The Supreme Court Has Refused to Vacate Net Neutrality Ruling by Lower Court

cageymaru

cageymaru

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Today the Supreme Court refused to wipe away an earlier ruling by a lower court that upheld net neutrality laws. This does not undo the 2017 repeal of Net Neutrality, but "leaves a legal precedent in place that could help net neutrality supporters in any future legal battle if that policy is ever re-introduced." Nearly half the states and the District of Columbia have filed lawsuits to secure state rights to create their own net neutrality laws and California recently approved their own set of rules. The U.S. Department of Justice and ISP groups are suing to keep net neutrality laws off the books.

Industry trade group USTelecom, one of the groups that challenged the 2015 net neutrality rules, said the high court's action was "not surprising." USTelecom said it would "continue to support" the repeal "from challenges in Washington, D.C. and state capitals."
 
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tikiman2012 said:
Net Neutrality was defined as law. You could look it up & read it. That was before Pai went in there & fucked everything up.
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There is and never has been any net neutrality defined as law. To be law it would need to be passed in Congress and signed by the president. Nothing like that has ever happened so your definition means as much as everyone else's, absolutely nothing.

If you're referring to the FTC "rules", that has about as much resemblance to what I think net neutrality is as a pumpkin does to a skyscraper.
 
Ok folks, keep the politics out of this. If you want politics go to the approproate forum. Yes, I know what the topic is. If you can not discuss the topic without going into the current elections and/or politics then DO NOT POST in this thread.
 
There's so much distorted and inaccurate information going around, I don't even know what this all means anymore.
 
Spaceninja said:
If Google, Facebook and the like are pushing for something then you know it is bad for the consumer.
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*facepalm*

Does this make sense? "If ATT, Verizon and the like are pushing for something then you know it is good for the consumer."
 
buzzbomb said:
*facepalm*

Does this make sense? "If ATT, Verizon and the like are pushing for something then you know it is good for the consumer."
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Less red tape and regulation. Seems like something they want to stay away from to me. As a former business owner, the less government involvement the better.
 
Spaceninja said:
Less red tape and regulation. Seems like something they want to stay away from to me. As a former business owner, the less government involvement the better.
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I hate when people say this. No, you want good for consumer regulation and good for consumer laws. This is what you want. You want laws to protect us, the consumer from evil corporate greed.

You parroting the news, taking "Red Tape" and taking it completely out of context.

Protecting consumers, your Parents, Your Family, Future Business Owners, Your Future .... is a very good thing.

You really .... REALLY need to go and study and educate yourself on what the ISP's will eventually do if there is no Net Neutrality. They will use their power and control over data / internet to limit new businesses from introducing new technologies that will disrupt their "greed oriented business models"

This is what giant corporations do, they create "barrier to entry" to limit customer choice and to increase company profits.

I'm not sure what kind of business owner you were but for you to know know this, to understand this .. I find that unacceptable.
 
There is no victory hear. FCC abdicated jurisdiction, so there’s nothing left to rule on. Corporate American won without having to fight.
 
tikiman2012 said:
Good news. Didn't think it was possible from that corporate stacked court.
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Only because Roberts and Kavanaugh recused themselves; Robeters owns AT&T stock and Kavanaugh ruled on the issue previously. This heavily infers there's a 5-4 majority against Net Neutrality on the Supreme Court.
 
SmokeRngs said:
There is and never has been any net neutrality defined as law. To be law it would need to be passed in Congress and signed by the president. Nothing like that has ever happened so your definition means as much as everyone else's, absolutely nothing.

If you're referring to the FTC "rules", that has about as much resemblance to what I think net neutrality is as a pumpkin does to a skyscraper.
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Congress already passed a law by giving the FCC the ability to implement said regulations over the industry.
 
gamerk2 said:
Congress already passed a law by giving the FCC the ability to implement said regulations over the industry.
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Except that it didn't. I dare you to prove this by showing exactly what law Congress passed which allows the FCC to do whatever the hell it wants with regards to the internet.
 
SixFootDuo said:
I hate when people say this. No, you want good for consumer regulation and good for consumer laws. This is what you want. You want laws to protect us, the consumer from evil corporate greed.

You parroting the news, taking "Red Tape" and taking it completely out of context.

Protecting consumers, your Parents, Your Family, Future Business Owners, Your Future .... is a very good thing.

You really .... REALLY need to go and study and educate yourself on what the ISP's will eventually do if there is no Net Neutrality. They will use their power and control over data / internet to limit new businesses from introducing new technologies that will disrupt their "greed oriented business models"

This is what giant corporations do, they create "barrier to entry" to limit customer choice and to increase company profits.

I'm not sure what kind of business owner you were but for you to know know this, to understand this .. I find that unacceptable.
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You mean the thing they have been free to do for 20+ years and have never done? I remember the days when everyone screamed Keep the government away from the internet!! Now all of a sudden you’re screaming for regulation. You’re wanting a solution to a nonexistent problem. Peering agreements have been in place since forever, that seems to be sufficient. Sure, give the FCC control of the internet. Let them define “lawful traffic”. Give them an inch and they take a mile. The government is not generally the correct solution to a problem.
 
The PragerU video is probably the best this topic will ever get to being simplified. Remember in politics, the title of something has absolutely nothing to do with what is in it. Usually it is the opposite.

Ex. Affordable Care Act is the best example.
 
The lack of understanding of what this so called "net neutrality" was on this forum is astounding.

The government is not going to give you true net neutrality. None of the major players (ISPs, Facebook, Google, etc) want that. They want bureaucracy to transfer costs over to the "other side".
 
We already know what happened in Portugal without net neutrality or proper open market competition.

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Give it time and we'll get there too if the ISP cronies have their way.
 
SmokeRngs said:
Except that it didn't. I dare you to prove this by showing exactly what law Congress passed which allows the FCC to do whatever the hell it wants with regards to the internet.
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Done.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_Act_of_1934
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications_Act_of_1996

The 1934 Act gave the FCC the authority to oversee the economic regulation of the interstate activities of telephone and telegraph operators. The 1996 Act made additional changes to modernize the original law (with varying degrees of effectiveness).

When Congress crates an Agency to oversee some area of Federal policy, that empowers said Agency to pass rules and regulations so long as they fall within the scope of the Act that created them and they do not violate existing Federal law. Congress is free to pass laws whensoever they so choose to override a Federal Agency they themselves created and empowered.
 
gamerk2 said:
Done.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_Act_of_1934
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications_Act_of_1996

The 1934 Act gave the FCC the authority to oversee the economic regulation of the interstate activities of telephone and telegraph operators. The 1996 Act made additional changes to modernize the original law (with varying degrees of effectiveness).

When Congress crates an Agency to oversee some area of Federal policy, that empowers said Agency to pass rules and regulations so long as they fall within the scope of the Act that created them and they do not violate existing Federal law. Congress is free to pass laws whensoever they so choose to override a Federal Agency they themselves created and empowered.
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Thanks for proving my point. There's nothing in either one of those which gives the FCC the power to do what it tried to do and what you're claiming it can do. The internet didn't even exist for the first and was in its infancy for the second. Congress has yet to pass laws regarding what the FCC can do with the internet and that's the problem. The attempt to "regulate" the internet by the FCC in the previous administration was an attempt at a run around Congress. It's up to Congress to make laws, not the FCC. For the FCC to have the power over the internet you're claiming, Congress would have to draft and pass a law which in turn would need to be signed by the President giving control of the regulation of the internet to the FCC.

The FCC isn't some sort of catch all that you can use the way you want.
 
Spaceninja said:
Less red tape and regulation. Seems like something they want to stay away from to me. As a former business owner, the less government involvement the better.
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Exactly the same for me, as a current citizen.
 
SixFootDuo said:
I hate when people say this. No, you want good for consumer regulation and good for consumer laws. This is what you want. You want laws to protect us, the consumer from evil corporate greed.

You parroting the news, taking "Red Tape" and taking it completely out of context.

Protecting consumers, your Parents, Your Family, Future Business Owners, Your Future .... is a very good thing.

You really .... REALLY need to go and study and educate yourself on what the ISP's will eventually do if there is no Net Neutrality. They will use their power and control over data / internet to limit new businesses from introducing new technologies that will disrupt their "greed oriented business models"

This is what giant corporations do, they create "barrier to entry" to limit customer choice and to increase company profits.

I'm not sure what kind of business owner you were but for you to know know this, to understand this .. I find that unacceptable.
Click to expand...


Not me, I don't want "Laws to protect us", I want the government to ensure that I can protect myself. I don't need the government regulating everything, I just need them to protect my rights to seek redress in the courts as an individual or as a member of a group. If the big corps can make it impossible for me to look after myself then that is what they need to fix.

As a citizen, if I can't take my issue to the courts and see it heard and ruled on, then that is the root of the problem right there.
 
lcpiper said:
Not me, I don't want "Laws to protect us", I want the government to ensure that I can protect myself. I don't need the government regulating everything, I just need them to protect my rights to seek redress in the courts as an individual or as a member of a group. If the big corps can make it impossible for me to look after myself then that is what they need to fix.

As a citizen, if I can't take my issue to the courts and see it heard and ruled on, then that is the root of the problem right there.
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So, often the redress you get in court is because of laws or regulation. Otherwise, you'd be advocating for an entirely equity-based court system. Such a system would be (in my opinion) largely unpredictable, inconsistent, and (ironically) inequitable.
 
Laowai said:
There's so much distorted and inaccurate information going around, I don't even know what this all means anymore.
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When all else fails, fall back on reality. A corporation will charge as much as the market can bare (will pay). In a market without comptition and a service that has become ubiquitous with life, left unchecked corporations will just continue to charge more and more until either the consumer breaks, or government intervines.
 
Aireoth said:
When all else fails, fall back on reality. A corporation will charge as much as the market can bare (will pay). In a market without comptition and a service that has become ubiquitous with life, left unchecked corporations will just continue to charge more and more until either the consumer breaks, or government intervines.
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Sometimes.

I don't know how old you are, but if you bought a microwave in the 80s and you bought a microwave last month, ubuiquity doesn't always lead to higher pricing. I do not mean a 36" tv in 1991 and a 36" tv in 2018. I mean a microwave and a microwave.

Generally though, as you say, inelastic goods can withstand immense price pressure before yielding. The classic example is insulin.
 
Joust said:
Sometimes.

I don't know how old you are, but if you bought a microwave in the 80s and you bought a microwave last month, ubuiquity doesn't always lead to higher pricing. I do not mean a 36" tv in 1991 and a 36" tv in 2018. I mean a microwave and a microwave.

Generally though, as you say, inelastic goods can withstand immense price pressure before yielding. The classic example is insulin.
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There is a degree of competition in the home appliance market place, as well Microwaves are not a required good to live, the internet pretty much is.

I understand what your saying, but there hasn't ever been a thing like the internet in history, sure there have been big game changing innovations, like automobiles, indoor plumbing, heating, etc, but the internet is something so much more. We talk here on it, we read things on it, it connects all our communication, ideas, products, jobs, help services, literally everything is moving to the internet. When you have that much power in a product, the gatekeepers of that product become immensely powerful. It is almost impossible to live without the internet today, it is only a matter of time before it is absolutely impossible to live without the internet.

I think the closest analogy would be oil and gas, it is a required product around the world to provide electricity, heat, and fuel. We can see how refiners, producers and nations all work to manipulate the price for their own benefit. I would still say there is a difference here, because if you push O&G prices far enough, there are other products waiting to take its place, its just a matter of economics at this point. There really isn't anything like that for the internet, and it took decades for the internet to become what it is, it can't be replaced overnight.
 
Joust said:
So, often the redress you get in court is because of laws or regulation. Otherwise, you'd be advocating for an entirely equity-based court system. Such a system would be (in my opinion) largely unpredictable, inconsistent, and (ironically) inequitable.
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And how often does it measure up?

Look, a while ago the Government, in an effort to encourage businesses to provide information on breaches in support of government cyber defense efforts, offered civil immunity to companies that would sign up, meet government IA standards, and agree to external scans and audits of the systems to verify compliance.

In short, if you do it our way, then you can't possible do it any better, and reasonably, no one has grounds to sue you for a data breach because it's an imperfect world and you did all you could reasonably do.

This is not the government ensuring that I maintain my rights to hold them accountable. It's the opposite and it gave businesses the easy out. A shield against legal recourse, protection from the masses if you do it our way and give us the data we need, which might include your customer's data ..... incidental to the breach of course.

This is an example of the laws our government frequently passes to "protect us".
 
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Aireoth said:
There is a degree of competition in the home appliance market place, as well Microwaves are not a required good to live, the internet pretty much is.

I understand what your saying, but there hasn't ever been a thing like the internet in history, sure there have been big game changing innovations, like automobiles, indoor plumbing, heating, etc, but the internet is something so much more. We talk here on it, we read things on it, it connects all our communication, ideas, products, jobs, help services, literally everything is moving to the internet. When you have that much power in a product, the gatekeepers of that product become immensely powerful. It is almost impossible to live without the internet today, it is only a matter of time before it is absolutely impossible to live without the internet.

I think the closest analogy would be oil and gas, it is a required product around the world to provide electricity, heat, and fuel. We can see how refiners, producers and nations all work to manipulate the price for their own benefit. I would still say there is a difference here, because if you push O&G prices far enough, there are other products waiting to take its place, its just a matter of economics at this point. There really isn't anything like that for the internet, and it took decades for the internet to become what it is, it can't be replaced overnight.
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I believe the better analogy would be regulated utilities. Electric, water/wastewater...that type of thing. Something you need for which there is not a replacement. In every home.

Now, you could say the govt has stepped in here, and that would be true. However, in return for giving up the ability to raise rates on their own, regulated utilities often receive an exclusive charter - a regulated monopoly, as it were. That's sort of where the analogy falls apart. I'm not sure we would want to make that trade. Maybe we would. I don't know.
 
Joust said:
I believe the better analogy would be regulated utilities. Electric, water/wastewater...that type of thing. Something you need for which there is not a replacement. In every home.

Now, you could say the govt has stepped in here, and that would be true. However, in return for giving up the ability to raise rates on their own, regulated utilities often receive an exclusive charter - a regulated monopoly, as it were. That's sort of where the analogy falls apart. I'm not sure we would want to make that trade. Maybe we would. I don't know.
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I think we are already largely there on the Monopoly side, just without the regulation end.
 
Aireoth said:
When all else fails, fall back on reality. A corporation will charge as much as the market can bare (will pay). In a market without comptition and a service that has become ubiquitous with life, left unchecked corporations will just continue to charge more and more until either the consumer breaks, or government intervines.
Click to expand...


It might seem so. But competition is what competition does. As long as the government is truly focused on protecting competition then everything will work out alright because if a company get's too greedy they just open themselves up to takeover. Another company will take advantage of any opening to undercut them.

Why don't they do it now you ask? Because of laws and regulations and government "efforts to protect competition", that actually work against it.

We need to stop asking the government to do more for us, and start asking them to just make sure we can look out for ourselves.
 
lcpiper said:
It might seem so. But competition is what competition does. As long as the government is truly focused on protecting competition then everything will work out alright because if a company get's too greedy they just open themselves up to takeover. Another company will take advantage of any opening to undercut them.

Why don't they do it now you ask? Because of laws and regulations and government "efforts to protect competition", that actually work against it.

We need to stop asking the government to do more for us, and start asking them to just make sure we can look out for ourselves.
Click to expand...

I caution against using past attitudes to confront today's problems, and this attitude is very much a turn of the 18th century American attitude. I hope you don't mind, but I'm going to borrow your name for the moment.

1. The start of cost in these high tech areas are outstripping the ability of a competitor to start fresh. Comcast is running on old infrastructure that has paid its cost many times over. lcpiper internet co. has to put all new infrastructure in place to create a true competitor, before they even turn a profit, and lcpiper needs to compete for business with the entrenched Comcast. All Comcast has to do to utterly end lcpiper internet co.'s fledgling dreams is cut their pricing (of which they can go much lower that lcpiper since the infrastructure is more than paid for) and watch lcpiper sink to a watery grave, maybe pick up all that nice new infrastructure for 10 cents on the dollar once the grave is dug.

2. Unless you are going to fundamentally change how the political system works vis -a-vis funding, financing and lobbying, any efforts on the government front to strengthen consumers legal position will be for naught. you need to deal with the system as it is today, not as you imagine it.

3. Even if you strengthen the consumers legal abilities, you still have a massive bug versus Goliath situation. The average legal action takes 2-3 years before going to trial, costing about $150,000, and can take another 5 years in the trial process once there, about another $300,000 in legal fees. To a corporation like Comcast, this is nothing, and they know to you its a big something. Legal delay tactics will be used in force to destroy the plaintiff's financial position before judgement is rendered, making the cost/benefit equation severely slanted against lcpiper.

4. If consumer protections are too strong, you start regressing technological advancement, basically if the cost and risk of doing business is to great, they won't do that 'thing'. While it is easy to single out government incompetence, and elevate our own intelligence (and I think most here are bright enough, at least brighter than the average mouth breather) we also need to acknowledge that there is such a thing as the average person, and there are people that a below average, there are also sociopaths and all sorts of other assholes that would love nothing more that to create shit and get a pound of flesh. So if the consumer protections are too strong, making it too easy to take Comcast to task, a percentage of people will abuse it, either willingly with intelligence and ultimately greed and malice, or through plan old entitlement and stupidity.

The government is not the best solution, but in certain cases like this one, I would argue its the solution that best fits the scope and size of the problem, with the least amount of actual disruption to the end service, technological advancement, and ultimately the smooth operation of a nation.
 
Joust said:
I'm not sure I understand what you mean. Would you clarify?
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My example above is perfect though. I don't know how you misunderstand the meaning. Instead of ensuring that we can sue in the event of a breach and damages, the government offers protection from it.

I work on government systems and I know the standards for security and I can tell you that if there were a breach of our systems, as long as my shit is right, they can't touch me. Now it doesn't matter if there was something more I could have done to prevent the data loss. It only maters that I did what I was told to do. That I followed the security guidance that is current. As long as I do that, I'm good, no matter that I could have prevented the breach completely by going further.

So if I work for a company that is offered this same deal, protection from civil recourse ass long as I am compliant. Why would I go the extra mile or spend any additional money?

If Java has a known vulnerability and there is no patch for it. The government doesn't tell us we can't use Java. They tell us to patch it the best we can and make sure we record the problem and check again in 30 days. It doesn't matter that HTML5 would eliminate the risk entirely, we don't have to switch to HTML5, we just have to make sure we are compliant with the requirements.

Now if my company was on the hook no matter what, in the event of a breach and data loss, you can bet your ass we would either by using HTML5, pushing really hard for a Java update, or preying like hell we don't get hacked.

Where is the push from industry to get Sun to update Java when the government gives everyone a get out of jail free card ?

That's right, Sun is under no pressure for that fix. Our asses are in the breeze. This is the difference.
 
Aireoth said:
I caution against using past attitudes to confront today's problems, and this attitude is very much a turn of the 18th century American attitude. I hope you don't mind, but I'm going to borrow your name for the moment.

1. The start of cost in these high tech areas are outstripping the ability of a competitor to start fresh. Comcast is running on old infrastructure that has paid its cost many times over. lcpiper internet co. has to put all new infrastructure in place to create a true competitor, before they even turn a profit, and lcpiper needs to compete for business with the entrenched Comcast. All Comcast has to do to utterly end lcpiper internet co.'s fledgling dreams is cut their pricing (of which they can go much lower that lcpiper since the infrastructure is more than paid for) and watch lcpiper sink to a watery grave, maybe pick up all that nice new infrastructure for 10 cents on the dollar once the grave is dug.

2. Unless you are going to fundamentally change how the political system works vis -a-vis funding, financing and lobbying, any efforts on the government front to strengthen consumers legal position will be for naught. you need to deal with the system as it is today, not as you imagine it.

3. Even if you strengthen the consumers legal abilities, you still have a massive bug versus Goliath situation. The average legal action takes 2-3 years before going to trial, costing about $150,000, and can take another 5 years in the trial process once there, about another $300,000 in legal fees. To a corporation like Comcast, this is nothing, and they know to you its a big something. Legal delay tactics will be used in force to destroy the plaintiff's financial position before judgement is rendered, making the cost/benefit equation severely slanted against lcpiper.

4. If consumer protections are too strong, you start regressing technological advancement, basically if the cost and risk of doing business is to great, they won't do that 'thing'. While it is easy to single out government incompetence, and elevate our own intelligence (and I think most here are bright enough, at least brighter than the average mouth breather) we also need to acknowledge that there is such a thing as the average person, and there are people that a below average, there are also sociopaths and all sorts of other assholes that would love nothing more that to create shit and get a pound of flesh. So if the consumer protections are too strong, making it too easy to take Comcast to task, a percentage of people will abuse it, either willingly with intelligence and ultimately greed and malice, or through plan old entitlement and stupidity.

The government is not the best solution, but in certain cases like this one, I would argue its the solution that best fits the scope and size of the problem, with the least amount of actual disruption to the end service, technological advancement, and ultimately the smooth operation of a nation.
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1) not just more than paid for, they can even shift costs to other areas where they have no competition to make up the profit difference.
 
aaronspink said:
1) not just more than paid for, they can even shift costs to other areas where they have no competition to make up the profit difference.
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Sounds like you have it all figured out. Now go make your own company or continue to believe you are a know it all and do nothing.
 
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