End of net neutrality: another nail in Mom and Pops' coffin
Ajit Pai, Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chairman, carried through with his promise to end net neutrality. Despite 83% of Americans being opposed to the move and three out of four Republicans being opposed (according to the Washington Post as reported by OregonLive.com) he and two other Republicans sitting on the five-member board cast the majority vote to end net neutrality. The two Democrats opposed the move.
Mr. Pai didn't stop with the simple vote to make a definition change in the FCC regulations. He added wording that would prevent any future FCC chairman from reversing his decision. Unless Congress steps in with Net Neutrality legislation, Mr. Pai's word is final, at least for the foreseeable future.
“We are helping consumers and promoting competition,” Mr. Pai said. “Broadband providers will have more incentive to build networks, especially to underserved areas.”
History, however, disputes his claim. Another great technological breakthrough gave birth to the FCC and had them working over time. Called radio...which later became broadcast television...which later became cable television...the technology kept the FCC very busy regulating the industry to keep a level playing field. Had Mr. Pai paid attention to the history of the bureaucracy he was charged with running, he would've been a strong supporter of Net Neutrality, not its enemy.
Shortly after the FCC announced its vote to end Net Neutrality, Trump took to Twitter praising his own accomplishments at cutting regulations and red tape. From the Roosevelt Room at the White House, within minutes of the FCC's announcement, Trump tweeted:
Several minutes later, Trump kept his campaign promise and cut the red tape, as shown in his next tweet:
What's important to note in his sophomoric attempt at a workplace celebration for a "job well done" is that Trump did not mention the FCC and Net Neutrality specifically. However, it does appear this so-called celebration was planned to coincide with the long anticipated announcement from the FCC that ends Net Neutrality.
Net neutrality wasn't always a divisive issue. Conservatives and liberals alike embraced the idea. The march to the formalized rules put in place by President Obama in 2015 began some twenty years earlier with President Clinton. When President Bush assumed his eight year reign, he expanded on President Clinton's efforts by introducing tighter rules to ensure Net Neutrality. President Obama took the foundation that President Clinton and President Bush built and made the foundation stronger by giving the FCC the power to make stronger Net Neutrality rules ensuring a free and fair marketplace for information and innovation. Both sides embraced the idea of Net Neutrality and celebrated the rules formalizing the concept.
What happened in the last two years that has made Net Neutrality a divisive partisan issue? In short, Trump. His first almost year in the White House has been nothing more than undoing everything President Obama did. The why is beyond the scope of this article, but suffice it to say that while both President Clinton (D) and President Bush (R) worked towards formalizing Net Neutrality, Trump decided that President Obama's 2015 formalizing of his predecessors' work - like everything else President Obama put in place - needed to be erased.
Again, the why of it is beyond the scope of this article so I'll spare you a lengthy side track and save that article for another day. Net neutrality, having ended yesterday, is a distant memory today. The big question is what effect will the rule change have on the Internet and how we use it.
In the short term, you won't notice anything. Two of the major providers, AT&T and Comcast, have promised their customers their online experiences will not change. One thing we all can be certain of: the Big Four major carriers that account for over three-quarters of the Internet providing services (Verizon, Charter, Comcast, and AT&T) are watching their bottom line and how to make it grow. Despite AT&T's and Comcast's promise, what all four carriers have been saying these last few months forewarns us that our Internet experience will change, most likely in how much money we'll be shelling out to continue the illusion of a net-neutral experience.
While some court challenges to the rule change languish for a couple of years before being decided on, most likely the Big Four will take baby steps in making changes to their business models. If the courts rule in favor of the Big Four and Congress fails to act, those initial baby steps put the Internet on the same path as cable TV. Once touted as a "new way to watch TV", cable TV never lived up to its promise of variety and innovation in TV broadcasting. A handful of cable companies transformed the wide open broadcasting fertile ground into a barren desert of sameness. Instead of thirteen channels of crap to choose from, we ended up with a few hundred channels of crap to choose from.
The next five to ten years - if net neutrality is forgotten and left to Corporate America to determine - will see subtle changes here and there in how the Internet is delivered to us. Throttling these websites here, blocking those over there, and giving these the high speed lane (for a hefty price), those the moderate speed lane (for a less than hefty price), and the rest the slow lane (for a basic price) all add up to a different Internet experience than what we have now. The information most likely delivered to our phones, tablets, and desktops will be determined by Corporate America and that decision will be based more on what makes Corporate America money and less on the relevancy we, as consumers, are looking for.
Here's a challenge for you. Google "burger joints your town, your state" and "clothes your town, your state" where you replace "your town" and "your state" with where you really live. Take a screen snapshot and save it where you can refer to it five, ten years from now. This is important. Five or ten years from now, you'll hear old people saying, "The Internet isn't what it used to be. You could find anything anywhere back then." Old people tend to say things were better when they were younger, but with your screen snapshot you take today, you can prove five or ten years from now that what you are saying is true.
When I Google clothes for my town, I get thirteen businesses on Google maps, three being national chains. The first national chain I get is seventh on the list. When I Google burger joints, I get eleven restaurants, five being national chains. The first two in the list are locally owned.
If I had to guess how the results happened as they did (that is, the locally owned and operated business were listed before the national chains) I reckon it's because Google listed the clothing stores and restaurants from the center of town outward regardless of their "national prominence."
With the end of net neutrality, my search results could - and I emphasize could - change. Based on what the companies are willing to pay your Internet provider, even if Google keeps it's listing priorities the same (that is, they will provide the search results to your Internet provider from center of town outward) your Internet provider might sort the list based on what companies are paying them to come out on top. Even if the list comes out exactly the same, namely from center of town outward, you might give up waiting for the locally owned and operated page to load because they could only afford the slow lane. You'll just go ahead and click on the Walmart link further down the list because they can afford the high speed lane your Internet provider makes available to them.
But the end of net neutrality doesn't stop with the shopping. If you like this blog, it may end up in the slow lane - the lane that takes forever to load a page and you won't bother with. Worst case - you might not even be able to find this page. Internet providers can decide to ban content for any reason. Reasons could include disagreement with content, competition with Internet provider's partners' content, the content is not what their customers are looking for, or just because.
That censoring legality should be of a huge concern to every Internet user. For example, if your Internet provider is Verizon, in ten years with no net neutrality rules in place, Verizon may have this blog blocked. Why? Because their search engines came across this negative article about them and that put this blog on their blocked list.
And that begs the question. How would you know your Internet provider isn't abiding by gernerally accepted net neutrality rules? The answer is you wouldn't. Oh sure, the FCC might mandate the Internet providers are to be transparent about their pricing schemes, throttling practices, and blocked lists, but in practice, who has the time to review them? If you do have the time to review their practices, you always have the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to file a consumer complaint, right? Nope. A little known court case worked its way through the court system just prior to Mr. Pai announcing his end to net neutrality rules. Internet broadband providers are considered "common carriers", a definition that exempts them from FTC jurisdiction.
The end result is Joe's Burgers and Carrie's Clothing have little recourse to protect them from the broadband providers' desire to grow their bottom line. Even if in their transparency Joe or Carrie can prove they were being treated unfairly, they have no real recourse to the law because Internet providers are "common carriers."
You, as a user, probably won't notice the changes over the next few years. Just like now when you take your family on a trip and ask, "Where do you want to eat?" and your kids answer in unison, "McDonald's" because they've been programmed by slick TV and media advertising to answer that way, the Internet of the future will program us to seek out the Walmarts, McDonald's, Lowes, and the rest of the nationally owned big, bad...well, for lack of a better term...thugs.
If Joe's Burgers loads too slowly, it's not because your Internet provider is playing unfairly and slowing the site down, right? It's slow because Joe isn't Internet savvy and if it takes that long to load his site, how long would it take him to cook a burger? Joe isn't worth visiting, but McDonald's...well they got a professional, flashy site that downloaded in a snap so they have to have the best burgers.
"What blocked sites?" you might ask. "I do a search and get plenty of results." Really? How are you supposed to know sites are being blocked from you if you don't know they're out there to begin with?
And when we ask Google, "Is there more to life than shopping and greed?" we'll learn that no, we need to answer to our nationally owned corporate masters and shop more - at the nationally approved stores - not at Mom and Pop's - for the good of the country.
The Internet is a warehouse of vast knowledge, all the knowledge of the world's libraries combined and then some. Should we entrust corporations driven by profit motive to guard and make that information available to us? Your answer is the crux of what net neutrality is all about.
Since somewhere along the way, probably starting about a hundred years ago, we've allowed bureaucrats more and more control to make law - probably because our senators and representatives wanted more time to play golf - the only way we can enshrine the ideal of net neutrality into law is to take the authority of bureaucrats to change definitions away, changes that in effect make new law.
It doesn't matter for what bigoted reasons the current occupants of the White House and the Capitol have shunned the concept of net neutrality. What matters is we get Congress to enshrine the concept of net neutrality into law so the bureaucrats can't change it. Here's what you can do.
All knowledge and creative endeavors should be shared freely on a level playing field and not subject to the corporate bottom line. The Internet, for all intent and purposes, is the ultimate library of information and creative works. The American Library Association's stated mission is:
That's a simple concept that our lawmakers should ensure Corporate America is abiding by when providing access to the world's largest library - the Internet.
TL;DR Folks:
The end to net neutrality rules is based on one simple assumption - corporate America will look out for our best interests and ensure profit motives aren't driving the information we have access to.
Posted by Five Drunk Rednecks
Mr. Pai didn't stop with the simple vote to make a definition change in the FCC regulations. He added wording that would prevent any future FCC chairman from reversing his decision. Unless Congress steps in with Net Neutrality legislation, Mr. Pai's word is final, at least for the foreseeable future.
“We are helping consumers and promoting competition,” Mr. Pai said. “Broadband providers will have more incentive to build networks, especially to underserved areas.”
History, however, disputes his claim. Another great technological breakthrough gave birth to the FCC and had them working over time. Called radio...which later became broadcast television...which later became cable television...the technology kept the FCC very busy regulating the industry to keep a level playing field. Had Mr. Pai paid attention to the history of the bureaucracy he was charged with running, he would've been a strong supporter of Net Neutrality, not its enemy.
Shortly after the FCC announced its vote to end Net Neutrality, Trump took to Twitter praising his own accomplishments at cutting regulations and red tape. From the Roosevelt Room at the White House, within minutes of the FCC's announcement, Trump tweeted:
 |
| Video link |
Several minutes later, Trump kept his campaign promise and cut the red tape, as shown in his next tweet:
 |
| Video link |
What's important to note in his sophomoric attempt at a workplace celebration for a "job well done" is that Trump did not mention the FCC and Net Neutrality specifically. However, it does appear this so-called celebration was planned to coincide with the long anticipated announcement from the FCC that ends Net Neutrality.
Net neutrality wasn't always a divisive issue. Conservatives and liberals alike embraced the idea. The march to the formalized rules put in place by President Obama in 2015 began some twenty years earlier with President Clinton. When President Bush assumed his eight year reign, he expanded on President Clinton's efforts by introducing tighter rules to ensure Net Neutrality. President Obama took the foundation that President Clinton and President Bush built and made the foundation stronger by giving the FCC the power to make stronger Net Neutrality rules ensuring a free and fair marketplace for information and innovation. Both sides embraced the idea of Net Neutrality and celebrated the rules formalizing the concept.
What happened in the last two years that has made Net Neutrality a divisive partisan issue? In short, Trump. His first almost year in the White House has been nothing more than undoing everything President Obama did. The why is beyond the scope of this article, but suffice it to say that while both President Clinton (D) and President Bush (R) worked towards formalizing Net Neutrality, Trump decided that President Obama's 2015 formalizing of his predecessors' work - like everything else President Obama put in place - needed to be erased.
Again, the why of it is beyond the scope of this article so I'll spare you a lengthy side track and save that article for another day. Net neutrality, having ended yesterday, is a distant memory today. The big question is what effect will the rule change have on the Internet and how we use it.
In the short term, you won't notice anything. Two of the major providers, AT&T and Comcast, have promised their customers their online experiences will not change. One thing we all can be certain of: the Big Four major carriers that account for over three-quarters of the Internet providing services (Verizon, Charter, Comcast, and AT&T) are watching their bottom line and how to make it grow. Despite AT&T's and Comcast's promise, what all four carriers have been saying these last few months forewarns us that our Internet experience will change, most likely in how much money we'll be shelling out to continue the illusion of a net-neutral experience.
While some court challenges to the rule change languish for a couple of years before being decided on, most likely the Big Four will take baby steps in making changes to their business models. If the courts rule in favor of the Big Four and Congress fails to act, those initial baby steps put the Internet on the same path as cable TV. Once touted as a "new way to watch TV", cable TV never lived up to its promise of variety and innovation in TV broadcasting. A handful of cable companies transformed the wide open broadcasting fertile ground into a barren desert of sameness. Instead of thirteen channels of crap to choose from, we ended up with a few hundred channels of crap to choose from.
The next five to ten years - if net neutrality is forgotten and left to Corporate America to determine - will see subtle changes here and there in how the Internet is delivered to us. Throttling these websites here, blocking those over there, and giving these the high speed lane (for a hefty price), those the moderate speed lane (for a less than hefty price), and the rest the slow lane (for a basic price) all add up to a different Internet experience than what we have now. The information most likely delivered to our phones, tablets, and desktops will be determined by Corporate America and that decision will be based more on what makes Corporate America money and less on the relevancy we, as consumers, are looking for.
Here's a challenge for you. Google "burger joints your town, your state" and "clothes your town, your state" where you replace "your town" and "your state" with where you really live. Take a screen snapshot and save it where you can refer to it five, ten years from now. This is important. Five or ten years from now, you'll hear old people saying, "The Internet isn't what it used to be. You could find anything anywhere back then." Old people tend to say things were better when they were younger, but with your screen snapshot you take today, you can prove five or ten years from now that what you are saying is true.
When I Google clothes for my town, I get thirteen businesses on Google maps, three being national chains. The first national chain I get is seventh on the list. When I Google burger joints, I get eleven restaurants, five being national chains. The first two in the list are locally owned.
If I had to guess how the results happened as they did (that is, the locally owned and operated business were listed before the national chains) I reckon it's because Google listed the clothing stores and restaurants from the center of town outward regardless of their "national prominence."
With the end of net neutrality, my search results could - and I emphasize could - change. Based on what the companies are willing to pay your Internet provider, even if Google keeps it's listing priorities the same (that is, they will provide the search results to your Internet provider from center of town outward) your Internet provider might sort the list based on what companies are paying them to come out on top. Even if the list comes out exactly the same, namely from center of town outward, you might give up waiting for the locally owned and operated page to load because they could only afford the slow lane. You'll just go ahead and click on the Walmart link further down the list because they can afford the high speed lane your Internet provider makes available to them.
But the end of net neutrality doesn't stop with the shopping. If you like this blog, it may end up in the slow lane - the lane that takes forever to load a page and you won't bother with. Worst case - you might not even be able to find this page. Internet providers can decide to ban content for any reason. Reasons could include disagreement with content, competition with Internet provider's partners' content, the content is not what their customers are looking for, or just because.
That censoring legality should be of a huge concern to every Internet user. For example, if your Internet provider is Verizon, in ten years with no net neutrality rules in place, Verizon may have this blog blocked. Why? Because their search engines came across this negative article about them and that put this blog on their blocked list.
And that begs the question. How would you know your Internet provider isn't abiding by gernerally accepted net neutrality rules? The answer is you wouldn't. Oh sure, the FCC might mandate the Internet providers are to be transparent about their pricing schemes, throttling practices, and blocked lists, but in practice, who has the time to review them? If you do have the time to review their practices, you always have the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to file a consumer complaint, right? Nope. A little known court case worked its way through the court system just prior to Mr. Pai announcing his end to net neutrality rules. Internet broadband providers are considered "common carriers", a definition that exempts them from FTC jurisdiction.
The end result is Joe's Burgers and Carrie's Clothing have little recourse to protect them from the broadband providers' desire to grow their bottom line. Even if in their transparency Joe or Carrie can prove they were being treated unfairly, they have no real recourse to the law because Internet providers are "common carriers."
 |
| Picture credit and more information (Click picture for larger view) |
If Joe's Burgers loads too slowly, it's not because your Internet provider is playing unfairly and slowing the site down, right? It's slow because Joe isn't Internet savvy and if it takes that long to load his site, how long would it take him to cook a burger? Joe isn't worth visiting, but McDonald's...well they got a professional, flashy site that downloaded in a snap so they have to have the best burgers.
"What blocked sites?" you might ask. "I do a search and get plenty of results." Really? How are you supposed to know sites are being blocked from you if you don't know they're out there to begin with?
And when we ask Google, "Is there more to life than shopping and greed?" we'll learn that no, we need to answer to our nationally owned corporate masters and shop more - at the nationally approved stores - not at Mom and Pop's - for the good of the country.
The Internet is a warehouse of vast knowledge, all the knowledge of the world's libraries combined and then some. Should we entrust corporations driven by profit motive to guard and make that information available to us? Your answer is the crux of what net neutrality is all about.
Since somewhere along the way, probably starting about a hundred years ago, we've allowed bureaucrats more and more control to make law - probably because our senators and representatives wanted more time to play golf - the only way we can enshrine the ideal of net neutrality into law is to take the authority of bureaucrats to change definitions away, changes that in effect make new law.
It doesn't matter for what bigoted reasons the current occupants of the White House and the Capitol have shunned the concept of net neutrality. What matters is we get Congress to enshrine the concept of net neutrality into law so the bureaucrats can't change it. Here's what you can do.
- Every month (yes, every month, but if not, at least more than once a year) write both of your senators and your Representative in Congress asking them for an update on what they are doing to push for net neutrality. When they respond back to you with empty rhetoric, you'll know what to write them the following month to ensure they know you want action, not rhetoric. You can find both of your senators and your representative here. Write, call, or email them every month.
- Pay attention to who you're electing. I do not encourage one issue voting, but while you're making your decision of who the best candidate is, put a red X next to the candidates who have negative or nothing to say about net neutrality. Their stance on the issue of net neutrality (or silence) should be a factor in your voting decision.
- The next time you share something you found on the Internet with your social media friends, remind them that without net neutrality laws in place, that recipe or news clip or video or music clip might not have been available to share.
All knowledge and creative endeavors should be shared freely on a level playing field and not subject to the corporate bottom line. The Internet, for all intent and purposes, is the ultimate library of information and creative works. The American Library Association's stated mission is:
“To provide leadership for the development, promotion, and improvement of library and information services and the profession of librarianship in order to enhance learning and ensure access to information for all.”
TL;DR Folks:
The end to net neutrality rules is based on one simple assumption - corporate America will look out for our best interests and ensure profit motives aren't driving the information we have access to.
For your listening pleasure:
Posted by Five Drunk Rednecks
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