Key Net Neutrality Vote Tuesday

[Pangloss]

The FCC will take up a key vote on Net Neutrality on Tuesday, considering a proposal that will set regulations aimed at protecting users from corporations bent on raising fees for high-volume sites (or as opponents worry, sites that aren't part of their corporate structures). Currently the Democrats on the panel plan to vote for it, and the Republicans plan to vote against it. The plan also has the support of the Obama administration.

 

CNN has a story covering the basics here:

http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/web/12/21/fcc.net.neutrality/

 

But apparently there's an outcry over the lack of enforcement capability in the plan.

 

In a column Monday for the Huffington Post, [Minnesota Senator Al] Franken said some of the current proposal's language could actually weaken protections.

 

"(T)his Tuesday, when the FCC meets to discuss this badly flawed proposal, I'll be watching," he wrote. "If they approve it as is, I'll be outraged. And you should be, too."

 

Timothy Karr (also of HuffPo) also has a scathing review of the situation here:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/timothy-karr/obama-fcc-caves-on-net-ne_b_799435.html

 

Al Franken's piece may be found here:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/al-franken/the-most-important-free-s_b_798984.html

 

Couple interesting quotes from the Franken piece:

 

The good news is that the Federal Communications Commission has the power to issue regulations that protect net neutrality. The bad news is that draft regulations written by FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski don't do that at all. They're worse than nothing.

 

Mobile networks like AT&T and Verizon Wireless would be able to shut off your access to content or applications for any reason. For instance, Verizon could prevent you from accessing Google Maps on your phone, forcing you to use their own mapping program, Verizon Navigator, even if it costs money to use and isn't nearly as good. Or a mobile provider with a political agenda could prevent you from downloading an app that connects you with the Obama campaign (or, for that matter, a Tea Party group in your area).

 

Imagine if Comcast customers couldn't watch Netflix, but were limited only to Comcast's Video On Demand service. Imagine if a cable news network could get its website to load faster on your computer than your favorite local political blog. Imagine if big corporations with their own agenda could decide who wins or loses online. The Internet as we know it would cease to exist.

 

Franken also addressed the Senate on Monday, and the video was posted to YouTube. It runs about 25 minutes and I haven't watched the whole thing yet, but here's a link:

 

 

I really have no idea what's in this regulation and that's part of the problem -- it's ridiculously difficult to fully parse the details on federal regulations. That's true on ANYTHING, not just complex technology issues. But has seemed for a while now that the Net Neutrality issue started simple, and became complicated because of the pressure to find compromise positions that would make the various involved corporations happy. To some extent that's understandable -- I want these companies to stay in business and making a reasonable profit. But it's not the job of legislators to make sure their profit margins go up and up and up. These companies should be forced to compete, not given paths to monopolistic practices.

 

And worse, this is happening right when the public is finally glomming on to the potential of the Internet. We've blazed right through "Net 2.0" and well into the seriously-connected, multimedia Web.

 

So I'm pretty concerned about this. What do you all think?