FCC Commissioner Urges, Don't Regulate the Internet

Brett Glass writes "In an op-ed in today's Washington Post, FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell makes a case against government regulation of the Internet, opining that 'engineers, not politicians or bureaucrats, should solve engineering problems.' With state governments pressuring ISPs to pull the plug on Usenet, and a proposal now in play for a censored public Internet, McDowell may have a very good point." McDowell is one of the two FCC commissioners who did not vote with the majority to punish Comcast for their BitTorrent throttling.

Re:Who's doing what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't it cool how some douchebag elected in a different state gets to dictate national policy?
Makes you feel all warm and fuzzy.

Actually, it makes me want to throw up. But hey, that's just me.

Re:Hmmm

[tux0r]

"Complimentary"?

Other Human Interaction: Hi there Internet...
Internet: Wow, you're certainly looking great today, Other Human Interaction!

Re:Hmmm

[noidentity]

Is posting on Slashdot a right? If so, how many chara

Re:Hmmm

[deathguppie]

Is food a right? If so, how much food? What kind of food? Think about it...

depends.. personally I think those frozen party pizza'a are a'right.. but then someone else might think some other king of food is a'right.. so I would have to say at least on my behalf most food is a'right.. but not all..

Re:It's government or corporate, choose your devil

[epee1221]

Think long and hard whether these are the folks you want governing the Internet.

After that, think long and hard about the alternative.

Re:Hmmm

[mosb1000]

But if these companies comply with the requirements placed upon them at the time, and hey built the infrastructure with the understanding that they would not change, is it really fair to add new requirements?

Re:Hmmm

[Brett Glass]

Comcast was throttling based on behavior, not content. (And it was doing something very reasonable. BitTorrent is a bad actor; its purpose is to hog bandwidth.) It's the FCC, on the other hand, that has proposed blocking content. (See the link about sanitized public Internet above.)

By this I do not mean that corporations should always be trusted, but in this case Comcast appears to be far more trustworthy than government.