A federal appeals court on Tuesday dealt a sharp blow to the efforts of the Federal Communications Commission to set the rules of the road for the Internet, ruling that the agency lacks the authority to require broadband providers to give equal treatment to all Internet traffic flowing over their networks.
The decision, by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, specifically concerned the efforts of Comcast, the nation’s largest cable provider, to slow down customers’ access to a service called BitTorrent, which is used to exchange large video files, most often pirated copies of movies.
After Comcast’s blocking was exposed, the F.C.C. told Comcast to stop discriminating against BitTorrent traffic and in 2008 issued broader rules for the industry regarding “net neutrality,” the principle that all Internet content should be treated equally by network providers. Comcast challenged the F.C.C.’s authority to issue such rules and argued that its throttling of BitTorrent was necessary to ensure that a few customers didn’t unfairly hog the capacity of the network, slowing down Internet access for all of its customers.
There's a lot of disinformation out there regarding Net Neutrality. Could this have actually influenced the courts decision?
But Ed Morrissey's take on this issue is not only short sighted by completely backwards.
The DC circuit Court of Appeals gave the Obama administration a big dash of cold water on the limits of its authority to impose rules on communications networks today. In essence, the court recognized Comcast’s property rights to determine its own terms of service for Internet use, and the implications could affect Barack Obama’s plans to mandate broadband expansion as well
What about the "property rights" of companies that are delivered on broadband service? With this ruling, Comcast could charged Netflix more to carry their content because Comcast wants to push their own "on-demand" service. They could, considering they have near monopolistic control over various areas of the US, price NetFlix out of the market or simply block them all together. Such undo influence into the market is not only unethical, but is likely to be illegal.
The bottom line is not that companies like Comcast don't deserve to make a profit, it's that since all content usage is based on customer preference once broadband service has been paid for, corporations like Comcast feel that they can literally censor content based on personal preference. This could even be seen through the prism of political alliances. If a company uses Comcast or Verizon to stream their content and that company is known to have contributed to a political party that Verizon or Comcast doesn't agree with, they would be censored. It would interesting to see how this sort of issue would play out in court, as corporations are now considered "people".
With the average American having only two choices of broadband service, the idea of "competition and choice" is something that won't even be realistically plausible. Once broadband providers realize that the FCC cannot punish them for censoring content or charging elevated prices for higher speeds of delivery, what's to stop both choices from removing your ability to choose?
Conservatives have no clue what Net Neutrality is about.
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