AT&T "kills net neutrality," announces sponsored data

Prepare for some stupid shit like this:

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ZOo00OOm said:
What does this mean?
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It means internet service providers can hold both websites and their customers hostage.

Think about it this way. Comcast is your cable provider. Lets pretend Comcast buys out Blizzard Games (bad example, but I'm using well known examples). World of Warcraft is one of the most popular MMOs... so is Final Fantasy 14. Without net neutrality, Comcast can say to Square-Enix, "pay us eleventy-billion $ or we will throttle traffic to your FF14 servers". This could potentially drive traffic away from FF14 and towards WOW.

Again, this is a highly unlikely scenario; but its now something considered legal. It could possibly get even worse. Lets say, Comcast, instead of deciding to go after Square-Enix; goes right after the consumer. They can say "hey, if you want to play FF14 on our network, you need to pay us an extra $20 a month for our "gaming" package".

The supreme court can say all they want about net neutrality not being needed since there is enough market competition; but for a lot of people, they only have one source of broadband internet... their cable company. And cable companies are in fact, a state sanctioned monopoly. They cited google fiber as evidence of competition, and yet google fiber is only available in THREE cities.
 
ZOo00OOm said:
What does this mean?
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Net neutrality means that all data is treated equally by governments and service providers. Without net neutrality, any ISP could put a paywall behind certain sites (make you pay for things like youtube/netflix/etc), put a data cap on internet subscriptions (some of them already do this, essentially, if you go over xGB/month you have to pay a fee), etc.

Essentially, this has the potential of turning the Internet into what the cable TV industry currently is.

I don't usually trust the Huffington Post, but this editor really hit the nail on the head:
The Huffington Post" said:
Consider for a moment the things that we would not have right now on the internet without net neutrality.

YouTube. This would present a threat to Verizon, etc. cable TV business so they would limit its bandwidth to make it unusable. Similarly for Netflix, Hulu, Vimeo, etc.

Skype. This would present a threat to their phone business of course so slow it down until it is unusable. Ditto for every other voip service other than the network's own.

Today these are established companies and might be able to ransom their way with the cable companies to get the clear access. Or extort the customers for extra charges to be able to run Youtube, netflix, and Skype. But what about the next new startup? If Verizon likes the new market could they just start their own competitor and deny the original entrepreneur the bandwidth to run well? Would facebook ever occur if Myspace could just go to the cable companies and say 'here is a bunch of money so that we are the only social network site that runs well. Would Myspace exist if friendster had done it?

We are going from an internet where new things were successful because they caught the imagination of users to one where they are successful because Verizon decides that they are profitable for them.

And if you are thinking 'but I get my internet from somebody else' There are only six tier-one providers on the internet 'backbone' in the US and they don't cover everywhere equally. So if one of those big companies decides to limit a site or service pretty much the whole country will suffer.
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Places like Russia and China were the first to kill Net Neutrality because that way political dissent can be easily dealt with.
Robert_J_King said:
Can it be revoked or appealed?
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I wouldn't hold my breath in the current political climate.
 
Hypothetical silver lining in this shitty cloud:
Online play becomes even less viable. Vibrant offline scenes emerge across the U.S.
 
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Norik said:
And as usual, no one gives a fuck.
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I think, fortunately, a lot of people do give a fuck about this and have been making a lot of noise about it, the same as when net neutrality became a big issue in 2006-2007 (from which we get Stevens' infamous "series of tubes" remark). I think this is one thing that the government actually won't be able to just slip past most people (though it's indeed scary what it can and does otherwise).
 
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It's funny how things on the internet get founded by forerunners of innovation, and those ideas become popular, then companies make those ideas more accessible by making it a business!

Then.... comes the dark side.... When the businesses go insane and monetize everything! =_=
 
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THIS IS JUST ANOTHER SIDE-EFFECT OF WHAT HAPPENS WHEN PESSIMISM ISN'T THE NORM.

THERE ARE BIGGER PROBLEMS THAN THIS, BUT PEOPLE ONLY CARE ABOUT LOSING THE INTERNET BECAUSE IT'S LIKE LOSING THEIR FAVOURITE TREAT. BUT IF THAT'S WHAT MAKES YOU ANGRY ENOUGH TO DEVOTE YOUR LIFE TO A CAUSE, OR TO TAKE ACTION WITH UNWAVERING CERTAINTY, THEN YOU'RE ANGRY FOR THE WRONG REASONS BECAUSE YOU'RE STILL AN OPTIMISTIC IDIOT DEEP DOWN.
 
I love how technically they cannot do this because internet is not really a place, thus no one should be able to hold supremacy over it.
 
I've been reading through this thread but held off on replying until I had a chance to learn more about the case (Verizon v. FCC) that was lost on appeal.

First @Der Lindwurm , what is "the government trying to slip by us"? The government (the FCC, supported by the DOJ) lost its court case on appeal because they don't have a statutory basis to enforce its order that maintained net neutrality. Believe or not, the current administration is trying to preserve and enforce net neutrality, but faces stiff resistance from Conservatives/Republicans within the FCC and in Congress.

Can it be revoked or appealed? Yes, it could be appealed up to the SCOTUS, but good luck trying to win that. Probably, the FCC will draft a new order, that preserves as much of the original as they can manage, or the more drastic step would be to reclassify ISPs as Title I basic utility providers, which would then allow the FCC to regulate ISPs the same way they regulate the phone companies, and would have statutory authority to enforce the order which was overturned.

If you read the opinion of the court, the majority (2 judges of the 3 judge panel) are basically saying just that; the third judge (Silberman, a Reagan appointee) wrote an opinion that was partially concurring, partially dissenting......the part he dissented on was the assertion that if the ISPs were reclassified as Title I utilities, the order would be lawful; he doesn't think the FCC has the authority to regulate them in that way at all.

I think the FCC will put up a fight for a while, but ultimately, they and especially we, will lose:
Verizon 2012 gross annual revenues: 115 Billion
AT&T 2012 gross annual revenues: 126 Billion
FCC's requested appropriation for FY 2013: 346.78 Million

P.S. Catgirl, you ignorant slut........the system is already monetized; all the FCC sought to do was allow free competition on a level playing field. Big corporations hate that, and will throw vast sums of money at anything to tip the balance to favor them , so that they can collect even larger sums from us. And when your ISP decides to charge you extra to allow you to play games online through XBL, over and above what you pay for XBL, keep it to yourself.
 
Quinion said:
First @Der Lindwurm , what is "the government trying to slip by us"? The government (the FCC, supported by the DOJ) lost its court case on appeal because they don't have a statutory basis to enforce its order that maintained net neutrality.
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In this case, the failure to uphold net neutrality. It was a federal court that ruled against it, it was congressmen on the FCC who originally reclassified internet service in a way that made this ruling possible, and you mentioned yourself that the cable companies have their allies in congress even though the Obama administration wants to uphold net neutrality. My point was that there's going to be a lot of pressure from the public on this particular issue and they're not going to be able to just shrug and let it go.
 
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Ramus said:
I love how technically they cannot do this because internet is not really a place, thus no one should be able to hold supremacy over it.
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Now that you mention it, there have been more rulings and things put in place for the interet as of late. For example, it is pretty much illegal for a business to create falsified positive reviews for itself or falsifying bad reviews for others. This was a hustle for a hot minute as people would be hired to carry out such things for businesses.
 
Der Lindwurm said:
In this case, the failure to uphold net neutrality. It was a federal court that ruled against it, it was congressmen on the FCC who originally reclassified internet service in a way that made this ruling possible, and you mentioned yourself that the cable companies have their allies in congress even though the Obama administration wants to uphold net neutrality. My point was that there's going to be a lot of pressure from the public on this particular issue and they're not going to be able to just shrug and let it go.
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No offense intended, I just hate those "the fucking Government..." comments, like the furry dude in @Donutman 's post. At this point, the US gov't is so dysfunctional they don't "do" anything......the checks and balances between the branches now just results in a lot of wheels spinning and a lot of fuel consumption but the car doesn't go anywhere.

After thinking about this a little more, I really think the FCC needs to reclassify access to the internet as a Title I utility. At this point, who doesn't do paperless statements for bank accts, mortgages, electric, water, etc? How about paperless paychecks? I haven't seen a physical paycheck from my company in like four years; the only way to know it's been deposited is to check the bank's website, or ADP's website. How about credit/debit purchases? Gotta use the internet for that too. It's high time it was recognized that internet access is an integral part of more than what many people realize. It's not just streaming Netflix anymore.
 
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