
Net neutrality is in jeopardy again - kungfudoi
https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2017/05/08/next-10-days-critical-internets-future/
======
shawnee_
_Net neutrality is fundamental to free speech. Without net neutrality, big
companies could censor your voice and make it harder to speak up online. Net
neutrality has been called the “First Amendment of the Internet.”_

Not just harder. Infinitely more dangerous. Probably the scariest implications
for NN being gutted are those around loss of anonymity through the Internet.
ISPs who are allowed to sell users' browsing history, data packets, personal
info with zero legal implications --> that anonymity suddenly comes with a
price. And anything that comes with a price can be sold.

A reporter's sources must be able to be anonymous in many instances where
release of information about corruption creates political instability,
endangers the reporter, endangers the source, endangers the truth from being
revealed. These "rollbacks" of regulations make it orders of magnitude easier
for any entity in a corporation or organization to track down people who
attempt to expose their illegal actions / skirting of laws. Corporations have
every incentive to suppress information that hurts their stock price. Corrupt
local officials governments have every incentive to suppress individuals who
threaten their "job security". Corrupt PACs have every incentive to drown out
that one tiny voice that speaks the truth.

A government that endorses suppression cannot promote safety, stability, or
prosperity of its people.

EDIT: Yes, I am also referring to the loss of Broadband Privacy rules as they
have implications in the rollback of net neutrality:
[https://www.theverge.com/2017/3/29/15100620/congress-fcc-
isp...](https://www.theverge.com/2017/3/29/15100620/congress-fcc-isp-web-
browsing-privacy-fire-sale)

Loss of broadband privacy: Yes, your data can and will be sold

Loss of net neutrality: How much of it and for how much?

~~~
apexalpha
I'm not American, so please correct me if I'm wrong but I have yet to see any
proof of this whole 'sell your internet history' complaint that seems to be
blatently copied by everyone without any research.

The way I understand it is that ISPs can sell anonymized data from groups of
users. Like: people who visit news.ycombinator.com generally also visit
stackoverflow. I also don't know how an ISP would get your actual internet
history if the website uses HTTPS.

Yes, I am a strong supporter of NN and I was appaled when the EU diluted it,
but this reply is directed at your 'ISPs who are allowed to sell users'
browsing history' part.

~~~
bmelton
The common response to this is that ISPs have access to everything you do
(which is true), and that they could sell that (which is false).

The regulations being overturned here are ones that have only recently taken
effect, and non-anonymized, non-aggregate selling of ISP data is still
outlawed by the Cable Communications Act of 1984, which protects subscriber
privacy is 47USC § 551[1].

Put simply, neither the most recent executive order, nor a reversal on Net
Neutrality overturns that law on the federal register.

Of course, if Congress were to draft a bill that does so, the current fears
would be well justified.

[https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/551](https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/551)

~~~
guelo
So you're saying this most recent regulation does absolutely nothing, even
though it was the highest priority for the incoming industry friendly
regulator. Seems doubtful that some 1984 law is going to protect our browsing
data.

~~~
chiefalchemist
You're correct. But only because - per Chaos Monkeys, Dragnet Nation, and the
like - your data is already being captured, aggregated, and sold. If that's
your concern, you're too late. On the other hand if your concern is specify to
ISPs (as opposed to other entities you don't even know) then sure worry and
complain. But at least your ISP has an incentive to not go too crazy, as the
data they sell could be used to market to you to leave that ISP ;)

~~~
stolsvik
You can turn cookies off or similar, or you can choose to not use or employ
such services. That the ISP can do this, without your consent - each DNS
lookup, each TCP connection you're making - is a whole different thing.

I think it is truly insane.

~~~
chiefalchemist
Fyi...They can, with reasonable accuracy, track you across multiple devices.
And that was 3+ years ago. I'm sure it's only gotten better since.

I do agree. There are somethings you can do to mitigate things. But at some
point you have to be you (e.g., FB, etc.) and as small and minor as such
digital breadcrumbs might seem, they add up.

~~~
tripzilch
Using Facebook is a rather large bread "crumb" though. Not using it is easy
enough and you're making it easier for your other privacy-conscious friends to
do the right thing.

I don't know anyone who would fault me for not being on Facebook (yes I know
this has a strong selection bias). Only time was at a convenience store,
looking a bit puzzled I had to scan my ID-card in some device (to buy
cigarettes[0]), the guy explained this was announced on Facebook, I
(completely neutral, matter-of-factly, already having complied with the ID-
device thing) replied I don't have an account on Facebook which he took as a
cue to start some anti-privacy diatribe at me. My guess he was probably having
a bad day, possibly from other people giving him a much harder time about the
ID thing. I finished the transaction, excused myself because I (really) had to
catch a bus, and wished him a very nice day.

My point is, when I look around, it seems like Facebook is going the way of
the cigarettes. The majority of people (that I know) know of at least one or
two scandalous things that are deeply wrong about the way Facebook treats
privacy and manipulates its users. Of those people, a good chunk hate it,
really want to quit, but feel they can't due to social pressure or addiction.
Just like cigarettes. Others make excuses about convenience, little vices,
relaxing. Just like cigarettes.

I don't know how many of you are old enough to remember that you could smoke
in trains, bars, in _restaurants_ while people were still eating 2 metres next
to you. As late as the early 90s. And only after those bans people started to
dare to ask if you could maybe smoke outside, in home situations, even if
they're the guests and it's your home (I was younger and inconsiderater).

If you don't remember you maybe also don't remember how thoroughly ingrained
the social act of smoking was in society. Only a few decades ago, nobody could
_imagine_ where we are today. Smoking was just so _normal_ , even if you
didn't really, you would occasionally, your friends would offer, people just
_liked_ it too much, were addicted too much.

The almost-entirely-non-smoking-everywhere society we have today was seen as
an _impossibility_. We could never get there, we couldn't _change_ or _impose_
, people _wanted_ it too much. And it was a _hard_ transition before it got
momentum, but it did in the end. I personally, as a smoker, welcomed these
bans, because I figured it would make it easier for me to quit (hint: if
you're addicted, you still have to quit by yourself. those bans maybe helped
me the first 5% of quitting).

The point is, it may seem impossible to imagine a way out of this anti-privacy
swamp. _But it 's not too late._ Just remember the cigarettes and how far we
got. DON'T let anyone tell you it's useless to refrain from using surveillance
tech X just because "you're going to be tracked any way because P, Q and R"
(being your phone, CCTV and the NSA). The fight is NOT lost, not at all. It's
just getting started, now that people are slowly realizing they don't actually
really _want_ this, they are mostly _made_ to want this, and more and more
people want it to stop, and it would help if only everybody else would stop
shoving it in their face.

Just because it seems impossible _now_ doesn't mean we should roll over, curl
up and stop voicing your dissent, _ever_.

Then maybe our kids (or other people's kids--who didn't ask for this either)
can grow up in a society where they're not quite as pervasively tracked and
surveilled as our generation.

If it helps maybe to imagine the _next_ impossible thing, imagine everybody
securely wiping the exabytes of private data they've collected on us so far. I
really can't see that happening either and it kind of gives me hope in a weird
"wishing on a star" kind of way, because other important things used to seem
just as impossible.

[0] I've quit since. It's hard. Very hard. Unfathomably harder for some people
than others. I will never judge an addict in my life.

~~~
chiefalchemist
But NOT being on FB is also a signal. A signal I presume can be detected and
noted somewhere. Frankly, I don't think staying off FB is enough. And not
being there, should you make the evening news for some strange reason, will
mean you're labeled as antisocial, loner, etc.

------
guelo
It's insane the amount of comments on HN of all places that don't understand
that the end of Net Neutrality is the end of the open web. People that didn't
get a peek at Compuserve have no idea the fire we're playing with here. The
open web is the most significant human achievement since the transistor and
we're about to kill it happily.

~~~
Imagenuity
Could you expand on your Compuserve comment? What happened?

~~~
jhardcastle
Presumably OP is referring to the walled garden of CompuServe, Prodigy, and
others where you could only talk to other CompuServe customers on their
proprietary message boards. If you wanted to talk with someone else, it was
impossible (until later) because the systems didn't interoperate. CompuServe
controlled the message boards, and could control which ones were created (or
not created) and thus controlled the message. Not maliciously, just as the
nature of their product and the state of technology at the time.

~~~
drawnwren
I used AOL and Compuserve, but after they had both expanded to allowing access
to everything. What drove the expansion? It seems like the market worked as
expected in this case...

~~~
PeterisP
The existence of the open internet made it beneficial to interoperate; lack of
it would mean that the expected market interest would require them to _not_
interoperate.

For many markets, the natural consequence of unregulated free market
conditions is to aggregate towards a monopolistic or oligopolistic market,
which isn't a free market any more. The idealized economic free market isn't a
stable equilibrium - it's a good position for society, but it doesn't stay
there on it's own, it needs to be _kept_ free by preventing it from devolving
into the monopolistic optimum.

~~~
drawnwren
What was the 'open internet'? I genuinely am not comprehending what drove AOL
and Compuserve to tear their walls down.

~~~
PeterisP
While the internet as such existed, at the heyday of AOL&Compuserve residental
users were not able to get a connection to internet as such at reasonable
prices.

By the 'open internet' I mean the arrival of ISPs who offered consumers direct
connectivity with all the internet, competing with AOL who offered
connectivity to, well, AOL.

------
jfaucett
Does anyone else find the internet market odd? Up until now net neutrality and
other policies have given us the following:

1\. Massive monopolies which essentially control 95% of all tech (google,
facebook, amazon, microsoft, apple, etc)

2\. An internet where every consumer assumes everything should be free.

3\. An internet where there's only enough room for a handfull of players in
each market globally i.e. if you have a "project-management app" there will
not be a successfull one for each country much less hundreds for each country.

4\. Huge barriers of entry for any new player into many of the markets (no one
can even begin competing with google search for less than 20 million).

I think there's still a lot of potential to open up new markets with different
policies that would make the internet a much better place for both consumers
and entrepreneurs - especially the small guys. I'm just not 100% sure
maintaining net-neutrality is the best way to help the little guy and bolster
innovation. Anyone have any ideas how we could alleviate some of the above
mentioned problems?

EDIT: another question :) If net-neutrality has absolutely nothing to do with
the tech monopolies maintaining their power position then why do they all
support it?
[[https://internetassociation.org/](https://internetassociation.org/)]

~~~
liveoneggs
The internet is the greatest barrier-lowering device to starting a business
ever conceived.

You can, using just your skills and barely any money, compete with google and
facebook _this afternoon_! (google and amazon will even give you a month to
try for free) Your chances at winning are pretty low, but eventually someone
will do it.

~~~
zepto
This makes no sense. Using just your skills and barely any money, you cannot
acquire a corpus of decades of historical searches and click data nor can you
employ the thousands of human raters, both of which Google uses to make the
search algorithm work.

Please stop spreading this misleading idea.

~~~
Klathmon
No, but you could create a better note taking app than Google Keep, or a
better email client than Gmail, or a better chat platform than Hangouts,
etc...

Sure, not everything is that easy, but an open internet does allow for a
massive leg up that many other industries could only dream of.

Imagine being able to take on Honda's lawnmower division competitively with
less than $100 and a few months!

~~~
jazzyk
The hallways of VC offices are littered with corpses of startup founders who
_did_ have a better app than Google, but were shown the door, because: you
don't want to compete with Google.

I should know - I am one of those corpses :-)

~~~
jcoffland
Your mistake was relying on VC for success.

------
pbhowmic
I tried commenting on the proceeding at the FCC site but I keep getting
service unavailable errors. The FCC site itself is up but conveniently we the
public cannot comment on the issue.

~~~
alexanderdmitri
you can upload a document with your comment here:
[https://www.fcc.gov/restoring-internet-freedom-comments-
wc-d...](https://www.fcc.gov/restoring-internet-freedom-comments-wc-docket-
no-17-108)

you can also submit via API: [https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/public-api-
docs.html](https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/public-api-docs.html)

~~~
Dragonai
> you can also submit via API: [https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/public-api-
> docs.html](https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/public-api-docs.html)

That's dope, I had no idea this was available. Thanks for sharing!

------
bkeroack
I've written it before and I'll write it again (despite the massive downvotes
from those who want to silence dissent): Title II regulation of the Internet
is not the net neutrality panacea that many people think it is.

That is the same kind of heavy-handed regulation that gave us the sorry copper
POTS network we are stuck with today. The _free market_ is the solution, and
must be defended against those who want European-style top-down national
regulation of what has historically been the most free and vibrant area of
economic growth the world has ever seen.

The reason the internet grew into what it is today during the 1990s was
precisely because it was so free of regulation and governmental control. If
the early attempts[1] to regulate the internet had succeeded, HN probably
wouldn't exist and none of us would have jobs right now.

1\.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_Decency_Act](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_Decency_Act)
(just one example from memory--there were several federal attempts to censor
and tax the Internet in the 1990s)

~~~
KZeillmann
Sure -- let's say free market is a solution? Free market only works if I have
_choice_. Right now, my only choice for internet service is Comcast. Free
market won't do a thing until I have actual choices here.

~~~
billions
Government handed comcast monopoly over the wire to your door. Now we're
sweeping the problem under the rug by policing what goes down the wire. The
way to get more choices is to let anyone compete to be your ISP, by liberating
the wire. Remember how long distance phone service improved in the 90's?

~~~
rhino369
Comcast is the big ISP in most areas because it was unregulated. DSL was
regulated under title II and cable wasn't. So capital flowed to cable
companies who weren't subject to invasive regulations. That's why cable
internet is so popular in America compared to the rest of the world. It wasn't
until telecom ISPs were classified title I that Verizon and ATT decided to
upgrade their dsl services.

~~~
Chaebixi
> That's why cable internet is so popular in America compared to the rest of
> the world.

I'm not so sure about that. The coax used for cable is a higher-bandwidth
cabling than the POTS twisted-pair lines used for telephone service, so the
cable companies started out with better infrastructure. DSL also has
distance/bandwidth limits ("distance from the central office") that cable
internet doesn't have, so many people are unable to get DSL that rus at
acceptable speeds. Cable television has also been widespread and popular in
the US since the 80s, at least. I'm not sure if that's true in countries were
DSL has been popular.

I, personally, would attribute cable internet's popularity (in the US) to the
technical superiority of the legacy infrastructure it is built on.

------
rosalinekarr
[The propaganda Comcast is tweeting right now is absolutely ridiculous.][1]

[1]:
[https://twitter.com/comcast/status/859091480895410176](https://twitter.com/comcast/status/859091480895410176)

------
SkyMarshal
Looking at Comcast's webpage on this:

[http://corporate.comcast.com/comcast-voices/comcast-
supports...](http://corporate.comcast.com/comcast-voices/comcast-supports-net-
neutrality-and-reversal-of-title-ii-classification-title-ii-is-not-net-
neutrality)

They're arguing that Title II Classification is not the same as Net
Neutrality, with the following statement:

 _" Title II is a source of authority to impose enforceable net neutrality
rules. Title II is not net neutrality. Getting rid of Title II does not mean
that we are repealing net neutrality protections for American consumers.

We want to be very clear: As Brian Roberts, our Chairman and CEO stated, and
as Dave Watson, President and CEO of Comcast Cable writes in his blog post
today, __we have and will continue to support strong, legally enforceable net
neutrality protections that ensure a free and Open Internet_ * for our
customers, with consumers able to access any and all the lawful content they
want at any time. Our business practices ensure these protections for our
customers and will continue to do so."*

So if Title II goes away, where do those strong, legally enforceable net
neutrality protections come from? Wasn't that the reasoning behind Title II in
the first place, it's the only effectively strong, legally enforceable way of
protecting net neutrality (vs other methods with loopholes)?

~~~
lightbyte
>Wasn't that the reasoning behind Title II in the first place

Yes, Verizon v FCC [1] ruled that Title II classification is required for any
sort of NN regulation.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verizon_Communications_Inc._v....](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verizon_Communications_Inc._v._FCC_\(2014\))

~~~
twoodfin
Other than passing a new law, which is at least my preferred means to
substantially change policy governing a huge industry.

------
stinkytaco
Honest question, but is Net Neutrality the answer to these problems?

A few weeks ago on HN, someone made an analogy to water: someone filling their
swimming pool should pay more for water than someone showering or cooking with
it. This seems to make sense to me, water is a scarce resource and it should
be prioritized.

Is the same true of the Internet? I absolutely agree that ISPs that are also
in the entertainment business shouldn't be allowed to prioritize their own
data, but that seems to me an anti-trust problem, not a net neutrality
problem. I also agree that ISPs should be regulated like utilities, but even
utilities are allowed to limit service to maintain their infrastructure (see:
rolling blackouts).

Perhaps I simply do not understand NN and perhaps organizations haven't done a
good job of explaining it, but I don't know that these problems are not best
solved by the FTC, not the FCC.

~~~
Someone1234
Imagine if a water company intentionally degraded the water supply coming into
your home so that it was unsafe to consume but safe for most other needs. Then
that same company offers to sell you safe to consume bottled water.

There's nothing specifically immoral about selling safe bottled water. But as
soon as you induce people to buy it, in this case by degrading the tap water,
you're doing something wrong.

Much like water companies, many areas either have no choice in ISP or can only
choose between the big three who have very similar policies. Choice is in
effect an illusion.

------
wehadfun
Trumps appointees disappoint me a lot. This guy and the one over the EPA

~~~
kyrra
Ajit Pai was technically appointed to the FCC by Obama. (Though this panel of
5 people can have only at-most 3 people of the same part affiliation on it at
any given time). What Trump did was appoint Ajit the chairman of the FCC.

The FCC only has 3 people on it right now (2 R, 1 D), with 2 vacant seats.

~~~
alexanderdmitri
This is true. I think it's also worth noting this whole deregulation push to
have a fast lane was initiated by Tom Wheeler, who was appointed chairman of
the FCC by Obama (Ajit Pai was in the ranks at the time). The initiative
Wheeler introduced was supported into motion by the 3 Dems appointed to the
FCC (overriding the 2 dissenting Reps)[1]. What stopped the fast lane momentum
(IMO) was a very loud outcry by the public and some of the big tech companies
that also voiced dissent.

It's what Trinity said that has me really worried: "A déjà vu is usually a
glitch in the Matrix. It happens when they change something."

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRDEZHJxdw4&t=230s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRDEZHJxdw4&t=230s)
( 2:18 to 5:00 )

------
vog
It is really a pity that in the US, net neutrality was never established by
law, but "just" on institutional level.

Here in the EU, things are much slower and the activists were somewhat envious
how fast net neutrality was established in the US, while in the EU this is a
really slow legislation process. But now it seems the this slower way is at
least more sustainable. We still don't have real net neutrality in the EU, but
the achievements we have so far are more durable, and can't be overthrown that
quickly.

~~~
alexanderdmitri
Out of curiosity, what laws does the EU have that are similar and why do you
say it's not 'real' net neutrality?

------
Sami_Lehtinen
My Internet connection contract already says that they reserve right to:
Queue, Prioritize and Throttle traffic. This is used to optimize traffic. -
Doesn't sound too neutral to me? It's also clearly stated that some traffic on
the network get absolute priority over secondary classes.

Interestingly at one point 100 Mbit/s connection wasn't nearly fast enough to
play almost any content from YouTube. - Maybe there's some kind of relation,
maybe not.

------
alexanderdmitri
I think a great thing to do (if you are for net neutrality), is pick specific
parts of the NPRM filed with this proceeding and comment directly on it[1] to
help do some work for the defense. I feel sorry for anyone who might actually
need to address this document point for point to defend net neutrality.

I tried my hand at the general claim of regulatory uncertainty hurting
business, then Paragraphs 45 and 47:

-> It is worth noting that by bringing this into the spotlight again the NPRM is guilty of iginiting the same regulatory uncertainty it repeatedly claims has hurt its investments.

-> Paragraph 45 devotes 124 words (94% of the paragraph), gives 3 sources (75% of the references in this paragraph) and a number of figures (100% of explicitly hand-picked data) making the claim Title II regulation has suppressed investment. It then ends with 8 words and 1 reference vaguely stating "Other interested parties have come to different conclusions." Given the NPRM's insistence on both detail and clarity, this is absolutely unacceptable.

-> There are also a number of extremely misleading and insubstantiated arguments throughout. Reference 114 in Paragraph 47, for example, is actually a hapzard mishmash of 3 references with clearly hand-picked data from somewhat disjointed sources and analyses. Then the next two references [115, 116] in the same paragraph, point to letters sent to the FCC over 2 years ago from small ISP providers before regulations were classified as Title II. Despite discussing the fears raised in these letters, the NRPM provides little data on whether these fears were actually borne out. In fact, one of the providers explicitly mentioned in reference 115, Cedar Falls Utilities, have not in any way been subject to these regulations (they have less than 100,000 customers ... in fact the population of Cedar Falls isn't even 1/2 of the 100,000 customer exemption the FCC has provided!). This is obviously faked concern for the small ISP businesses and again, given the NPRM's insistence on both detail and clarity, this is absolutely unacceptable.

[1] makes a great point on specifically addressing what's being brought up in
the NPRM: [https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/27/how-to-comment-on-the-
fccs...](https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/27/how-to-comment-on-the-fccs-
proposal-to-revoke-net-neutrality/)

------
MichaelBurge
> The order meant individuals were free to say, watch and make what they want
> online, without meddling or interference from Internet service providers.

> Without net neutrality, big companies could censor your voice and make it
> harder to speak up online.

Hmm, was it ever prohibited for e.g. some Twitter user to write your ISP an
angry letter calling you a Nazi, so they shut your internet off to avoid the
headache?

I've only heard about "net neutrality" in the context of bandwidth pricing.
It's very different if companies are legally required to sell you
internet(except maybe short of an actual crime).

~~~
Bartweiss
This is an interesting question, actually. I don't know of that being
prohibited, but I've also never heard of it actually happening to anyone.

Does anyone know of an example or a regulation against it?

------
laughingman2
I never thought hackernews would have so many opposing net neutrality. Is some
alt-right brigading this thread? which is ironic considering how they claim to
care about free speech.

~~~
wtf_is_up
"Why aren't you all falling in line out of fear of this boogeyman?"

------
FullMtlAlcoholc
Why does anyonw want to give more power to Comcast or AT&T? Neither has hardly
ever been described as innovative.. unless you count clueless members of
Congress.

~~~
crazy1van
> Neither has hardly ever been described as innovative

I'm not sure what you consider innovative, but my local comcast connection has
grown by about 10x in bandwidth over the last 15 years.

~~~
FullMtlAlcoholc
Comcast tops out at 60Mbps where I live, which is basically Beverly Hills, a
pretty wealthy area. Oh, the upload speed is a comcastic 5Mbps. It's $80, it's
regularly throttled, and it has data caps (although I've gone over and not
been charged.) If I had a 4K tv, I'd most likely be over.

This is a perfect example of how they stifle innovation by being another
impediment/middle man in the move to 4K TV.

Previously, I lived in a ramshackle studio apartment in Venice that had Fios
where I paid $50 for symmetrical 200Mbps.

I don't want or need my ISP to be innovative. I want a dumb, no BS pipe that
offers a decent price without bundling, since I don't need tv or a phone

~~~
rhino369
They are rolling out Docsis 3.1 in pretty wide areas. Sooner rather than later
you'll be able to get way over 60mbit. And 60 mbit is nothing to sneeze at.

>I don't want or need my ISP to be innovative. I want a dumb, no BS pipe that
offers a decent price without bundling, since I don't need tv or a phone

No, you don't want it to be a dumb pipe. You want an ever increasingly fast
service. If they installed a dumb pipe in 2003 and never upgraded you'd be mad
as hell.

~~~
FullMtlAlcoholc
> And 60 mbit is nothing to sneeze at.

It's substandard, especially when living in the 2nd largest city in the US.
It's nealy unacceptable when the upload speeds are a paltry 5Mbps.

I want, a network that simply provides simple bandwidth and network speed
while being completely neutral with regard to the services and applications
the customer accesses that offers if not symmetrical, usable upload speeds.

A dumb pipe is not a stagnant pipe, upgrades to network speed doesn't make it
smart.

~~~
rtx
Are those things profitable.

~~~
FullMtlAlcoholc
are public utilities profitable?

------
smsm42
That article makes little sense to me. For example:

> Net neutrality is fundamental to free speech. Without net neutrality, big
> companies could censor your voice and make it harder to speak up online.

Big companies are censoring your voice right now! Facebook, Twitter, Youtube
and literally every other big provider is censoring online speech all the
time. If it's so scary, why nobody cares? If it's not, what Mozilla is trying
to say here?

> Net neutrality is fundamental to competition. Without net neutrality, big
> Internet service providers can choose which services and content load
> quickly, and which move at a glacial pace.

Internet has been around for a while, and nothing like that happened, even
though we didn't have current regulations in place until 2015, e.g. last two
years. At which point we start asking for evidence and not just "they might do
something evil"? Yes, there were shenanigans, and they were handled, way
before 2015 regulations were in place.

> Net neutrality is fundamental to innovation

Again, innovation has been going on for decades without current regulations.
What happened that suddenly it started requiring them?

> Net neutrality is fundamental to user choice. Without net neutrality, ISPs
> could decide you’ve watched too many cat videos in one day,

ISPs never did it, as far as we know, for all history of ISP existence. Why
would they suddenly start now - because they want to get abandoned by users
and fined by regulators (which did fine ISPs way before 2015)?

> In 2015, nearly four million people urged the FCC to protect the health of
> the Internet

Before 2015, the Internet was doing fine for decades. What happened between
2015 and 2017 that now we desperately need this regulation and couldn't
survive without it like we did until 2015?

------
justforFranz
Maybe we should give up and just let global capitalists own and run everything
and jam web cameras up everyone's asshole.

------
akhilcacharya
It's interesting how much could have changed if ~175k or fewer people in the
Great Lakes region had voted differently..

------
notadoc
Is the internet a utility? And are internet providers a utility service?
That's really what this is about.

------
pc2g4d
The top comments here seem to misunderstand net neutrality. It's not about
companies selling your browsing history---that was recently approved by
Congress in a separate bill[1]---but rather is about whether ISPs can
prioritize the data of different sites or apps. IIUC net neutrality doesn't
really provide any privacy protections, though it's likely good for privacy by
making a more competitive market that motivates companies to act more (though
not always) in consumers' interests.

1: [https://arstechnica.com/information-
technology/2017/03/how-i...](https://arstechnica.com/information-
technology/2017/03/how-isps-can-sell-your-web-history-and-how-to-stop-them/)

------
kewpiedoll99
Last Week Tonight just did a piece about it. They described the circuitous,
torturous route the FCC site put into place to hinder consumer feedback. LWT
announced they have purchased the domain >>> gofccyourself.com <<< to take you
right to the FCC page you need to get to. Go to gofccyourself.com and comment.
Long form is better. Well written is better. Well reasoned is better. But any
comments are (one hopes) better than nothing. Get involved!

------
mbroshi
I am agnostic on net neutrality (ie. neither for nor against, just admitting
my own lack of ability to assess its fallout).

I read a lot of sweeping, but hard to measure claims on its affects (such as
in the linked article). Are there any concrete, measurable affects that anyone
is willing to predict?

Examples might be:

* Average load times for the 1000 most popular webpages will decrease.

* There will be fewer internet startups over the next 5 years than the previous.

Edit: formatting

~~~
J5892
Your examples are actually pretty spot on.

> * Average load times for the 1000 most popular webpages will decrease.

Absolutely possible if companies in the top 1000 pay for priority over other
companies in the top 1000. Also possible if an ISP decides to make their own
version of a top 1000 site, and throttles its competitors.

> * There will be fewer internet startups over the next 5 years than the
> previous.

When ISPs create an artificial barrier to entry such as paid prioritization,
costs to start a business and become profitable will increase, which will
absolutely reduce the amount of new startups.

------
tycho01
I'm curious: to what extent could a US ruling on this affect the rest of the
world?

~~~
pwtweet
Not much affect with regards to the EU as net neutrality became EU law in
2015.

------
em3rgent0rdr
Title II "Net Neutrality" is a dangerous power grab -- a solution in search of
a problem that doesn't exist, with the potential to become an engine of
censorship (requiring ISPs to non-preferentially deliver "legal content"
invites the FCC and other regulatory and legislative bodies to define some
content as "illegal").

Title II "Net Neutrality" is also an instance of regulatory capture through
which large consumers of bandwidth (such as Google and Netflix) hope to
externalize the costs of network expansions to accommodate their ever-growing
bandwidth demands. To put it differently, instead of building those costs into
the prices their customers pay, they want to force Internet users who AREN'T
their customers to subsidize their bandwidth demands.

------
kristopolous
Freedom is never won, only temporarily secured.

------
boona
If the internet is fundamental to free speech, maybe it's not a good idea to
give it's freedom over to state control, and in particular to an agency who
historically has gone beyond it's original mandate and censored content.

When you hand over control to the government, don't ask yourself what it would
look like if you were creating the laws, ask yourself what it'll look like
when self-interested politicians create them.

~~~
pweissbrod
Your argument glosses over the difference between a last-mile private
corporation controlling every byte of content and the government simply
preventing the practice of route prioritization.

Just because you are in favor of preventing route prioritization doesnt mean
youre in favor of the bizarre absolute opposite of government "controlling
content".

nobody (I know of) is advocating government control of content. That is a
different discussion entirely from net neutrality.

~~~
boona
You've missed the point of my argument entirely. The FCC was put into place to
regulate airwaves, i.e. who can use what airwaves and for what purpose. It
didn't take long for them to start regulating the content said airwaves.

My point is that I really don't care what your good intention are, or what you
believe the government will limit itself to. That's all nice and sweet, and a
great discussion for a 5th grade civics class, but what I'm saying is how long
do you think before well intended, someone please think of the children types
(or more recently those of the outrage culture spawned from university
campuses), will start regulating the content? Once you give them authority to
make decisions about how the internet should be regulated, they'll start
getting creative. The FCC is a historical example of that, and it's the exact
department your handing over the internet to.

------
billfor
I'm not sure putting the internet into the same class of service as a
telephone made sense for all the unintended consequences. Everyone is fine
until they wind up paying $50/month for their internet and then seeing another
$15 in government fees added to their bill. From a pragmatic point of view,
I'm sure the government will always have the option to regulate it later on.

------
WmyEE0UsWAwC2i
Net neutrality should be on the constitution. Safe from lobbists and the
politician in office.

------
arca_vorago
Someone tell me again why we don't have public internet backbone like we do
roads?

------
twsted
It's sad that this article stayed at the first positions for so little time.
And we are on HN.

But is this HN folks fault?

At the time of my writing "Kubernetes clusters for the hobbyist" \- who thinks
it is as important as this one? - with 470 points less, almost 300 comments
less, both posted 6/7 hours ago is six positions above.

------
weberc2
I wasn't impressed with this article; it reads like fear mongering. More
importantly, I don't think the fix is regulation, I think it's better privacy
tech + increased competition via elimination of local monopolies. Do we really
want to depend on government to enforce privacy on the Internet?

~~~
super_mario
This is not about government enforcing privacy on the internet. That is false
analogy, but even if it were good analogy, it would still fail. Do you want
government enforcing your personal security (also known as policing)? Would it
not be better if guys who are richer and can afford more bullies, intimidate
you and ask for money while you are trying to walk by their house/business
etc?

Net neutrality is about each ISP, carrier etc treating each packet flowing
through the network equally and not discriminating between its origin or
destination.

If net neutrality is gone, ISPs and back bone operators can start asking for
money for packets routed though their network based on who the packet is going
to. You want to watch Youtube? Well, your ISP thinks its unfair that you are
using the internet connection you paid for already to do that, they would
rather you watch their own service. So, they throttle your connection to
youtube, and ask money from both you and Google, to make it fast again.

The danger here is that Internet will be turned exactly what cable TV is now.

And if you do want physical world analogy, this is a better one: Imagine that
starting next Monday the Yellow Cab Company begins charging all business to
which a fare is delivered, since it is unreasonable for businesses to receive
the benefit of customers and employees arriving at their sites in a safe and
timely manner and for them to pay nothing. After all Yellow Cab Company spends
time, gas, and quite frankly, expects them to pay their fair share of the
fare. They may also begin billing all businesses passed on the way to a
destination, as these business receive "free marketing".

If presumably technical people visiting this site have such a hard problem
with net neutrality, I'd say the battle to keep internet free is lost.

~~~
rtx
Youtube already has an unfair advantage, which new video services can't match.

~~~
kodablah
What is unfair about it? Or are you using "unfair" to just mean that they have
a "large" advantage?

------
noyes
Can someone define net neutrality? I've yet to see a definition. Well if I
understand the definition then there's no debate. Net neutrality ended long
ago. Anyone ever heard of akamai?

------
1ba9115454
How much of this can just be fixed by the free market?

If I feel an ISP is limiting my choices wouldn't I just switch?

~~~
jballanc
How many ISPs do you have to choose from? Personally, I have two: Comcast and
AT&T. Comcast has been a nightmare recently, with almost weekly outages and
frequent periods of severely degraded bandwidth. AT&T (even their supposed
"Fiber" offering) requires a working copper twisted-pair RJ11 outlet where the
gateway is to be installed, which I don't have and which would require an
electrician and multiple holes in my walls to supply.

So I'm on Comcast. Reluctantly. Now what if Comcast decided to charge more for
access to HN?

Where's your free market god now?

~~~
TallGuyShort
>> Where's your free market god now?

Most places I've lived, the primary issue has been whether or not local
government will allow additional networks. Mine is very set on "You can have
Comcast or CenturyLink at DSL speeds". So I get DMV-like service anyway.

------
c8g
> Net neutrality is fundamental to competition.

so, I won't get 20 times faster youtube. fuck that net neutrality.

~~~
mcv
Your speed depends on the speed of your own connection, not on whether youtube
has a special deal with your ISP.

Net Neutrality means _you_ are the customer of your ISP, rather than the
content provider.

~~~
c8g
speed of my own connection is not sufficient to watch youtube video. youtube
don't have any deal with my ISP. they just provide extra facilities on play
store, youtube, facebook, dl.google.com (some isp on all google services)
ubuntu mirror, local server, connection with user in our country etc.

you probably won't want to spent half of your salary to watch youtube and
install a package faster.

------
M2Ys4U
(In the US)

------
sleepingeights
Many of these articles are missing an easily exploitable position. The key
term is "bandwidth" which is the resource at stake. What is being fought over
is how to define this "bandwidth" in a way that will be enforceable against
the citizen and favorable to the corporation (i.e. "government").

One way they could do this is to divide it like they did the radio spectrum by
way of frequency, where frequency is related to "bandwidth". The higher the
frequency, the greater the bandwidth. With communication advances, the
frequencies can be grouped just like they did with radio, where certain
"frequencies" are reserved by the government/military, and others are
monopolized by the corporations, and a tiny sliver is provided as a "public"
service.

This way would be the most easily enforceable for them to attack NN and the
first amendment, as it already exists by form of radio.

* It is already being applied by cable providers through "downstream/upstream" where your participation by "uploading" of your content is viewed inferior to your consumption of it. i.e. Your contribution (or upload) is a tiny fraction of your consumption (or download).

* Also, AWS, Google and other cloud services charge your VPS for "providing" content (egress) and charge you nothing for consuming (ingress). On that scale, the value of what you provide is so miniscule it is almost non-existent to the value of what you consume.

tldr; NN is already partly destroyed.

~~~
J5892
Bandwidth doesn't have a frequency. Net Neutrality is literally the concept of
treating all bandwidth the same, no matter the source.

------
jameslk
I don't understand why you're getting downvoted. This is a valid question and
shouldn't be downvoted so others can learn from the discussion.

~~~
dang
We detached this subthread from
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14291577](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14291577)
and marked it off-topic.

------
jwilk
If you want people to take your article seriously, then _maybe_ you shouldn't
put a pointless animated GIF in it.

~~~
scoates
The HTML of the page doesn't contain "888". This makes it impossible for some
disabled people to get the number at all.

This makes it a practical concern in addition to bad taste.

~~~
aplaice
It's rather sad that none of the images (that I checked — I might be wrong) on
blog.mozilla.org seem to have an alttext.

(For the record, while I generally dislike gifs, I don't have strong feelings,
either way, regarding the animated image here.)

~~~
Bartweiss
That is unfortunate. I'm not generally opposed to sensible use of images or
(occasionally) gifs, but the practice of describing their contents in alttext
is excellent - it enables both usability and machine-readability, and I really
hope it catches on more widely.

------
JustAnotherPat
November 8th was critical to the Internet's future, not today. People made
their bed when they refused to get behind Clinton. Now you must accept the
consequences.

------
albertTJames
Neutrality does not mean anything should be authorized... international law
should allow ISP to submit to judiciary surveillance of individuals if those a
suspected of serious crimes, terrorism, pedophilia, black hat hacking,
psychological operations/fake news. I don't think because policemen can stop
me in the street it is a violation of my freedom. Moreover the article is
extremely vague and use argumentum ad populum to push its case while remaining
quite unclear on what is really planned: "His goal is clear: to overturn the
2015 order and create an Internet that’s more centralized."

------
bjt2n3904
So, which is it HackerNews? Are we OK with companies deciding what gets on the
internet, or are we not? On one hand, we laud Facebook et al. for suppressing
"fake news", and then we get upset when ISPs do the same.

Furthermore, the FCC has historically engaged in content regulation. Anyone
wonder why there's no more cartoons on broadcast television? Or perhaps why
the FCC is investigating Colbert's Trump Jokes? If we're so concerned about
content freedom, the FCC is not the organization to trust.

~~~
croon
> So, which is it HackerNews? Are we OK with companies deciding what gets on
> the internet, or are we not? On one hand, we laud Facebook et al. for
> suppressing "fake news", and then we get upset when ISPs do the same.

If you could only access the internet through Facebook, you would have a
point.

You don't.

> Furthermore, the FCC has historically engaged in content regulation. Anyone
> wonder why there's no more cartoons on broadcast television? Or perhaps why
> the FCC is investigating Colbert's Trump Jokes? If we're so concerned about
> content freedom, the FCC is not the organization to trust.

You mean the FCC under George Bush Sr, and the current Republican majority FCC
that wants to repeal net neutrality issued by the formerly Democratic majority
FCC?

The people distrusting the government running up the the election currently
seems to trust the government a great deal.

You can't issue timeless blanket statements regarding any organization
consisting of rotating individuals. Hell, even the two parties have switched
places a few times throughout history.

~~~
bjt2n3904
> If you could only access the internet through Facebook, you would have a
> point.

Effectively, many people do. They open their web browsers, and search for
"facebook", and click the first link. Don't even get me started about Google!

My point is that regulating the network and regulating the endpoints are one
and the same. It's bad enough when the endpoints do it under the guise of
"fake news", it's worse when the government gets involved under the guise of
"free speech".

The current political party will not significantly affect the organizations
behavior, either. Get back to me when the FCC ceases investigating Obscenity,
Indecency & Profanity, or regulating the RF space.

~~~
chasing
You're conflating a bunch of different things into a kind of opinion mush.

A common carrier is a very specific thing legally. Being a common carrier puts
you in a very powerful position, so the government applies regulations to
common carriers so they aren't put in the position of being "kingmakers" in a
wide range of industries by either blocking certain people from using their
utilities or extorting them.

Facebook is a publisher, essentially. Having the government step in to decide
what a company can publish on their own website seems... problematic.

------
vivekd
>The internet is not broken,” There is no problem for the government to
solve.” - FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai

This is sooo true. If internet carriers were preferring some kind of content,
or censoring or giving less bandwidth to certain content, or charging for
certain content - and this was causing the problems described in the mozilla
article - then yes - we could have legislation to solve that problem.

What gets to me about the net neutrality movement is that the legislation they
are pushing for is based on vague fears and panic. Caring about net neutrality
has become some sort of weird silicon valley techno-virtue signaling.

If ISPs start behaving badly or restricting free speech, I would be happily on
board to having legislation to address that. This has not happened and there
is no evidence that there is any imminent threat of this happening. Net
neutrality legislation is a solution to a vague non-existent speculative
problem.

~~~
zmarty
If you have no problem with net neutrality, how about we just let it be?

~~~
vivekd
Because legislating every conceivable fear and every instance of mass panic
will lead to an overly complex and overly burdensome legal system that hampers
legitimate activity.

In the words of Cicero, "more laws, less justice"

When we start having problems with net neutrality, we can legislate against
it. As we don't have any such issues, and there is no evidence that we are in
imminent threat of net neutrality being dismantled, I see no reason for net
neutrality legislation.

~~~
rybosome
Do you trust the Trump administration and Ajit Pai to listen to the public at
that point? I sure as fuck don't. You're right that I don't know of any
instances of the sort of censorship people are afraid of, but once they start
happening, I have zero faith that the (current) government will protect
consumers' rights.

~~~
narrowrail
I'm a big proponent of NN, but do you think it would be popular to screw with
people's internet? The "internet _is_ serious business" (these days).

