Say Goodbye to the Internet As We Know It

Ajit Pai was chosen by President Donald trump to be the Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in January 2017. Pai almost immediately made his intentions clear, “We need to fire up the weed whacker and remove those rules that are holding back investment, innovation and job creation,” Pai said. It turns out that in Pai’s opinion, the net neutrality rules put in place under the Obama Administration are some of the weeds that need wacking.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia fully upheld the prior FCC’s net neutrality rules on June 14, 2016.

These weedy rules prohibit internet service providers (ISPs) from blocking or slowing web traffic or creating so-called paid internet fast lanes. Without network neutrality, ISPs can legally create a tiered internet where some sites will load faster than others.

Right now, for example, ISPs are banned from prioritizing content and services of their affiliates. Remove this rule, and Comcast would be able to provide its NBCUniversal affiliate faster movie streaming than, say Netflix. It’s hard to know who owns what in today’s fast-changing media empire wars. For example, one of the websites I visited for information on this story contained a footnote, saying, “Comcast, through its NBCU arm, is an investor in Vox Media, which owns this website.”

Pai’s rollback also scraps the legal foundation that the FCC’s old Democratic majority adopted in 2015 to tighten federal oversight of internet service providers, and it would get rid of the so-called general conduct standard, which gives the FCC authority to police behavior by ISPs it deems unreasonable. According to Ars Technica, Comcast is already the most hated company in America, so apparently the way they're screwing consumers is considered reasonable.

The only people who seem to want Ajit Pai's revisionist policy are the people at companies like Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T. Incidentally, these companies routinely give immense amounts of money to members of Congress. Here in Eastern Washington, Cathy McMorris-Rogers (R-WA5) and Dan Newhouse (R-WA4) are grateful recipients.

Americans can contact their elected representatives and ask them to urge the FCC take action to protect network neutrality with strong legislation. Unless, that is, you live in the 4th or 5th Congressional Districts, where Representatives Newhouse and McMorris-Rogers have made their intentions known. They’re going with the big money players.

You’ll be better served by going directly to the FCC and commenting on the proceeding, which is known (I kid you not) as “Restoring Internet Freedom,” Proceeding 17-108, https://tinyurl.com/m99426b.

Dan Newhouse and Cathy McMorris Rogers Sold You to Charter

From Tech Crunch's Taylor Hatmaker 5 hours ago:

Today in a 215-205 vote on Senate Joint Resolution 34 (H. Res. 230), the House voted to repeal broadband privacy regulations that the Obama administration’s FCC introduced in 2016. In a narrower vote than some expected, 15 Republicans broke rank to join the 190 Democrats who voted against the repeal. The FCC rules, designed to protect consumers, required ISPs to seek consent from their customers in order to share their sensitive private data (it’s worth noting that ISPs can collect it, either way).

Today’s vote is a blow to anyone who’d prefer not to put their browsing history on blast, and a major victory for advertisers hungry for all of the de-anonymized personal data that they can vacuum up and dole out. With Congress and the FCC squarely in the latter’s camp, consumers who value privacy — and really, we all should — are in for a rough ride.

The language of the joint resolution is as follows:

This joint resolution nullifies the rule submitted by the Federal Communications Commission entitled “Protecting the Privacy of Customers of Broadband and Other Telecommunications Services.” The rule published on December 2, 2016: (1) applies the customer privacy requirements of the Communications Act of 1934 to broadband Internet access service and other telecommunications services, (2) requires telecommunications carriers to inform customers about rights to opt in or opt out of the use or the sharing of their confidential information, (3) adopts data security and breach notification requirements, (4) prohibits broadband service offerings that are contingent on surrendering privacy rights, and (5) requires disclosures and affirmative consent when a broadband provider offers customers financial incentives in exchange for the provider’s right to use a customer’s confidential information.

The vote among Washington representatives looked like this:

Nay       D       DelBene, Suzan (WA 1st)
Nay       D       Larsen, Rick (WA 2nd)
Nay       R       Herrera Beutler, Jaime (WA 3rd)
Yea       R       Newhouse, Dan (WA 4th)
Yea       R       McMorris Rodgers, Cathy (WA 5th)
Nay       D       Kilmer, Derek (WA 6th)
Nay       D       Jayapal, Pramila (WA 7th)
Nay       R       Reichert, David (WA 8th)
Nay       D       Smith, Adam (WA 9th)
Nay       D       Heck, Denny (WA 10th)

"Hello, Charter? This is Dan. I voted 'Yea'. You're welcome.

I will call Dan Newhouse's office again tomorrow and tell him how disappointed I am in his vote. I'll also send him a postcard illustrating how I feel. What will you do?