Verizon wins, Net Neutrality Loses, As Court Ruling Opens Door to a Tiered Internet

I see this as a very bad turn of events. The cable providers can now slow or completely block internet traffic that they don't like. This makes the cable companies the legal censors of your internet.

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I think this deserves a boycott of Verizon and any other companies that fought to end net neutrality.

I am thinking that they won't as it would just hurt business.

First, all the providers would have to conspire to block traffic, which would not happen by law.

Second, the moment one provider does this, others will take full advantage of it and offer unblocked access to pull customers away from those that block.

This is the advantage of free enterprise.

However, this is a win for speed data as providers can go back to prioritizing data to get the maximum throughput.

First, the worst aspects, and most difficult to know with certainty is occurring, will be throttling of specific sites. People are pretty impatient with internet load speeds and if it is perceived to be the site and not their connection, many will go to another site. For those highly dependent on traffic for revenue, that might be enough to threaten existence.

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Second and more importantly, Verizon would not be spending the enormous sums to prod their battalions of mercenary attorneys to continue on this already years long effort....IF they had no plans to make use of the victory.

It was my understanding that the providers were already doing this. Then the Net Neutrality law stepped in and a short while later it was struck down.

That means that things will return to the way they were before.

It is sort of like letting high priority traffic have the right of way. We let an ambulance have the right of way on the road because it is more important than the fraction of a minute we might lose on our commute.

In the ER a doctor may need internet priority to get an X-Ray or scan sent to a consulting doctor. We would not want to give some petty movie download equal rights to another's life saving needs on the net any more than we would want to force an ambulance to wait in the same morning traffic we sit in - just to be fair. So your download gets delayed a few milliseconds.

For the most part any free enterprise has the right to pick and choose what products they would like to offer and sell. However, most businesses are more interested in profit than making political statements.

Offended customers go elsewhere and that is bad is for business. Free enterprise already has that mechanism built in to curb that form of operation, so I am not too concerned that the internet providers will turn into the equivalent of the Chinese State Internet Information Office and start adding resources to cull out packets of information they see as too politically, ethically, or religiously unfit.

So, we are back to the way things were before 2011. I doubt most people will really notice the difference.

.... but we don't let McDonalds or Coke decide who gets to be qualified as an ambulance.

Private enterprise will always respond to what the paying customers want, or don't want them doing. Government doesn't care.

A brief stroll through history, shows that every abuse that the government is involved in, started by them getting their foot in the door by promising to make things better.

When it comes to the internet, I don't care what their excuse is for gaining control...just say no. It's bad enough that they're tracking our every keystroke.

http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/1993/10/em368-why-the-fairness-doctrine-is-anything-but-fair

http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-57329001-281/how-sopa-would-affect-you-faq/

What's that saying about "good intentions"?

I think it was - The information highway to Hell is paved with good intentions.

SOPA and Net Neutrality are pretty much equivalent in your head?

I assume that you looked at the links, and either didn't associate them with the context of my post, or didn't understand the context, so I'll spell it out for you.

There is a common theme running here...and the theme is, that each of these things represents an opportunity for the government to start exercising control over the internet. Sorry if I confused you... no SOPA and net neutrality are not the same thing; they are two different vehicles that can be used to achieve the same goal.

You didn't confuse me, what I meant by 'pretty much equivalent in your head', can also be expressed as 'used to achieve the same goal' in this particular context.

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I was just surprised that you have boiled-down the likely net-effect of these two things so thoroughly that what remains for your analysis of the critical net effect for each is indistinguishable for you.

Why?

Is it really that far fetched to believe that the same government that is shredding the constitution via the NSA, and has taken control of most televised media, would be interested in gaining a stronghold in the internet domain?

Trust me, they hate the internet.

You honestly believe that all they are interested in, is keeping you safe and helping you, huh?

In a way, I envy you.

I don't trust the government in general and never as a default in specific.

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This does not prevent me from being able to see the difference in SOPA and net neutrality. I also do not default to trust when it concerns the possibility that large corporations might be acting in my best interest either.

Then we agree.

I don't necessarily trust large corporations either, but unlike the government, I have a choice in whether or not to deal with them.

Wait. That's not accurate. It used to be that way; now we've got government and the mega-corporations merging, so we will be forced to deal with both.

Maybe we should stop voting for crony corporatists. We've gone from bad to worse.

'....I have a choice in whether or not to deal with them....'

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That choice is illusory in many situations today. I'm glad you made it clear you realize that in the very next line.