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There's a lot of echoing of telco FUD in here. Let's get some things straight: - The FCC is unelected, but so is the EPA, FBI, CIA, DOD, DOJ, etc. We can't ele
by ebbv 12y ago
There's a lot of echoing of telco FUD in here. Let's get some things straight:
- The FCC is unelected, but so is the EPA, FBI, CIA, DOD, DOJ, etc. We can't elect everybody who works in government. That wouldn't work.
- This does not mean the FCC is uncontrollable or unanswerable for what it does. It answers to both the executive and legislative branches of government, and of course anything it does can be subject to the courts as well. So it is checked by all three branches of government.
- With all the shenanigans and expensive lawyers the telcos have at their disposal, it shouldn't surprise you that 700 regulations were involved in this. What do you think, a one page paper that says "The Internet is Neutral. Don't throttle traffic on it." is enough? Of course it's not. Comcast has you sign a user agreement that's dozens of pages long just to use their service.
- Regulations are not usually published before they are done. There would be little point because they are constantly changing. I can see the transparency argument that it would be nice to see the proposed regulations being worked on in "real time", but in progress documents like this have a lot of things added and taken out constantly. Something that's not going to stay in could be cited while it's being worked on by pundits to try to sway public opinion against it. There's a balancing act between transparency and muddying the waters.
- The regulations will be published. If there is something awful in there it can be dealt with. This isn't the only thing that will ever happen. Laws get repealed and changed all the time.
- This is a good thing for anyone who isn't on the board of a telco.
- supergeek133 12y agoI think many of us here call it a generally good move, we just wanted to see everything that was proposed before it was passed. Not that we could do anything about it.
- ebbv 12y agoWe'll see it all soon (as in the next couple weeks) and if there's something awful in there we can start calling for revision.
- cubano 12y agoNothing is going to happen in the next couple of weeks. There are going to be lawsuits galore that will hold up any significant changes to internet services for years.
- ebbv 12y agoWhat? The regulations will certainly be released in the next couple weeks. Yes, that's also when the lawsuits will start. But I was talking about the regulations being released (since that's what the comment I was replying to was talking about.) Feel free to take your terrible attitude elsewhere.
- dang 12y ago> Feel free to take your terrible attitude elsewhere Personal attacks are not allowed on Hacker News.
- ebbv 12y agoI stand by my assertion that telling him he has a shitty attitude is not a personal attack. No more so than you telling me that I made a personal attack is a personal attack. His comment showed a shitty attitude underlying it. Pointing that out is just like pointing out that someone is being aggressive, insulting, etc. EDIT: And as far as me telling him to feel free to take it elsewhere, that's just me saying I'm not interested in it. While it's good that HN discourages/disallows personal attacks, that can be taken too far to the point of being reactionary and looking for any excuse to simply dismiss someone because they said something someone else didn't like.
- cubano 12y agoYou ad hominem attack aside, whatever wording may or may not be in the regulations will not matter near as much as how things will actually be implemented, and how these implemented changes will affect us all here on the web. For example, there are 1000's of crazy laws on the books here in the US. Plenty of websites document "laws" like "it's a misdemeanor to walk your dog on Sunday within 100 feet of a church" Since no police actually enforce these type of laws, the wording in the statue goes unnoticed...no one cares. But if they did, all hell would break loose and the current local officials would probably quickly change them. That is the gist of the direction I was trying to take.
- pwenzel 12y agoFor those interested, here is a fact sheet outlining the rules (PDF from NPR): http://media.npr.org/documents/2015/feb/fcc-wheeler-openinternet.pdf http://media.npr.org/documents/2015/feb/fcc-wheeler-openinte...
- ctdonath 12y agoWhere are the actual rules? That rules governing the internet are not immediately available on the internet after approval does not bode well.