No, Net Neutrality Doesn't Violate the 5th Amendment 322
An anonymous reader writes "Yesterday we discussed the theory that net neutrality might violate the 5th Amendment's 'takings clause.' Over at TechDirt they've explained why the paper making that claim is mistaken. Part of it is due to a misunderstanding of the technology, such as when the author suggests that someone who puts up a server connected to the Internet is 'invading' a broadband provider's private network. And part of it is due to glossing over the fact that broadband networks all have involved massive government subsidies, in the form of rights of way access, local franchise/monopolies, and/or direct subsidies from governments. The paper pretends, instead, that broadband networks are 100% private."
Re:he's right, but.... (Score:3, Informative)
Haven't gotten my bar exam results yet...
I'll probably be going back into computers though. The legal market is pretty messed up right now.
Re:Best way to fix it (Score:5, Informative)
No. Private enterprise did not want the internet. In large part they said "it's just a fad, no significant amount of commerce will be done over the internet." Were you asleep all through the 90's? Here is a typical such article from Newsweek in 1995:
http://www.newsweek.com/1995/02/26/the-internet-bah.html [newsweek.com]
Re:Wrong again (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Best way to fix it (Score:4, Informative)
If enough people want something and the government doesn't interfere, the free market comes up with an elegant solution that works.
No. The whole point is there aren't "enough people" to make it economical for business to deliver certain services out to rural areas and still make a profit (must the tired USPS/UPS point need be repeated?). Sure, the market *eventually* came up with affordable on-site power generation products, but it hadn't bothered at the time the bill was passed. Why is it so hard to understand that private enterprise is fantastic when it has a market to supply and otherwise it's useless and we need government to actually get anything done?
There's a large difference between what government decided to subsidize decades ago, and today's politicians being too cowardly to cancel outdated subsidies like coal and corn. If you insist on living in the past please stick to arguing about the merits of a subsidy, but don't keep boring us with verses from your stupid free market bible.
Re:Best way to fix it (Score:5, Informative)
Meanwhile, private enterprise largely built the Internet after the very early phase, while government did its best to prevent commercial use. You know, companies like Sun, Cisco, etc, etc, etc, etc....
FAIL: Information Infrastructure and Technology Act of 1992
Nuff said.
Re:Best way to fix what? (Score:3, Informative)
You prevent them yourselves by subsidizing prices in any competitors area until that competitor is out of business, then jack the prices up to outrageous levels until you've recovered your losses.
Net Neutrality is needed NOW (Score:5, Informative)
When I first heard of Net Neutrality, people had mockups of what they feared ISP's plans would eventually degenerate into. Things like "facebook+ebay+1GB other". It gave me the creeps back then, but what horrifies me is that in less than a year this has become reality to Australians.
Check this out: Optus iPhone plans [optus.com.au]. Click the "Plan Comparisons". Each one has a "Unlimited mobile access to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, MySpace, eBay, foursquare" bonus.
The fine print says: "Unlimited use of these services within Australia only. Use of these services is separate and does not count towards your included “Mobile Internet Data Value.” These features are only available to you if your handset is compatible with the service. Optus Mobile Fair Go Policy applies..."
Keep in mind that Australia already has "tiered" internet pricing, because local bandwidth is practically free, while international bandwidth is very expensive. However, this is not what's happening here. None of those sites are hosted in Australia. It costs Optus no less to provide those to their customers than any other site. This is some sort of back-room deal.
If you host a website, or work for a company that does, welcome to second-class citizenship on the internet, unless you pony up the cash and make a deal with every two-bit ISP and Telco out there. Can't afford to do that? Tough.
Welcome to the free internet, where you are free to use all 6 Optus approved services.
Re:Best way to fix it (Score:1, Informative)
No, because private enterprise would find a way to make it work.
No, it wouldn't.
If enough people want something and the government doesn't interfere, the free market comes up with an elegant solution that works.
No, it doesn't.
With enough research and such, perhaps there would be more interest in what today is considered to be "alternative" energy such as wind and it would be cheap, refined and usable.
No, there woudln't.
Of course when the government gives away free money to basically just burn coal, any other solutions are out because they would cost more initial money and look where that puts us today.
No, they aren't.
Re:Best way to fix it (Score:4, Informative)
Actually, cartels, price-fixing, collusion, etc are exactly what you get if you had a truly "free" market (assuming that such a thing could exist in the first place).
There is no mechanism in a "free market" that would prevent price-fixing or monopolies. Only government regulation can do that.
Re:Best way to fix it (Score:5, Informative)
We used to live under that system, and it fucking sucked. It sucked so badly that the masses revolted and demanded government regulate these industries which perpetrated terrible lies and destruction upon the population. This happened over and over and over again.
People like you have forgotten the lessons of history. Do you think big government was instituted by bureaucrats last Tuesday? We have built up the government over hundreds of years, a little at a time, each time to solve a problem. Every now and then we stumble, but we usually trade in a big problem (say, unregulated drug markets causing huge causualties) for a small one (say, fewer casualties).
Re:Best way to fix it (Score:4, Informative)
Oops, got in a hurry there. My FAIL. While parts of that bill were passed in other legislation, that bill ultimately failed. What I was thinking of was actually:
High Performance Computing Act of 1991
http://www.nitrd.gov/congressional/laws/pl_102-194.html [nitrd.gov] [nitrd.gov]
Re:Best way to fix it (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Best way to fix it (Score:3, Informative)
Actually, we don't have to choose between those two things. That's called a "false choice." Everyone except for you realizes that there is a sliding scale of how much regulation and competition we want, and that the best market is a balance of many competing dimensions.
Re:It doesn't matter if it's a purely private netw (Score:3, Informative)
>>>>>Mom&Pop ISP is Smalltown USA doe not engage in commerce among the states.
>>
>>If they're providing access to a worldwide network
Just because Farmer Jo is selling chickens in Smalltown USA, and her customer carries them into the next state, doesn't mean Farmer Jo is engaging in "commerce among the States". Her chicken business is still INTRAstate commerce. So said the US Supreme Court in the 1930s when they struck down one of FDR's New Deal laws. They ruled the farmer was not engaging in interstate commerce, just because his customers carried the chickens over state lines, and therefore he was not subject to US price-fixing regulations.
Likewise just because Mom&Pop ISP sells bits to a customer, and later passes those bits to the AT&T Megacorp which carries them over state lines, does not mean Mom & Pop engaged in interstate commerce. ATT is subject to Us Law, but Mom & Pop's business, customers, and wires are wholly-and-completely within the State..... in the same way that the EU operates. Member States regulate within their own borders without interference from the general government.
Re:Al Gore created the Internet (Score:3, Informative)
Just a few nitpicks here:
The Internet didn't even allow any commercial traffic until 1992.
The National Science Foundation funded the US Internet backbone (ran by Merit Networks [merit.edu], a collection of universities) until 1995. So, a plan to have tolls at every stop would have, if nothing else, benefited the government the most. If that were the case, do you really think that the government would have sold the backbone off?
Incidentally, the government selling the backbone off is what caused the current situation, because several of the telcos (AT&T and Verizon) own pieces of the US Internet backbone and are using that as leverage.
Re:Best way to fix it (Score:3, Informative)
The material question is, has pharmaceutical regulation saved more people than its killed?
Re:Amazing how uninformed the author is (Score:2, Informative)
Just my opinion, and please pardon my bluntness.
Bullshit.
Easements, government granted regional monopolies, etc.
Comcast et. al. have all received plenty of government assistance in the construction of their physical plants.
Re:Best way to fix it (Score:2, Informative)
How do you know that? The closest thing to free market was probably Hong Kong and it didn't end up with a handful of monopolies or cartels controlling everything. In fact quite the opposite, lots of small companies and aggressive competition in every industry.
There is actually a mechanism in free market that prevents price fixing: competition. Say two companies make the same product and the competition is purely on price. They decide to hell with competition, let's fix prices. Company A is the most efficient one, its cost for making the product is $7/unit, company B's cost is $9. The lowest price company B will be able to agree to is say $10 (to break even and make a bit of profit). At that price each company gets 1/2 of the market. Say total market for the product is 200,000 units per year, so each company sells 100,000 units. Company A net profit is $300,000. Now the company A is thinking: how about if I break from the cartel and price my product at $9? I will out-price the other company and drive it out of business and capture the entire market. Now my sales are 200,000 units and my profit is $400,000.
By staying in the cartel, company A is giving up $100K/year! How long do you think those "greedy" businessman will remain willing to subsidize their less efficient competition by staying in a cartel with them?
So your claim that only government regulation can prevent price fixing is bogus. In reality, cartels, where they do form, are very unstable and always subject to scenarios like the one above.
Re:Best way to fix it (Score:4, Informative)
What a great opportunity for a company C to come into the market and sell it for $10 and take all the customers.
That's when Company AB sells at $5 for long enough to drive C out of business.
(Which, if it's an industry/product that has an even remotely non-trivial barrier to entry, probably won't take very long, since they'll be deep in the hole to start with.)
Re:solution in search of a problem (Score:3, Informative)
Race to the bottom. Look it up.
Example: the minute a bank starts charging to send customers their monthly statements, customers will move to other banks, right? Wrong. At least here in .nl, the other banks decided that this was a good time to start charging for formerly free services as well, until the current situation where you get nickeled and dimed to death with small charges.
In your hypothetical case, the other ISPs will not advertise their neutrality, they will start extorting content providers themselves. This is not theory, it has happened in the marketplace before; I provided but one example.
Mart
Re:It doesn't matter if it's a purely private netw (Score:3, Informative)
Unfortunately, there is precedent for saying otherwise [wikipedia.org].