America Still Has Net Neutrality Laws - In States Like California and New York (yahoo.com) 47
A U.S. Appeals Court ruled this week that net neutrality couldn't be reinstated by America's Federal Communications Commission. But "Despite the dismantling of the FCC's efforts to regulate broadband internet service, state laws in California, New York and elsewhere remain intact," notes the Los Angeles Times:
This week's decision by the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, striking down the FCC's open internet rules, has little bearing on state laws enacted during the years-long tug-of-war over the government's power to regulate internet service providers, telecommunications experts said. In fact, some suggested that the Cincinnati-based 6th Circuit's decision — along with other rulings and the U.S. Supreme Court's posture on a separate New York case — has effectively fortified state regulators' efforts to fill the gap. "Absent an act of Congress, the FCC has virtually no role in broadband any more," Ernesto Falcon, a program manager for the California Public Utilities Commission, said in an interview. "The result of this decision is that states like California, New York and others will have to govern and regulate broadband carriers on our own."
California has one of the nation's strongest laws on net neutrality, the principle that internet traffic must be treated equally to ensure a free and open network. Former Gov. Jerry Brown signed the measure into law in 2018, months after federal regulators in President elect-Donald Trump's first administration repealed the net neutrality rules put in place under President Obama. Colorado, Oregon and other states also adopted their own standards.
The Golden State's law has already survived legal challenges. It also prompted changes in the way internet service providers offered plans and services. "California's net neutrality law, which is seen as the gold standard by consumer advocates, carries national impact," Falcon said.... "The state's authority and role in broadband access has grown dramatically now," Falcon said.
California's net neutrality rules prohibit "throttling" data speeds, according to the article.
California has one of the nation's strongest laws on net neutrality, the principle that internet traffic must be treated equally to ensure a free and open network. Former Gov. Jerry Brown signed the measure into law in 2018, months after federal regulators in President elect-Donald Trump's first administration repealed the net neutrality rules put in place under President Obama. Colorado, Oregon and other states also adopted their own standards.
The Golden State's law has already survived legal challenges. It also prompted changes in the way internet service providers offered plans and services. "California's net neutrality law, which is seen as the gold standard by consumer advocates, carries national impact," Falcon said.... "The state's authority and role in broadband access has grown dramatically now," Falcon said.
California's net neutrality rules prohibit "throttling" data speeds, according to the article.
Congrats. (Score:5, Funny)
Now the big providers get to follow 50 separate set of rules.
Congratulations, you played yourself.
Re: Congrats. (Score:2)
These little piggies always forget that thereâ(TM)s a marketplace. They want no constraints.
But if you donâ(TM)t have a set of rules for food and drugs. Then suddenly you canâ(TM)t sell to Europe. Everyone starts growing their own crops and heads to YouTube for home remedies.
Itâ(TM)s a libertarians wet dream but not really good for business when everyone loses faith in the commons.
If you keep spying and building database that end up on the dark web. Donâ(TM)t be shocked when people
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Itâ(TM)s a libertarians wet dream
You're confusing anarchists with libertarians.
but is that for California data only and data outs (Score:5, Insightful)
but is that for California data only and data out side of California can be throttled
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Couldn't CA penalize carriers who do biz in CA if they throttle their outside sources of traffic coming into CA?
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That could potentially run into constitutional prohibitions of states trying to regute interstate commerce, alas.
Unfortunately big tech purchased themselves a supreme court, and now insist their investment is returned.
States Rights (Score:1)
That could potentially run into constitutional prohibitions of states trying to regute interstate commerce
I thought that the Republicans were already considering this, but only for topics that matter to them, i.e. abortion?
Re: but is that for California data only and data (Score:3)
The states are already doing it with abortion and related procedures. The federal government should be responding to this over-reach. Instead, everyone has to wait years for the SCotUS to issue a ruling.
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"Instead, everyone has to wait years for the SCotUS to issue a ruling."
LOL, SCOTUS doesn't issue rulings they aren't interested in, and no one is waiting "years" for rulings they are interested in. SCOTUS doesn't even wait for cases to rule on, they get fabricated for that purpose. See Creative LLC
"The federal government should be responding to this over-reach."
Why? And what "federal government"? Which branch? Judicial? That's what you're criticizing. Legislative? SCOTUS rules over them. Executive?
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What is "California data"? What is "data out side of California"?
Re:Fair is fair (Score:4, Interesting)
"...that doesn't prevent the government from enforcing preferences and rules about who can drive where and how much they pay."
Examples? Toll roads are not built with your tax payments. What non-toll roads have government-mandated pay for use?
Net neutrality laws are all broken anyway... (Score:5, Interesting)
All the net neutrality laws I have seen (including the ones in California) contain loopholes big enough to fly an Airbus A380 through in the form of BS "get out" clauses that essentially say ISPs can be non-neutral in the service of blocking pirated content or other stuff that they have reason to believe is illegal.
ISPs should ONLY be allowed to be non-neutral in 3 instances:
1.The customer specifically wants them to be non-neutral and block or filter content for some reason
2.They are required to be non-neutral for legal reasons (e.g. court order requiring them to be non-neutral)
or 3.They are acting to prevent direct harm to their network or the networks of their customers (e.g. stopping a denial-of-service attack or a hacking attempt or malware)
They absoljutely should NOT be allowed to block or interfere with content just because they think (or know) that conteht violates the law (piracy etc)
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All the net neutrality laws I have seen (including the ones in California) contain loopholes big enough to fly an Airbus A380 through in the form of BS "get out" clauses that essentially say ISPs can be non-neutral in the service of blocking pirated content or other stuff that they have reason to believe is illegal.
That isn't a loophole for getting around net neutrality. It's a loophole so the government can press them into monitoring all of your online activity, and act like the police, blocking and reporting illegal activity.
Not sure why you're standing up for child porn. (Score:2)
They absoljutely should NOT be allowed to block or interfere with content just because they think (or know) that conteht violates the law (piracy etc)
If an ISP knows a server is serving child porn, I honestly don't have any problem with the ISP blocking access. I think that's a common-sense reasonable compromise.
We shouldn't force an ISP to do so, but we shouldn't penalize them if they block malware, childporn, misinformation campaigns from foreign hostile actors, etc. In this case, simpler regulations are better.
It should be illegal to do so for financial benefit, but many ISPs have anti-virus or malware blocking functionality that automaticall
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If the ISP knows a server is serving child porn, why not tell the cops, and have the cops deal with it?
The ingrained sense of obligation felt by some humans to obstruct evil acts?
Similarly, if I saw a small child being snatched from their parents and unwillingly bundled into the back of a van, I'd probably call the cops, but might also directly intervene (if safe to do so).
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The cops may not have jurisdiction (Score:1)
If the ISP knows a server is serving child porn, why not tell the cops, and have the cops deal with it?
What if the server is outside the USA? I don't think Russia, Iran, or North Korea will be helping US law enforcement too much. However, think of the malware situation...the ISP knows it's malware...why not let them block it if they want to? It's actually a nice upsell feature for many providers.
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In that case they would deal with people in the US that access it. It's not an ISP's job to make sure people don't break the law.
Because people may want to look at it for cybersecurity and antivirus development reasons.
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ISPs should ONLY be allowed to be non-neutral in 3 instances:
1.The customer specifically wants them to be non-neutral and block or filter content for some reason
2.They are required to be non-neutral for legal reasons (e.g. court order requiring them to be non-neutral)
or 3.They are acting to prevent direct harm to their network or the networks of their customers (e.g. stopping a denial-of-service attack or a hacking attempt or malware)
They absoljutely should NOT be allowed to block or interfere with content just because they think (or know) that conteht violates the law (piracy etc)
So let me ask you this. We've been arguing about net neutrality for close to 20 years. We've had various sets of rules, both over time and geography. At this point we should have pretty good data about the difference NN rules make.
So what does the data say? Given the opportunity, do ISPs block or throttle content based on side deals? Do they throttle connections without disclosing that up front? (I add the "up front" qualifier because my provider is quite clear they may throttle my connections in certain ci
Quick question (Score:2)
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Quick question. Is the USA 1 country or 50?
Quick question. Is the USA 1 state or 50?
In the origin, USA is kind of mega country. Usually, 1 country == 1 State.
States in USA have more power than subdivisions like provinces in most other countries.
For example, in Canada, criminal code is dictated by the federal government and provinces have no say at all.
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For example, in Canada, criminal code is dictated by the federal government and provinces have no say at all.
Yes, that's generally how countries do it which is I don't think the USA is one any more than the European or African Unions are.
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It's 50 sets of laws, but where you can freely travel and transport between 50 states. It's a political structure that is poorly suited to the 21st century.
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It's 50 sets of laws, but where you can freely travel and transport between 50 states.
So like the EU then? Plus another set of laws on top whichever.
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Vaguely. We're more united than the EU, but less united than say Germany. I think pre-civil war we were more like EU, though with a common language (never officially declared). After civil war the national government became much stronger and upheld rights for all rather than allowing some states to abridge rights. And sadly even that's been highly controversial, with people complaining that military troops had to be sent in just to enforce civil rights act compliance. Sort of like if the EU could send
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It's 50 sets of laws, but where you can freely travel and transport between 50 states. It's a political structure that is poorly suited to the 21st century.
If used well, it's a great structure for any century. The federated nature of the US means that we get to carry out parallel experiments in good government. The overarching federal rules set a generally-level playing field the states can experiment within. The chaotic nature of politics (especially lately) means that we don't take as much advantage of this as we should, but in fact we do get a lot of benefit from it. Most big public policy changes in the US come about at the state level, a little at a ti
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We don't have a loose federation. That idea was lost in the civil war. The rights of ALL citizens AND residents are to be upholded, even if a large chunk of states insisted on upholding their "right" to have chattel slavery, or their "rights" to officially discriminate based on race, or their "rights" to disallow people from voting. We now have a strong federation that can and will enforce rights with force if necessary.
The original loose federation was broken, that experiment failed, the constitution ame
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It is like administrative districts, only they have more power. State vs federal criminal statutes for instance. The states have a lot of overlap, but the criminal and civil laws aren't identical. It's kind of a mess at times (ie, "rape" is defined differently across states).
Weirder sometimes is judicial procedures and the like. We saw that one with the New York trials for Trump where some of the lawyers just seemed unaware of New York criminal court rules and procedures and acted like they were back ho
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Quick question. Is the USA 1 country or 50?
A representative republic of 50 states. The part even US citizens get tripped up over is "Federalism". So you have 50 states, and 50 state governments. The Constitution decrees the structure of the federal government, then ties it's hands with the bill of rights, binds the states to the same limitations, and then allows each state to function as it's own little laboratory of democracy. Most states then repeat that structure with a state constitution, and similar structure imposed on the counties and ci
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Or perhaps more modern examples like differences in gun control between say Texas and California. In Texas I can pay the federal tax stamp and own a fully automatic machine gun, and even a functioning main battle tank, where as in California possession of either is a felony. California just bans them, Texas puts a minimum land ownership requirement to use them (10 acres I believe...) and stipulates you can't damage your neighbor's property.
T
I mean, that sounds like 2 different countries and not different parts of the same one.
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I mean, that sounds like 2 different countries and not different parts of the same one.
Yes. That particular situation arises because the federal government decided to pass a law in the 1930's to tax certain types of weapons. The power to levy a tax being unlimited, precedent apparently deems it "not infringing" to the 2nd amendment. You just pay the tax and you're good. However California has a law that apparently prohibits owning a fully automatic weapon even if you do pay the tax, that is also deemed "not infringing". The constitutional fallout of that probably depends on who sits on t
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Following the 17th Amendment, Senators are now directly elected. Following that, they started buying voters using various benefit carve outs and the usual political machinations.
Unmmm, the 17th amendment was directly created because the state governments were so corrupted, senate seats were going to the highest bidder. If you want proof of that, in the early 20th century in Montana, they advertised in the local newspaper to buy your spot as a US senator.
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Unmmm, the 17th amendment was directly created because the state governments were so corrupted, senate seats were going to the highest bidder. If you want proof of that, in the early 20th century in Montana, they advertised in the local newspaper to buy your spot as a US senator.
True! Some states were so corrupt they sold their own representation. And while I'd love to think that was a outlier, I can't rule it out. With modern campaigns, I'm hard pressed to think anything has changed...
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Texas seceded from its parent country twice, both times over the issue of slavery (though that gets white washed into being about a way of life). And even in 2025 Texas likes to act like an independent nation.
Re: Quick question (Score:1)
Think It's Bad Now? (Score:2, Troll)
Just remember the next FCC chair agrees with the idea of pulling the broadcast licenses of news outlets he doesn't agree with. Many "elected officials" called for ABC to be pulled off the air because they threw a fit.
I don't think our rights will exist. The same people that complain social media is censoring the public square will quite literally remove the ability for people to use the public square without vetting and approving every message. Pro-corporate, anti-citizen. Data privacy laws will go backward