lobbyist. That's the cheapest and easiest way to get net neutrality.
- yuhong 12y agoI don't think it is that simple.
- forrestthewoods 12y agoIf only politicians were as easy and cheap to buy as the Internet thinks.
- electromagnetic 12y agoI think that's why the Mafia used to just threaten them. When you've got pictures of a guy sleeping with prostitutes and they got elected on "family focus" and do photo ops outside church with their wife of 14 years and fives kids, it suddenly becomes easy to "buy" politicians. Or, the old balls and the literal vice.
- simplemath 12y agoXkcd - wrench vs encryption
- wolf550e 12y agohttp://xkcd.com/538/ http://xkcd.com/538/
- mercer 12y agoI wonder if this approach is more common than we think. It seems to me that it's relatively easy to 1) find dirt on someone, especially a public figure who has more to lose for relatively small 'crimes', 2) blackmail said politician and ask him to do something relatively small, 3) ask for ever bigger 'favors', using the earlier favors as further material to use for blackmail-purposes. If it's really that easy, I can't see why it's not common and relatively rarely uncovered or discovered...
- 31reasons 12y agoBusinesses will push for anything that can make them profit. For these companies Net Neutrality happen to fall into their profit domain so they push for it. But fundamental rights and values should not be up for anyone to debate or lobby. Net Neutrality should be part of the constitution.
- tim333 12y ago>Businesses will push for anything that can make them profit That's kind of a simplification. The pushing is controlled by the CEO and similar people at the companies and they can in practice push for pretty much what they like using the companies money. While they are kind of supposed to maximise shareholders interests they don't always do so in practice (see excessive company jets, vanity takeovers). I doubt Ford and BoA are pushing neutrality because they think it will increase their profits, they are probably just pushing it because the boss likes the idea.
- rayiner 12y agoHow is telling other people what they can do with their property a fundamental right?
- lukifer 12y agoHow is property a fundamental right? (Honest question.)
- tptacek 12y agoSo what you're saying is Net Neutrality mostly makes sense if you don't believe in property?
- lukifer 12y agoNot exactly; just considering the trade-off of sacred cow vs. tasty burger. I'm not opposed to property or possessions, but I do think the burden of proof is on the believer rather than the skeptic, and our society seems to put a higher sanctity on property than on community or commons, as though it were an immutable axiom of the universe. (I'd also really like to hear a First Principle on the subject that doesn't contain "Because USSR".)
- jaekwon 12y agoWhat worries me is, how do you define what the internet is? If I fork the IP stack and call it IP2, and it is different in some significant way, does that still fall under Title II?
- simplemath 12y agoAny public network that passes datagrams?
- splitrocket 12y agoIt's quite simple: If you sell carriage of data between two parties, are responsible for the loss of said data, and sell to the general public, then yes, you should be considered a common carrier of data. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_carrier http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_carrier
- shkkmo 12y ago“Every retailer with an online catalogue, every manufacturer with online product specifications, every insurance company with online claims processing, every bank offering online account management, every company with a website–every business in America interacting with its customers online is dependent upon an open Internet.”