No, not specific legislation, just comments that have been made.
I can’t find the comment about the “internet licenses,” but it was made by Cass Sunstein - Obama’s information czar. Here’s a link to an articlewhere he talks about wanting to control speech on the internet though.
As far as when I hear “net neutrality” what i hear is the government regulating the flow of information over the internet. This can be to varying extents, but frankly, I’d prefer if they just didn’t regulate anything else thanks. They’ve got their hands quite full and are floundering as it is. All the proposed models I’ve seen involve a centralized Federal hub that all internet traffic is relayed through to “ensure fairness,” or something along those lines.
I’m not trying to be tin-foily about this. I just see no reason to trust that when the government says “oh we’re here to help you” that the end result will be anything close to what people present or intend. The internet has seemed to do just fine thus far. Why let bureaucracy get involved and ruin a good thing?
It comes across as another way to regulate freedom. Just because I want the government less involved in my day to day life doesn’t mean I live in a compound or save my body fluids. I think it’s naive to not consider the government would misuse and abuse absolute control over the internet (they misuse and abuse every other power they have had…throughout history and not just the US government either). All the proposed models I’ve seen involve a centralized Federal hub that all internet traffic is relayed through to “ensure fairness,” or something along those lines.
In a government that grows increasingly corrupt and more and more Orwellian as the days go by, I think it’s a bit tin-foily to keep giving them the benefit of the doubt.
I’m not in favor of it. I am fuming over what Comcast has imposed.
I have Comcast internet, phone and tv. In todays bill came a 4 page notice called “Comcast Privacy Notice for Cable Television, High Speed Internet and Phone Services”. As of The Cable Act being enacted they can now sell our information to third parties. It is called CPNI. I am calling to opt out of it. They can basically give out my personal information to anyone.
Did any one else get this notice in their Comcast Bill?
Can you cite some example of “all the proposed models” that “involve a centralized Federal hub”? Because this sounds ridiculous for a whole variety of reasons, mostly technical.
I am in favor of net neutrality without any government regulation, but would prefer government regulation to no net neutrality at all. In other words, if market forces do indeed lead to an open internet I see no reason to intervene. If not, I’m for regulations that prevent internet providers from favoring certain content providers. My main motivation for this is the belief that independent content providers (companies such as Netflix, Vonage or Amazon) have shown themselves to be far superior innovators than ISPs such as Comcast. In addition, for all the talk of “just switching to another provider” options are often limited. At my house I can choose between Comcast and not having internet at all. If they started to play funny games with restricting certain services I would have a hard time finding an alternative and may have to forgo those services. That strikes me as anti-competitive.
I actually believe there is a good chance this could be resolved without government regulation. So far there has been no encompassing attempt to restrict competing services, and the shot across the bow actions of Google are good signs that market forces will indeed force ISPs hands. If so, great news! That is the best case scenario. I would certainly prefer that over government regulations that may have unintended consequences. But I also feel that Comcast “competing” by deliberately slowing down Vonage or Netflix streaming services to make theirs look better in comparison should be avoided at all costs. Hopefully those costs are market forces, and like you I am pretty sure they will be, but I would be prepared to look at dreaded government regulation if all else fails.
Actually, that’s a link to an article that quotes a New York Post op-ed piece, which in turn makes some generalized claims about a book that had not even been published at the time of writing.
I’m not saying that Cass Sunstein has good or bad policies about the internet—i really don’t know—but you’re going to have to do much better than the link you’ve already given if you want anyone to take your claim seriously.
So you’re just spewing unciteable nutjobbery? Perhaps comments made by Granpappy Elmer? Well, OK then!
Look, I see that you’re a new member. I understand that you’re likely not all that familiar with this board yet. And I realize that there are a bunch of posters (in other GD threads, of course :)) whose contributions are – let’s be nice – questionable. But when you make unsupported assertions, expect to be called on them.
It seems like you have the potential of posting stuff I find worth reading. And even better, that’s worth responding to. But you’ll have to do better than the schlock you’ve put up thus far in this thread. I hope you can do better, and I look forward to it…
I admit that I know close to zilch about Cass Sunstein – there are only so many hours in the day and he’s (he?) not even on my radar. But I wouldn’t mind knowing more…so long as it’s worth my while. Please, listen to mhendo.
Simply trusting “the gubmint” goes far beyond naive, and approaches willful stupidity. So it’s good that no one is proposing that. What you’re claiming as “all the proposed models you’ve seen” bear no resemblance to anything serious I’ve come across.
I will say that, as best I can tell, Driver8 nailed my sentiments. But it seems that the thread is getting away from Google specifically and on to net neutrality generally. Deeg! Come back and give us direction!
Oh, and BTW, I said “guard-your-bodily-fluids”, not “save” them. It’s a movie reference. Implies a wholly different type of nutter.
I can’t say I would trust Google to do a good job. They already have been censoring in China for years due to pressure from the government. What would keep them to succumbing to pressure from our government?
Net neutrality seems like a solution looking for a problem to me. I understand the concept of being pro-active, but personally, I am not sure I buy that there is any real threat to demand this type of intervention. There are bigger fish to fry in this nation and I think it would be an imprudent use of resources. Even if a private company picked up the contract, you can bet that loads of government money will be involved.
PS never even heard about the Obama “kill switch” thing, but frankly, I do get nervous when the executive branch continually passes legislation (and even scarier, EO’s) that grant them dictatorial power in events of emergencies. They already have too much authority in such situations.
Lo and behold, a story about this appeared on /.'s front page today that links to a ComputerWorld UK story: Net Neutrality: A simple guide.
One of the links therein goes to a February 10th entry on Google’s official blog, Think big with a gig: Our experimental fiber network. “Openness and choice” (which I’ll take as synonymous with “net neutrality”) is just one of three motivations mentioned (the other two are “Next generation apps” and “New deployment techniques”).
ISTM that those two pages (they’re both short) forms a minimum amount of reading to be informed in this discussion at all. Personally, I’m glancing through the 107 page FCC Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (warning: ~700K pdf) from October, since I decided I wasn’t informed enough about what’s happening (thank you, Deeg). From what I see thus far (and similar to the “Obama Internet Kill-Switch” proposal), there is very little to be alarmed about if you go back to the source material rather than gullibly accept what’s reported about it as accurate.
Something else occurred to me yesterday – one thing to keep in mind when considering Google, network openness, and the future is that Brin and Page, by themselves, will soon no longer have a controlling interest in the company. (As noted there, though, adding in Schmidt’s shares retains the trio’s controlling interest.) ISTM that should they relinquish voting control, Google will quite suddenly get very much more “evil”.
Fascinating to see how the future unfolds, and just what it will hold…