Follow-up
With a big "middle-finger-up-in-the-air" to consumers, small business owners, and other companies, the Republicans in the House have dutifully cow-towed to the demands of the Telecomms. ATT&T, BellSouth, et. al. have recieved the return of their "investment" into the campaigns of House Republicans.
It is rare that I agree with Democrats, but they got it right on this one. Read the article:
House rejects Net neutrality rules | Tech News on ZDNet:
"The U.S. House of Representatives definitively rejected the concept of Net neutrality on Thursday, dealing a bitter blow to Internet companies like Amazon.com, eBay and Google that had engaged in a last-minute lobbying campaign to support it."
2 comments:
When government ceases private property for its own use we call that 'socialism' or 'communism'.
"net nuetrality" is just another word for it too.
The lines over which the internet is transmitted were constructed by out-lay of capital by the telcos. They have rights of ownershiop over those lines which includes charging more for specific content (if they so choose).
When government infringes on private property rights that is when we have a problem.
Yesterday government upheld the private property rights of the telcos. Which is a victory for freedom and commerce.
You should be proud of your government.
Thanks for your comments and your insight. I can tell you have given a principled and careful analysis of the subject.
As a person who leans toward libertarian ideas and concepts, your argument makes a great deal of sense. However, I believe you are forgetting who the clients of the telecoms are. I have no problems with my ISP charging me more for faster, more reliable access so they can recoup their costs. I believe it is bogus, though, for them to charge me AND the company from which I want to get my information. Regulating interstate commerce is a legitimate, constitutional function of Congress and the Internet is clearly an actor in interstate commerce and thus can be regulated by Congress.
Also, it is not like these big companies are not paying for access to the Internet. They are charged by their ISP for each bit that flows from their servers. So, you are charged by your ISP to access the Internet and the company is charged by its ISP to be on the Internet. However, for you to access the content the data may have to travel over third party lines that neither you nor the company have paid for. The telecoms want to charge for that traffic. Up until recently, the telecoms have had agreements that have basically said, I will let your traffic through if you let mine through. All the Democrats want to do is codify an existing practice AND they have precedent for doing it. Telephone calls are codified this way already.
Basically, since Internet Access is more akin to a utility than to a product, it should have the same protections as other utilities. There is nothing socialist or really even anti-free market about that concept.
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