End Of The Internet As We Know It

Late Monday, a majority of the FCC's commissioners indicated that they're going to vote with Chairman Julius Genachowski for a toothless Net Neutrality rule.

According to all reports, the rule, which will be voted on during tomorrow's FCC meeting, falls drastically short of earlier pledges by President Obama and the FCC Chairman to protect the free and open Internet.

The rule is so riddled with loopholes that it's become clear that this FCC chairman crafted it with the sole purpose of winning the endorsement of AT&T and cable lobbyists, and not defending the interests of the tens of millions of Internet users.

Welcome to AT&T's Internet

For the first time in history of telecommunications law the FCC has given its stamp of approval to online discrimination.

Instead of a rule to protect Internet users' freedom to choose, the Commission has opened the door for broadband payola - letting phone and cable companies charge steep tolls to favor the content and services of a select group of corporate partners, relegating everyone else to the cyber-equivalent of a winding dirt road.

Instead of protecting openness on wireless Internet devices like the iPhone and Droid, the Commission has exempted the mobile Internet from Net Neutrality protections. This move enshrines Verizon and AT&T as gatekeepers to the expanding world of mobile Internet access, allowing them to favor their own applications while blocking, degrading or de-prioritizing others.

Instead of re-establishing the FCC's authority to act as a consumer watchdog over the Internet, it places the agency's authority on a shaky and indefensible legal footing -- giving ultimate control over the Internet to a small handful of carriers.

Obama's 'Mission Accomplished'

Internet users deserve far better, and we thought we were going to get it from a president who promised to "take a backseat to no one in my commitment to Net Neutrality." Watch as he and his FCC chairman try to spin tomorrow's betrayal as another "mission accomplished."

Don't believe it. This bogus victory has become all too familiar to those watching the Obama administration and its appointees squander opportunities for real change. The reality is that reform is just a rhetorical front for industry compromises that reward the biggest players and K-Street lobbyists while giving the public nothing.

It's not the FCC chairman's job to seek consensus among the corporations that he was put into office to regulate. His duty is to protect Internet users.

More than two million people have taken action on behalf of Net Neutrality. Tomorrow, we'll all get the carpet yanked from beneath our feet.

Net Neutrality is the freedom of speech, freedom of choice issue of the 21st century. It's the guarantee of a more open and democratic media system that was baked into the Internet at its founding.

On Tuesday, Obama's FCC is going to sell that out.

That's right! Yet another personal freedom going to big business. Why hasn't this been covered in the media?

WTF? America the new communist? What happen to land of the free?

Only in America is right,but we'll be the first to demonize other countries for cutting off access. This is beyond absurd and our media has failed on top of everything, why wasn't this front in center on every media outlet? Are they bought and payed for too?!

Only in America is right,but we'll be the first to demonize other countries for cutting off access. This is beyond absurd and our media has failed on top of everything, why wasn't this front in center on every media outlet? Are they bought and payed for too?!

BloodJunkie213

Could the Freemasons have anything to do the this? Damn those conspiracies.

This is beyond absurd and our media has failed on top of everything, why wasn't this front in center on every media outlet? Are they bought and payed for too?!

BloodJunkie213

WTF? America the new communist? What happen to land of the free?

stevoqwerty

Damn, glad I live in Europe.

Looks like I'll have to go outside and talk to people.

Too bad I live in an area populated mostly by folks over 60.

Looks like I'll have to go outside and talk to people.

Too bad I live in an area populated mostly by folks over 60.

THE_DRUGGIE

Me too,but I live in Alabama...need I say more?

Can Obama get any worse? About 1/4th of his campaign promises I liked, and those are the only one's he has yet to follow through on, Gitmo, Net Neutrality, Wars in Iraq/ Afg., and of course all of the stuff I didn't like has been passed at least in some form.

WTF? America the new communist? What happen to land of the free?

stevoqwerty

Forgive my ignorance, but, what does this mean? My technical knowledge of this English terms are lackluster making this text quiet confusing for me.

From what i understand, they planning to charge according to the sites you visit?

i thought OT was overwhelmingly supportive of this.....surrealnumber5

WTF? America the new communist? What happen to land of the free?

stevoqwerty

WTF? America the new communist? What happen to land of the free?

stevoqwerty

lolwut, America isn't even communist.

[QUOTE="stevoqwerty"]

WTF? America the new communist? What happen to land of the free?

Franklinstein

ironically, giving control of the web to major businesses sounds more like capitalism then anything

I guess I'm lost here...isn't the FCC keeping the net neutral a good thing?

Forget all this stupid freedom of speech nonsense.

This all boils down to one of two things.

1. ISP's will charge YOU more for using online services that use big chunks of their bandwidth (Netflix, etc...)

-OR-

2. Online services will charge YOU more for having to pay the ISPs extra bandwidth usage fees.

Doesn't matter which way the ruling went - In the end, WE, THE WEB USER, will be paying more.

The only thing that was REALLY being debated through all this is which entity would be raising their prices. Would it be the online services? Or the ISPs themselves?

Well, this ruling pretty much allows ISPs to charge online services, like Netflix, extra fees (kinda like tolls) for using their bandwidth highways. To counter this, you can expect Netflix to raise their monthly fees again to compesate.

It'll keep the ISP fees for the non-Netflix users fees down. But people who like Netflix will have to pay Netflix more money.

Now, beyond that, I'm 99% sure there is no way for an ISP to legally block a service that it doesn't make money directly off of. Comcast can't block Youtube in favor of it's own in-house video storage site, for example - that right is still secure. But, the ISPs can charge tolls to Youtube if they feel it's costing them money, which might ultimately force Youtube to start some sort of subscription service.

Again, in the end, all that's being discussed is which entity is going to raise it's fees.

Fees are going up for you and me no matter which side wins. It's lose/lose for all of us.

... and I feel finexaos

Lol, that gave me a good laugh.

WASHINGTON – A divided Federal Communications Commission has approved new rules meant to prohibit broadband companies from interfering with Internet traffic flowing to their customers.

The regulations prohibit unreasonable network discrimination — a category that FCC officials say would most likely include services that favor traffic from the broadband providers themselves or traffic from business partners that can pay for priority. The rules do, however, leave the door open for broadband providers to experiment with routing traffic from specialized services such as smart grids and home security systems over dedicated networks as long as these services are separate from the public Internet.

Source :Yahoo News

Forget all this stupid freedom of speech nonsense.

This all boils down to one of two things.

1. ISP's will charge YOU more for using online services that use big chunks of their bandwidth (Netflix, etc...)

-OR-

2. Online services will charge YOU more for having to pay the ISPs extra bandwidth usage fees.

Doesn't matter which way the ruling went - In the end, WE, THE WEB USER, will be paying more.

The only thing that was REALLY being debated through all this is which entity would be raising their prices. Would it be the online services? Or the ISPs themselves?

Well, this ruling pretty much allows ISPs to charge online services, like Netflix, extra fees (kinda like tolls) for using their bandwidth highways. To counter this, you can expect Netflix to raise their monthly fees again to compesate.

It'll keep the ISP fees for the non-Netflix users fees down. But people who like Netflix will have to pay Netflix more money.

Now, beyond that, I'm 99% sure there is no way for an ISP to legally block a service that it doesn't make money directly off of. Comcast can't block Youtube in favor of it's own in-house video storage site, for example - that right is still secure. But, the ISPs can charge tolls to Youtube if they feel it's costing them money, which might ultimately force Youtube to start some sort of subscription service.

Again, in the end, all that's being discussed is which entity is going to raise it's fees.

Fees are going up for you and me no matter which side wins. It's lose/lose for all of us.

Netherscourge

Wow, almost all the people who posted here have a lack of knowledge of this proposal. Here:

Net Neutrality = Open Internet ; no discrimination (ISPs cant slow down certain web pages of competitors, etc)

FCC Proposal = Net Neutrality

WTF? Well what do you know. A little reading can go a long way guys.

I do not like this at all, nor the sound of it. So much has already gone to the corporate large businesses and the small people get the shaft....

Wow, almost all the people who posted here have a lack of knowledge of this proposal. Here:

Net Neutrality = Open Internet ; no discrimination (ISPs cant slow down certain web pages of competitors, etc)

FCC Proposal = Net Neutrality

WTF? Well what do you know. A little reading can go a long way guys.

DroidPhysX

The ruling prevents ISPs from reducing bandwidth for competitor's services. That much is true.

But it DOESN'T prevent ISPs from charging Netflix or Youtube (for example) tolls for streaming videos to the ISP's customers over their own bandwidth - which means, unless Netflix or Youtube wants to eat the toll charges like it has been already, they are going to probably raise their customers rates again to cancel out the lost profit.

If the ruling went the other way, ISPs would have simply raised their own customer's rates to cover the extra bandwidth being used up by the online services.

Technically, Net Neutrality is secure. However, for online services like Netflix, they will most likely get hit with tolls that will be passed onto Netflix customers.

You ever wonder why Youtube videos have those annoying pop-up ads on them? It's to pay off the ISP toll charges, among other annoying fees. Well, Netflix will probably put them on their streaming videos too - unless you pay extra to remove them.

[QUOTE="DroidPhysX"]

Wow, almost all the people who posted here have a lack of knowledge of this proposal. Here:

Net Neutrality = Open Internet ; no discrimination (ISPs cant slow down certain web pages of competitors, etc)

FCC Proposal = Net Neutrality

WTF? Well what do you know. A little reading can go a long way guys.

Netherscourge

The ruling prevents ISPs from reducing bandwidth for competitor's services. That much is true.

But it DOESN'T prevent ISPs from charging Netflix or Youtube (for example) tolls for streaming videos to the ISP's customers over their own bandwidth - which means, unless Netflix or Youtube wants to eat the toll charges like it has been already, they are going to probably raise their customers rates again to cancel out the lost profit.

If the ruling went the other way, ISPs would have simply raised their own customer's rates to cover the extra bandwidth being used up by the online services.

Technically, Net Neutrality is secure. However, for online services like Netflix, they will most likely get hit with tolls that will be passed onto Netflix customers.

You ever wonder why Youtube videos have those annoying pop-up ads on them? It's to pay off the ISP toll charges, among other annoying fees. Well, Netflix will probably put them on their streaming videos too - unless you pay extra to remove them.

Verizon is my ISP, Why in the world would they want to charge Google for bandwidth charges on Youtube when Google is responsible for a large part of Verizon's profits due to Android?

Canada! the new land of freedom??funsohng

Canada has some of the worst ISPs in the world, and the CRTC is more-or-less bought and paid for by said ISPs. So not so much.

Wow, almost all the people who posted here have a lack of knowledge of this proposal. Here:

Net Neutrality = Open Internet ; no discrimination (ISPs cant slow down certain web pages of competitors, etc)

FCC Proposal = Net Neutrality, but with so many loopholes it doesn't really accomplish anything. Oh, and there's a good chance the rules aren't even enforcable in the first place.

WTF? Well what do you know. A little reading can go a long way guys.

DroidPhysX

FTFY.

LOL even if it turns out bad , while im against all these extra fees (if they will start charging more for more content) everyone swears like we are obligated to pay to go to youtube, its so simple guys, you can do the most damage with your wallets, just imagine if this fcc thing passes, we have net neutrality which is what we wanted, and say we all get charged up the a**? what do you do? simple, stop paying for everything, stop paying for internet, i know for sure if i get screwed over i aint gonna be paying for jack, and if millions and millions of people stop paying, obviously the business is going to be so heavily damaged from not making any profits that they will have to change it, everyone talks about freedom and what not, over here but your forgetting that same freedom works to out advantage, we can rebell, we have the freedom to fight, no violence, we have the freedom to chose to pay or not to pay

Someone needs to Fight for the Users!

Someone needs to Fight for the Users!

ToastRider11

Canada! the new land of freedom??funsohng

implying america was the land of freedom at any point

Went from DADT policy dying which was wonderful.....to Net Neutrality....wow Mr. Barrack Obama Foxi911

Doesn't effect Comcast does it?

Good. Maybe now people will get off their *** and do something productive with their lives. Maniacc1

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why I'm not a patriot.

hate this country sometimes.. .

Wow, almost all the people who posted here have a lack of knowledge of this proposal. Here:

Net Neutrality = Open Internet ; no discrimination (ISPs cant slow down certain web pages of competitors, etc)

FCC Proposal = Net Neutrality

WTF? Well what do you know. A little reading can go a long way guys.

DroidPhysX

I wished you would have read the OP. Yes Net Neutrality is a good thing,if the proposal being voted on had teeth,it has so many loopholes,and paves the way for big buissness to up charges. So yes reading can go a long way..

Also this bill does NOT include mobile devices, for instance no more Google Maps on Verizon Network.

[QUOTE="Maniacc1"]Good. Maybe now people will get off their *** and do something productive with their lives. Mochyc

IRONY! :o

Oh, America... I guess it's nearly time to move out.

WTF? America the new communist? What happen to land of the free?

stevoqwerty