FCC to investigate Comcast BitTorrent blocking

[MrMxyzptlk]

Those who've paid close attention to a few of my past posts/PMs about ISPs and Bittorent technology, and my own story, and any of you that might doubt your own ability to cause change in situations of "the powerless people versus Big Corporation." guess what? It probably wasn't just me, but my letters to my senators and congressmen/-women have born fruit:

FCC to investigate Comcast BitTorrent blocking

[§§}Compdude]

I hoped that would happen to them. Blocking P2P is an infringement of rights. I think.

[AR~Archon]

I was really glad to read that Ars Technica article earlier today, too.  I don't really use BitTorrent, but it's the principle of it.  Network neutrality really is an important operating principle, I think.  I've also felt that, when ISPs do things like this, it puts them in the territory of becoming legally liable for all the traffic on their networks (a position I'm sure they don't want to be in).

[Volley]

  _idk_

What is this language?? 

[MrMxyzptlk]

I was really glad to read that Ars Technica article earlier today, too.  I don't really use BitTorrent, but it's the principle of it.  Network neutrality really is an important operating principle, I think.  I've also felt that, when ISPs do things like this, it puts them in the territory of becoming legally liable for all the traffic on their networks (a position I'm sure they don't want to be in).

Agreed.

In fact, in my letters I made an anology with "casually/regularly wiretapping" customer's telephone lines to assure they were being used only for legal activities!   


Oh, and Volley: It's Greek.

 

[Condurre]

If you are interested in technology (which especially includes the Internet) and the government(s) and various corporations trying to take control of it from us, I'd suggest visiting the Electronic Frontier Foundation website.

http://www.eff.org/

They are currently involved in all the issues we should care about which includes telecom immunity, copyrights, and illegal wiretaps.

Condurre

[MrMxyzptlk]

Good reference to mention, indeed, Condurre.  Thx.

So, this hit the news yesterday.

WHAT IS WRONG WITH THESE PPL?!?!

(BTW, Microsoft has backed off of the statement stating that it may "develop technology" to do this, but will not directly apply such technology itself....  Which seems just as bad as DOING IT to me!!  )

[AR~Archon]

EFF FTW!

I read about that, too, Mxy.  :(  A more heavy-handed approach that goes even more emphatically towards my previous point.

The part that bothers me the most is the presumption of illegal activity.  I don't see how any network-level software can capture all the legal complexities, especially across international boundaries.  Hopefully that makes such a proposal unfeasible... before any significant damage is done.

I really don't know what's wrong with these people.  Sigh.

[BFM_Hydra]

What sort of power does the FCC have in America?

[AR~Archon]

Wikipedia has a good description:

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is a United States government agency, created, directed, and empowered by Congressional statute (see 47 U.S.C. § 151 and 47 U.S.C. § 154), and with the majority of its commissioners appointed by the current president.

The FCC was established by the Communications Act of 1934 as the successor to the Federal Radio Commission and is charged with regulating all non-Federal Government use of the radio spectrum (including radio and television broadcasting), and all interstate telecommunications (wire, satellite and cable) as well as all international communications that originate or terminate in the United States. It is an important factor in US telecommunication policy. The FCC took over wire communication regulation from the Interstate Commerce Commission.

The FCC has slowly over time been getting into regulation of areas other than wireless-broadcast issues.  I'd have to say they have a decent amount of regulatory power.

[BFM_Hydra]

Hmm...I see.

The ACCC (Australian Competition and Consumer Commission) here in Australia is the regulating body over businesses and such - but they never doing ANYTHING (Except disallow our two biggest retail companies Coles and Woolworths from merging...So they would have a total of 80% of ALL retail sales in Australia. Smart move LOL).

I'm sure we have one for communications also, I just don't know it

[AR~Unit»Zero]

I don't know why any ISP would want to restrict file sharing as it would cause them to lose a lot of customers. Seems like bad business sense to me. (Unless you're the RIAA, which as we know has no sense.)  

[BFM_saes]

I don't know why any ISP would want to restrict file sharing as it would cause them to lose a lot of customers. Seems like bad business sense to me.

Yet loads of the ISPs here do exactly that. They shape P2P to an unusable level.
Their excuse: bandwidth costs too much.

[MrMxyzptlk]

I don't know why any ISP would want to restrict file sharing as it would cause them to lose a lot of customers. Seems like bad business sense to me.

Yet loads of the ISPs here do exactly that. They shape P2P to an unusable level.
Their excuse: bandwidth costs too much.

Not at the prices that we're paying!!

I don't see how privacy laws cannot prevail here, tho, even if they argue that they're examining content that is "in the open" if it's on the "open Internet...."

And Hydra, your equiv. agency is the ACMA....

[MrMxyzptlk]

Guess what???

Justice prevailed!

Sort-of....



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