EFF Urges FCC To Fix Wimpy Neutrality Proposals Current proposal contains easily exploitable loopholes... A number of legal experts, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation, recently wrote a letter to the FCC complaining that the FCC's proposed network neutrality guidelines may not be enforceable in their current state. According to a new petition filed at the FCC by the EFF, the agency's proposals contain language loopholes that would allow carriers to engage in all manner of discriminatory behavior under the context of copyright enforcement. "Before the ink is dry on net neutrality regulations, we already see corporate lobbyists and 'public decency' advocates pushing for loopholes," said EFF Civil Liberties Director Jennifer Granick. "A loophole like this could swallow network neutrality, with ISPs claiming copyright enforcement as a pretext for all sorts of discriminatory behavior."
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  VanPremium
join:2009-07-08
New Orleans, LA | Everyone can be sure that wherever, whenever, and however any corporations can get around any new laws that hurt them, they will
I am sure they will find the holes, exploit them with price hikes for the consumers, and a press release describing how happy the consumers are for paying more because their new price hike is "good for consumers"
Idiots | |
|  | | | Re: Everyone can be sure that wherever, whenever, and however The FCC... sigh. Disappointment to the max. | |
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 Romney2012Defeat Obama 2012-Chg we can believe inPremium
join:2002-03-03
USA
kudos:4 |  EFF wants ISPs to be unable to block illegal content
»www.eff.org/press/archives/2010/03/04
The FCC's proposed rules generally prohibit ISPs from discriminating or blocking lawful content, but include a loophole for 'reasonable network management' by ISPs. The proposed rules then define 'reasonable network management" to include measures taken by ISPs to block unlawful content or transmissions. So the EFF wants the right of ISPs to manage their networks taken away because blocking unlawful content might(I say MIGHT) stop copyright infringement. | |
| | | | Re: EFF wants ISPs to be unable to block illegal content Forget the EFF, they're a joke. But are you saying that you'd be ok with companies creating legal but massive business models on top of your ISP's infrastructure (apple, xbox, netflix, youtube, etc)? ISP's need to have limits on this type of stuff too, or raise prices substantially. | |
| | | Romney2012Defeat Obama 2012-Chg we can believe inPremium
join:2002-03-03
USA
kudos:4 | Re: EFF wants ISPs to be unable to block illegal content said by JasonOD :
Forget the EFF, they're a joke. But are you saying that you'd be ok with companies creating legal but massive business models on top of your ISP's infrastructure (apple, xbox, netflix, youtube, etc)? ISP's need to have limits on this type of stuff too, or raise prices substantially.
I say that ISPs should be able to manage bandwidth any way they see fit(as long as they tell customers their policies) and charge Hollyweird whatever they want to deliver their streamed movies. | |
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1 edit | said by JasonOD :
Forget the EFF, they're a joke. But are you saying that you'd be ok with companies creating legal but massive business models on top of your ISP's infrastructure (apple, xbox, netflix, youtube, etc)? ISP's need to have limits on this type of stuff too, or raise prices substantially.
The EFF is not a joke. It is one of only a few organizations that actually stand up for the rights of citizens and consumers in the face of the enormous power of corporate interests and the more oppressive agendas of government. You should become a member, they need all the help they can get.
Everyone pays for their bandwidth already. What right does an ISP have to jack me up for additional fees over content? This is not an "ISPs either need to upgrade or go out of business" argument, it is the fact that it is NONE of my ISPs business what I send or receive over my paid for access to the interweb.
If they have "network management issues" they are of their own making. Cut the over subscription rate to reflect increased use by customers, upgrade infrastructure, or face higher subscriber defection to faster, more capable providers. It is the greed of the ISPs that limits their response. If line sharing were still mandatory, Telcos and Cablecos would be forced to fulfill their inevitable role as dumb pipe providers, as would ISPs. Content providers and copyright owners would be forced by the marketplace to make their access fees for copyrighted content palatable to the consumer, or face their wrath. Funny how all these private interests assert the value of a a so-called "free market" when it becomes a euphemism for unregulated greed, but seldom agree it is desirable for their particular industry when competition is mandated. | |
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| Sammer
join:2005-12-22
Canonsburg, PA | said by Romney2012:What the EFF complaint boils down to is this: they don't want the FCC to allow ISPs to block unlawful content. » www.eff.org/press/archives/2010/03/04The FCC's proposed rules generally prohibit ISPs from discriminating or blocking lawful content, but include a loophole for 'reasonable network management' by ISPs. The proposed rules then define 'reasonable network management" to include measures taken by ISPs to block unlawful content or transmissions. So the EFF wants the right of ISPs to manage their networks taken away because blocking unlawful content might(I say MIGHT) stop copyright infringement. You missed the whole point. ISPs should not be in the the business of determining what is and what isn't unlawful content because that's not due process. Would you want your phone company listening to your conversations without a warrant or probable cause? | |
| | | Romney2012Defeat Obama 2012-Chg we can believe inPremium
join:2002-03-03
USA
kudos:4 | Re: EFF wants ISPs to be unable to block illegal content said by Sammer: Would you want your phone company listening to your conversations without a warrant or probable cause? From what I understand they have been doing that anyway for the last 60 years. I always assume any phone conversation could be listened in on and have so thought for a very long time. | |
| | | | | | Re: EFF wants ISPs to be unable to block illegal content said by Romney2012:said by Sammer: Would you want your phone company listening to your conversations without a warrant or probable cause? From what I understand they have been doing that anyway for the last 60 years. I always assume any phone conversation could be listened in on and have so thought for a very long time. Your recognition phone companies are abusing the privacy rights of their customers, both on their own and at the direction of government surveillance entities, and your resignation there is little you can do about it, speaks volumes about the value of our constitutional rights to you, the degree of our governments' capitulation to corporate interest, and the increasingly malodorous stench of creeping fascism which permeates our political process. It is the complacency and disregard for the rights of others so typical of those of similar mindset, that has allowed our fear-mongering leaders to trample over our inalienable rights without fear of of the law, or of political retribution.
I'm not saying copyright infringement is an inalienable right, but copyright owners alone ought to be responsible for enforcing their property rights, from evidence gathering through court adjudication, not law enforcement (except in cases of commercial exploitation), and certainly not ISPs. The argument that suppression of torrent/file-sharing software, the inspection, data mining and storage of the content streaming over/through an ISP's equipment/internet backbone, file-sharing or otherwise, is anyone's business but the originator and recipient is abhorrent on its face. To force the ISP into the position of censor, or worse, enforcer for private copyright interests, at the expense of themselves and their customers, abandoning due process to corporate greed, is unconscionable. Further, the demand they become willing accomplices in the government's war on privacy places the ISP at odds with its legal obligations to its customer's right to privacy, which is an undesirable and untenable position.
Whether such conduct it is presented as "network management", or "anti-pedophile", or "anti-porn", or "anti-terrorist", or just plain "patriotic duty", it is nothing more than sleight of hand by the interests of private capital and oppressive government to suppress and/or negate of our constitutional protections.
ISPs are protected by the "common carrier" provisions of the Telecommunications Act from any liability for any content that crosses their networks until, and unless, they interfere with, or prevent certain content being carried across their networks. The infamous DMCA has partially penetrated this veil to the extent infringing content can be the subject of a take-down notice initiated by a copyright owner, delivered upon the ISP. Any extension of this authority through lax enforcement of network neutrality policy, or even proactive interference by the FCC, should be denounced as an unmitigated and uncompensated seizing of the public internet by private corporate interests.
I agree with the EFF, no good can come of this! Proactive prohibitions of this type of mandated broad latitude to restrict content and serve up our privacy rights to rapacious corporate interests and our ever more repressive government must be stopped!
Shortly, when ACTA becomes the law of the land by penstroke of the current "king", this entire discussion will be irrelevant. I thought Bush was EVIL, but at least he had the decency to unabashedly tell us he was out to f**k us. I guess we liberals and progressives still pine for the reach-around.
I voted for radical change, and got re-fried beans instead... it is the last I shall the order from the menu. | |
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|  funchordsHelloPremium,MVM
join:2001-03-11
Yarmouth Port, MA
kudos:5 | said by Romney2012:What the EFF complaint boils down to is this: they don't want the FCC to allow ISPs to block unlawful content. » www.eff.org/press/archives/2010/03/04The FCC's proposed rules generally prohibit ISPs from discriminating or blocking lawful content, but include a loophole for 'reasonable network management' by ISPs. The proposed rules then define 'reasonable network management" to include measures taken by ISPs to block unlawful content or transmissions. So the EFF wants the right of ISPs to manage their networks taken away because blocking unlawful content might(I say MIGHT) stop copyright infringement. No, it's because the meaning of "Reasonable Network Management" is wrongfully expanded to mean blocking content that the subscriber wants. That's never been part of an ISP's job, and its wrong to create that loophole.
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Robb Topolski -= funchords.com =- District of Columbia -- KJ7RL
Tweet! Tweet! -- »twitter.com/funchords | |
| | | | I would agree with the majority here... ISP's should do nothing more than take a packet and pass a packet as fast as they possibly can.
We already have systems in place to deal with unlawful content. Those systems includes the courts and law enforcement which have been established for some time and can deal with any unlawful act regardless of how it was committed.
Really the only thing to fix are corporations mindset on how to use the judicial system in the proper way. That is the part they can't get right. | |
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amungusPremium
join:2004-11-26
America Reviews:
 ·AT&T DSL Service
| one thing after another Sounds like an uphill battle...
How would they know what's legal and what isn't. A recording of a show might be totally legal (basically the motivation for creating torrents in the 1st place), but what if they blocked it just because you were using a torrent?
I agree w/the EFF in that such wording would leave much to be "open to interpretation" which could lead to some crazy things happening. Not very neutral if there are exceptions which can be abused. | |
| jfmezeiPremium
join:2007-01-03
Pointe-Claire, QC
kudos:22 Reviews:
·ELECTRONICBOX
| Neutral carriers are not law enforcement Do telcos block telephone calls between mafia bosses planning a murder or a heist ?
It isn't up to ISPs to decide what is right or wrong. They are packet pushers and not supposed to look at content of packets, just as telcos are not supposed to listen to your phone conversations.
If police suspect illicit use of internet, they get a warrant and then get the ISP's cooperation on that one issue. Just like telcos.
If you want a principle, then you pass a law that ensures this principle. No loopholes. | |
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