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How Washington Will Shape the Internet
Posted by
Zonk
on Tue Jul 11, 2006 01:42 PM
from the new-sheriff-in-town dept.
from the new-sheriff-in-town dept.
WebHostingGuy writes "As reported by MSNBC, 'The most potent force shaping the future of the Internet is neither Mountain View's Googleplex nor the Microsoft campus in Redmond. It's rather a small army of Gucci-shod lobbyists on Washington's K Street and the powerful legislators whose favor they curry.' The article examines several pieces of legislation and lobbying initiatives which are poised to affect you and your rights online. Topics covered include Net Neutrality, fiber to the home, the Universal Service Fund, codecs, and WiFi bandwidth usage." From the article: "After years of benign neglect, the Federal government is finally involved in the Internet — big time. And the decisions being made over the next few months will impact not just the future of the Web, but that of mass media and consumer electronics as well. Yet it's safe to say that far more Americans have heard about flag burning than the laws that may soon reshape cyberspace."
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Let me hazard a wild wild guess... (Score:5, Insightful)
Here comes the internet license. (Score:5, Insightful)
Honestly, I don't understand how a conservative government can increase the size of government this much, and ask for internet regulations, I mean it does not follow the philosophy at all. Am I the only libertarian here?
When law making comes to the internet, another internet will be invented, just not anytime soon. My advice is, start the planning stages for the next internet, and then when there is the will to bring it forward, bring it forward. Let's just admit once and for all that it must have been Al Gore who gave us the internet, he did not invent it, but he handed it so us. Before that, the masses didnt know what the internet is, and the masses won't know what the next internet us when us geeks invent or find it, hey we mmight already have it.
Parent
Re:Here comes the internet license. (Score:5, Insightful)
The richer, more powerful libertarians get to decide policy. Big companies have more resources than almost any human will ever have and they protect their interests.
I was a libertarian until I realized the philosophy breaks down in the face of concentrated wealth and power. If we had lots of people with ten million dollars it would probably work. When we have a few hundred "people" (some human, some corporate) with billions of dollars, it doesn't work.
You can't even have a fair court system when the power/money becomes too unequal. One person gets the public defender who is falling asleep in court while the other side gets a team of top-notch, well connected lawyers backed up by a firm of bright assistants.
Parent
Re:Here comes the internet license. (Score:4, Insightful)
You should have continue following the money as it were. How did htese people get the money? By government. Government provided them with special protections no normal person has. Hiding behind the wall of a corproation is a protection/benefit system designed to produce exactly what you correctly identify as a problem. With these "protections" in place both people and companies who become "corporate entities" become an arm of the government (that is what a Charter effectively does - and it is a Corporate Charter) and gain all manner of advantages an otherwise free market system does not provide.
Whether that be the ability to pollute w/o risk of penalty, or deploy anti-competition tactics that would otherwise be illegal, or to use the corporation as a source of money and legal defense funding, it is done so by threat of force (death) by the government. As much as many people like to believe otherwise, libertarian principles did not provide for the wealth of Bill Gates or Larry Ellison. To the contrary it was anti-libertarian (i.e. statist) principles that did so.
Parent
Re:Here comes the internet license. (Score:5, Insightful)
Companies fit this bill by their very nature. People, in groups.. not so well. That's why we have government. It's the organization of the people without regard for money, where your power comes from your existence as a human being.
Or, more accurately, it should be.
Unless, of course, you advocate for plutocracy, which is where libertarianism leads
Parent
Re:Here comes the internet license. (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, yes and yes.
Why/How would a change towards civil liberties and personal freedoms make things worse? We've been failing with the two party system for quite some time now, why can't we just try something different? It can't get much worse at this point.
I apologize to the poster for speaking for them, but I believe their point was there was no way to m
Re:Here comes the internet license. (Score:5, Interesting)
Greens share those values. Without throwing us all to the wolves for the sake of "indvidual freedom".
You may not like the idea, but you don't get to just do whatever you feel like because, believe or not, your actions do sometimes affect other people. EVEN MORE SO, if you're rich and powerful. Then we REALLY need to watch you. Because then, as a private individual, you have the ability to do a whole lot of damage to people in all kinds of ways that are not "direct victim crimes". Say, buying all the companies in an area and dropping wages. Sure, some might move. But many won't. And you win.
People have only two possibilities for fighting power if they themselves don't have the resources. Democratic rule, or revolution.
If you cripple democratic rule to dissallow the right of a community to establish its own codes of conduct, including some encroachments into your personal freedoms, then eventually, people have to take option number two.
I'm all about civil liberties. Do what you wilt and all that. But, sometimes there do have to be limits. I'm personally pretty glad that you have to learn a few things to drive a car, for example. It may not be ultimate freedom, but it's pretty freaking prudent.
Parent
Re:Here comes the internet license. (Score:5, Insightful)
However, with respect to other things like unenforcable legislation utterly contrary to international law over internet gambling, etc., they need to get a damn clue, or they will screw things up.
I know that I personally have left the Republican party over the idiotic crap they've been pulling for the last eight years or so. They've made it abundantly clear that the law doesn't apply to them, that they're more than willing to rush blindly ahead when sensible people have doubts, and that they're willing to help screw up things like the internet that they have absolutely no understanding of.
Parent
Re:Here comes the internet license. (Score:3, Insightful)
That's just silly. There is a reason it happened with roads! The government did not build the internet infastructure, and taxes did not fund it. At least not wholly. The road infastructure, however, is funded by taxes and built by the local, state, and federal governments and/or they contract a comp
Re:Here comes the internet license. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not just a conservative government, it's compassionately conservative. Let me point out charitably that Karl Rove has got your number if you think Bush II's government is conservative. You were snookered.
The truth is that this "conservative" government is crowing today about enormous budget deficits coming down a fraction (when we were balanced under Clinton), while ignoring long-term structural deficits caused by tax cuts for the richest Americans that have only increased the wage gap over the last several years. Throwing cash around like water, paying off Halliburton and Big Pharma and scumbags like Abramoff and on and on... how much evidence do you need of the mendacity involved in labeling the profligate Bush government "fiscally conservative"?
I will point out, however, that the conservative movement has had free rein to choose its policies. If the ship has run aground, we know who has been at the wheel. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rick-perlstein/i-di
If you want a fiscally conservative government, kick out the neocons and vote for some Democrats. Or you could vote for the Greens, it worked in 2000.
Parent
Re:Here comes the internet license. (Score:5, Insightful)
The republican party hasn't been fiscally conservative since Nixon. Look at the debt Reagan and Bush 1 drove up. Look at Bush 2. Fiscal conservative is now democratic property- you know, the guys who balanced the budget in the 90s. It hasn't been anything approaching Libertarian since Hoover in the 20s and 30s. It got co-opted by the religious right in the 80s, the cumulation of a slide starting in the 60s (when the formerly democratic southern US switched republican once democrats started supporting civil rights).
Wake up and face reality- the republican party has *never* been what it claimed it was. For most of this century its been living a lie. You really have two options:
1)A party run by corrupt rich buisnessmen who use passionate bigoted fringe groups to get into office, then run the country for their own benefit. You can tell this party by its election year tactics- rather than debating real issues it tries to raise emotional issues with those fringe groups- gay marriage, flag burning, "under god" in the pledge of alliegence. This is the republicans.
2)A coalition of every other group. Some who are just flat out bought by other interests than the republicans, some who are very passioate about specific issues (environment, anti-war, even a few free speachers). THe portion that aren't owned by the big corps do try and look out for their constituents. They typically try to bring out actual issues, rather than rely on flag waving. What you actually get depends on your luck, but you're pretty much garunteed to do no worse than the first party, and perhaps quite a bit better. This is the democrats.
Until we have some real third parties (which will require changes in how voting is done), these are our choices. Not much to choose from, but option 2 gives you at least a chance.
Parent
Re:Let me hazard a wild wild guess... (Score:3, Insightful)
Currently video franchising is done through local municipalities, except in the few states that h
First (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:First (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Let me hazard a wild wild guess... (Score:5, Funny)
I appreciate the fact that many have come from many different faiths and traditions. The faith-based innnernet is not about a single faith. In this country we're great because we've got many faiths, and we're great because you can choose whatever faith you choose, or if you choose no faith at all, you're still equally American. It's the same with those gushing tubes on the innernets.
Parent
Corollary #14 to Clarke's Law (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Corollary #14 to Clarke's Law (Score:3, Insightful)
Any sufficiently advanced technology is subject to Bigguv'ment trying to screw it up.
Any technology vulnerable to governmental and corporate interference is insufficiently advanced.
Re:Corollary #14 to Clarke's Law (Score:4, Interesting)
Can you please give me an example of a technology NOT vulnerable to governmental interference? It's nice to drop out one liners like that, except when they have no cover whatsoever. If government wants to get involved and regulate a tech field, chance are it will. On my side, I'd rather see a split internet then face regulations imposed by the US on a global network.
Parent
Flag Burning (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't think it's too cynical to say that's probably intentional. Flag burning seems to be one of those hot-button issues that conservative politicians trot out when they want to (a) drum up votes or (b) distract people from other issues. (Liberals have their own hot-button issues, though these days the conservatives seem to be punching them just fine from the other side.)
Re:Flag Burning (Score:4, Insightful)
"Family Values" comes to mind... as does embryonic stem-cell research, etc.
*Meaningless as in politically meaningless -- I don't mean to deride the value of a lot of these issues on a personal or even local level. When the nuts and bolts are counted, these wedge issues mean nothing in the big picture of what it is that Congress/POTUS actually does.
Parent
Re:Flag Burning (Score:3, Insightful)
To bring this back OT, let's not forget it was President Clinton who signed CIPA into law imposing on libraries and schools the duty to block "obscene material," which for some years helped fuel widespread use of censorware. The idea of a free Net has much to fear from all American p
Hate to break it to you... (Score:5, Insightful)
The rest of the world has no choice. (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not saying the world population will go along with it, but the decision makers are all on the same team, and all profit together. Do you really
Re:The rest of the world has no choice. (Score:3, Informative)
Wow, I think you should have a look at the rest of the world and realize that we don't "import" laws from the US. Most of Europe and Canada are Socialist countries... you don't see us adapting US education and healthcare do you?
The Canadian Privacy Commissioner is currently reviewing cross-border data flow because Canadians' privacy is being compromised by the Patriot Act. If anything, we're seperating ourselves from the US, not the other way around.
Inside perspective (Score:5, Interesting)
Consumers only have a right to consume. (Score:5, Insightful)
If you really worked for a politician like you say, you'd know that the average voter has little to no influence on what deals are made between leaders. If you want in, then get in, join the club, work for the company, invest! If you want, start an investment club.
Just talking about politics will change absolutely nothing. Politicians do not care about our opinions. The have experts to tell them what to care about, they have pollsters to tell them what our opinions are, and they can shape our opinions when they don't like what our opinions are. In the end, it's ultimately just about money. You can buy influence, you can buy politicians, you can buy just about any favor. It's about favors.
Teleco companies are VERY VERY powerful, they have infinite leverage over any politician. The telecos know everything, and had these abilities before the whole NSA wiretap scandal, so what politician is going to challenge the big telcos, or big oil? I wouldnt, you wouldnt, and a politician wouldnt for the same reasons we wont.
The best thing you can do is work with these big powerful corporate entities, and try to make policies which in a give and take fashion, where you make deals. If you expect to be a politician, it's a dirty business, it's a VERY dirty business, but ultimately it is a business, and the way to be successful is to do business with big business.
If you actually think you can be involved in politics, and that Google has more influence than telephone and oil companies, you are insane. The hardware companies have more influence than the software companies. The phone companies have more influence than the hardware companies. The energy companies have influence over ALL companies.
If you were smart, take an economics class and see how society is organized.
Parent
Down the Tubes (Score:4, Informative)
They hate us for our freedom. (Score:3, Funny)
But they also hate us for our Internets.
"The ministry of communication is duty-bound to make the use of the Internet impossible."
- Taliban official [totalobscurity.com], less than three weeks before 9/11.
Hey, be thankful that Congress doesn't exactly turn on a dime. We got to keep sending Internets to each other for another 5 years before they pulled the plug.
Shallow (Score:5, Insightful)
This article was broad, but shallow. It buys into and repeats a whole lot of common misconceptions. For example, it phrases the net neutrality debate as wanting to charge different prices for "complex" and "simple" data, using VoIP and e-mail as examples. This is completely wrong. This is about charging money to people who are not your network peers for not intentionally slowing down traffic from particular, wealthy, people, groups, or organizations despite the fact that that traffic is otherwise identical to other traffic. Networks 5 peers away want to extort money from google for not intentionally crippling traffic to them and not to MSN search or Yahoo.
They also parrot the whole DRM as an anti-piracy measure. Everyone knows it fails miserably in that area. It is a content access control, so they can use differential pricing using regions and so they can charge you for the same content for different locations and devices. Anyone can point a camcorder at a TV screen and then upload it to the Web or make DVDs. Then, the masses can download it or buy it. What they can't do is easily move music they paid for from their Creative player to their iPod, car stereo, and CD player.
It is pretty sad that marketing dollars can speak loudly enough that even supposed technically competent reporters just spew out the same crap that they have heard over and over again. What ever happened to critical thinking and investigation?
Let me be the first to say... (Score:4, Funny)
"After years of benign neglect, the Federal government is finally involved in the Internet -- big time."
Re:Let me be the first to say... (Score:3, Insightful)
Question... (Score:4, Insightful)
It pits network owners such as Verizon and AT&T against the companies who buy their bandwidth, such as Google and Amazon, and it hinges on whether the network owners can charge extra to deliver certain kinds of bits -- bill more for streaming video, for example, than simpler data like text e-mail.
My question is this, if it's simply about building and upgrading networks and the costs will be ultimately be passed on to the customer, why not just raise rates to those that purchase bandwidth accross the board? Why add the overhead of lobbying Congress to COMPLICATE the process of selling bandwidth?
Re:Question... (Score:5, Informative)
Not at all. The market has three components. The core is an oligopoly with only a couple of major players. They get paid either way. The end user edge is a bunch of local or regional monopolies or oligopolies with millions of users. The content provider edge is a bunch of local or regional oligopolies that rarely overlap with the end user edge.
As I understand it, traffic billing from one backbone to another is based on the balance of incoming versus outgoing connections. Making an outgoing connection costs money, while receiving a connection gets money back. The theory is that the content provider is not the one benefitting from the content. With advertising, that's not always the case, but it certainly makes sense from a network utilization perspective that the party that causes the traffic to be introduced into the network should pay for it.
If two networks are fairly comparable in terms of how many outbound requests they spew into the other network, they set up an unmetered peering agreement in which the two parties don't bother keeping up with who makes more requests. It's just easier that way. If the two networks are imbalanced, the larger (generally more backbone-ish) network generally gets more requests from the smaller one than it sends to it, and thus, the other network ends up having to enter into a metered peering agreement.
Now the problem is this: most content providers do not introduce a large amount of traffic into the backbones. With the exception of outbound email, almost all content providers return data in response to a request. Thus, ISPs with a higher percentage of content providers tend to have more favorable peering arrangements, while ISPs with a higher percentage of end users tend to have less favorable peering arrangements, since they generally produce the vast majority of requests. The ISPs that have a greater percentage of end users don't like this arrangement.
The solution proposed by largely end-user ISPs is that they should be able to charge the content providers themselves for preferential access to their users, and that companies that didn't pay would get lower speed access. You will note that those content providers are not customers of those ISPs. They are customers of a different ISP that peers with a backbone provider, which in turn peers with those ISPs. You should quickly see why this is silly.
A more fair solution would be for both ends of the communication to pay equally, as both are equal parties in the communication. In such a scheme, an ISP pays if either endpoint of a connection is within their network. This money is paid to the first backbone. Because the backbones are all considered somewhat equal and all pass traffic for each other, no additional transfers are needed. In effect, this would work the same way as the internet does now, only the backbone providers would get paid in part by both ends.
The net effect of such a design would be that content providers would pay more of their fair share of the cost of operating the backbones, while end users would pay a less disproportionately large share of the cost. The most important part of my suggestion here, however, is that ISPs should only be allowed to bill their customers and peers, not the customers and peers of other ISPs. In other words, I am in favor of net neutrality laws, albeit laws that are more carefully crafted not only to prevent the end user ISPs from following through on their threat but also to reduce the disparity between the proportion of costs paid by end users and those paid by content providers.
Parent
Re:Question... (Score:3, Informative)
Slight correction: the content provider edge does overlap significantly with the end user edge, but most ISPs tend to heavily favor either end users or content providers, depending on which market they primarily cater to. For example, Comcast is heavily biased towards end users, while AT&T is probably biased more heavily towards business (though admittedly less so since the merger with SBC).
Re:Question... (Score:3, Interesting)
Not at all. The market has three components.
Well, I suppose we could break this up any number of ways, and there is a lot of overlap in any classification. Lets just agree that some of the market (peering arrangements) looks like a poster child for free markets, while others, customer edge, are monopolized all to hell.
As I understand it, traffic billing from one backbone to another is based on the balance of incoming versus outgoing connections.
Actually is priced by transit (traffic from a peer goi
Perrilous time... (Score:5, Insightful)
What astounds me is how bad google, MS, etc. are at lobbying. It seems like google and MS should be winning and not losing (as my current perception leads me to believe).
Un huh (Score:5, Interesting)
Congratulations, this is the single most useless comment in a
Yes, more people should be aware of and care about this, but this is a ridiculous way to word it. Also in the news, more people have opinions on school choice than IPv6 adoption. Shocking!
Back to the issue at hand. Let's not delude ourselves into thinking that our elected representatives will have a say in this any more than any other issue. The reshaping of the internet will be done SOLELY by Microsoft, AT&T/SBC, Verizon, Google, Cisco, Amazon, Hollywood, and the usual suspects. They will be writing the laws and casting the votes. There is no reason to even pretend otherwise anymore. Sure they will be be doing this via proxy with the elected representatives, but those reps (almost without exception) have no clue what they are talking about and just repeat the talking points given to them by their corporate masters. These issues will be determined exclusively by how money and favors are allocated.
I know as Americans it feels better to pretend that corruption and corporate ownership are the exceptions in government, but to do so hurts as a nation. EVERY person currently in congress has been bought and sold to a special interest or company (no expections, don't even try to parade your favorite one out and claim them to be virtuous and pure, you are wrong). When it comes down to it, they will ALL vote they way they are told and the opinion of the voters matters not one bit.
Finkployd
Internet Regulation? (Score:3, Funny)
PLEASE LEAVE THE INTERNET ALONE. You will only screw it up, if you start messing with it.
Thanks,
Archangel Michael (on behalf of most of the Slashdot crowd)
Civilization Marches On (Score:3, Insightful)
REALITY: The Net Will Reroute (Score:3, Insightful)
In an interconnected world where China has more Net users than the US, and so does the EU, one country standing in defiance of the Net is like a small earthen dam trying to constrain the massive tsunami that will either go around it, go over it, or crush it beneath its massive weight of inevitability.
Only One Kind of Regulation/Enforcement Is Needed (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh, look. Online fraud is the only thing they're not planning on strangling in the crib. Shock, surprise...
Schwab
Smell this coming for years now (Score:5, Insightful)
It is about inevitable they will slice it up into something that looks like a combo of your cellphone bill and cable TV bill. You'll be seeing a large number of "nets" and be forced into "subscribing" to one or another-think a lot of different closed up walled garden type AOL experiences. And be paying through the nose to go outside that area-or be denied totally. And they'll be completely happy if 95% get herded into their control more, they'll pick off the other 5% at their leisure and when it suits their purposes. No one is completely leet enough to avoid it if they get a notion to mess up your day. No one.
Do the telcos want legislation from the bench? (Score:3, Insightful)
If Net Neutrality isn't addressed proactively then we will see it end up in the courts where some activist judge could potentially really mess up the internet.
The best thing that could happen at this point would be for the telcos to come out and openly debate the merits of their Tiering plans instead of using front groups and lobbyist, short of that the next best thing might be some form of legislation.
But the worst thing to do would be to do nothing and wait for lawsuits.
You all do realize.... (Score:3, Insightful)
As important an issue as net nutrality is, and as much as is will affect the internet, it will hardly matter to people in say, the EU, where many lawmakers are moving away from internet regulation.
Just a point, is all.
The article is full of telco propaganda (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, and if Lucy holds the football I can come running up to kick it. Telcos have spent *decades* saying "give us this break and we'll lay fiber', "give us that break and we'll lay fiber", then taking the money and doing nothing.
>abolition of the USF altogether -- but that seems unlikely, as that would impose an immediate and costly burden on many rural Americans.
The USF money is not accounted for and when rural areas get service the telcos raise the rates by the amount of the subsidy [pulver.com].
At least this one isn't telco propaganda:
>electronic versions of anonymous cash
That was the cypherpunk dream from the previous millenium, but if you look around at all the anonymous payment systems that used to exist they've all been shut down by the requirements of USAPATRIOT.
Re:Broadcasting over Fibre... (Score:3, Insightful)
Now, If verizon is allowed to start sending media down that fibre line, I think it should be fair that any other Company or Startup (new Media Broadcaster??) should be allowed to do the same to complete
Theoretically that is the case now. It is one of the things that they are trying hard to change. Realistically, unless you have big bucks to fight it out in court, the phone company will refuse to comply with smaller businesses requests to use the lines. After much work I had the provider I chose for DSL t
Re:Broadcasting over Fibre... (Score:4, Insightful)
It's one thing to pay for the infrastructure out of tax dollars. It's quite another to then have no choice of who uses that publically-financed infrastructure.
Parent
Re:Congress...peh.. (Score:5, Interesting)
So, who do we have to vote in? (That are actually any better, that is.)
Parent
Re:Intarwebs (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, the government can't allow just anyone to use the Internet's "tubes" now can they? They might put yucky things like real news and detailed information about the behind-the-scenes fleecing of American citizens by Congress in the "tubes" and then where would we be?
Mod parent up. (Score:3, Insightful)
Armies of lobbyists and lawyers go into the Rayburn building and across the hill to cow legislators. It's not a partisan issue-- it's a Jack Welch/We're Big And Here's Our Army To Prove It posture.
Look at where the lobbying dollars and perks are spent, and by whom. Then mod the parent up as he/she's absolutely on target. This isn't about common sense, this is about re-writing the Telecom Act of 1935 (as amended) and pulling back decades of consumer-focused legal decisions and legislation