How Big Telecom Tried To Kill Net Neutrality Before It Was Even a Concept 62
An anonymous reader writes This opinion piece at Ars looks at the telecommunications industry's ability to shape policy and its power over lawmakers. "...as the Baby Bells rolled out their DSL service, they saw the cable industry's more relaxed regulations and total lack of competition and wanted the same treatment from the government. They launched a massive lobbying effort to push the Clinton and Bush administrations, the Federal Communication Commission, and Congress to eliminate the network sharing requirement that had spawned the CLEC market and to deregulate DSL services more broadly. Between 1999 and 2002 the four companies spent a combined $95.6 million on lobbying the federal government, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics, which would rank them above such trade group lobbying behemoths as the Chamber of Commerce and the American Medical Association in total lobbying expenditures for the years. The companies also spent millions to lobby the public directly through aggressive advertising and public relations campaigns."
Ah, progress. (Score:1)
Now we're so far along you literally have to BEG to cancel your service.
SubjectsInCommentsAreStupid (Score:5, Insightful)
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So.. they were scumbags since the start? (Score:5, Insightful)
I mean.. is this really a surprise?
Slashdot posters, beware! (Score:5, Interesting)
Fellow readers, beware of astroturf comments.
We know that the big companies hire agencies to send fake letters of support [wikipedia.org] to government agencies, letters purported to come from everyday people in support of whatever the big company wants to do at the time.
We also know that the big companies hire agencies to send fake letters of support from politicians [muninetworks.org] that support whatever the big company wants to do at the time. We know that political campaigns do the same thing [salon.com].
I've been interested in ghostwriting/astroturfing for awhile now. It seems reasonable that if a company has enough money to mount a fake grassroots campaign, then some of that money would be put towards shaping public opinion on public boards.
Especially a highly popular board frequented by all the smart people in the country.
Looking at one previous article [slashdot.org] about network access I can't help but get the impression that people are reaching around backwards to make their point. The plight of all those poor, twisted arguments brings a tear to my eye.
Really - watch the commentary on these articles and see if any of the arguments seem weak or contrived.
We may be infested with astroturfers.
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Bing. The bell rings and we have a winner. Not a very astute one as this is pretty much copypasta but sort of proves the point I suppose.
Re:Slashdot posters, beware! (Score:5, Insightful)
So what you're saying is you're totally not an astroturfer from the other side, and from now on you'd like us to be automatically suspicious of all comments that argue in favor of something you're not in favor of / argue against something you're in favor of (and totally not hoping to shut down any conversation before it starts), and they're probably just comments from people being employed by big evil corporations, but you're totally not astroturfing in the name of net neutrality? And there are totally not any logical fallacies in your argument?
Actually, I'm a big fan of cogent, reasoned responses (to my posts) that put forth a contrary position. They are so rare that I sometimes post a "thank you" in response.
Just saying "this doesn't track with my experience" ("I've taken 200+ cab rides in my life and not once encountered a bad experience", yeah, right), or "you're wrong about that", or "how dare you say the emperor has no clothes" doesn't quite cut it.
So tell me: instead of insinuating that there are logical fallacies in my argument, what exactly *are* the logical fallacies in my argument?
Re:Slashdot posters, beware! (Score:5, Funny)
Especially a highly popular board frequented by all the smart people in the country.
Reddit? Why do we care?
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On a more serious note, don't flatter yourself. Slashdot isn't a target for infiltration. The userbase isn't big enough, the groupthink is too ingrained, and the interface is too horrible. (Fuck beta.) The astroturfers would get more influence per dollar infiltr
Why isn't this influence peddling or corruption? (Score:5, Interesting)
Between 1999 and 2002 the four companies spent a combined $95.6 million on lobbying the federal government, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics...
When done in other countries, my government calls it corruption. When done here, it's called lobbying.
Question is: Who is lobbying on behalf of Joe Six Pack and family?
Re:Why isn't this influence peddling or corruption (Score:5, Interesting)
Question is: Who is lobbying on behalf of Joe Six Pack and family?
Lots of groups! [popcrunch.com]
Here's a list:
The National Smoker’s Alliance
The 50 Cent Party
Center For Consumer Freedom
Al Gore’s Penguin Army
Microsoft
Save Our Species Alliance
Working Families For Wal-Mart
The Big Ten Network
Comcast
GOP
(NB: The companies listed come from an article titled: "Ten Horrible Examples Of Astroturfing")
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Question is: Who is lobbying on behalf of Joe Six Pack and family?
Congress is supposed to represent Joe and his family in the first place. "The People" was never intended to be a special interest group.
Re:Why isn't this influence peddling or corruption (Score:5, Interesting)
Hmm, $95.6M in lobbying over three years...
That's $31.9M per year, spread across four companies.
Or an average of about $8M per year each.
Let's see. Annual revenue for those companies averages in excess of $50B each (two of them managed to make >$210B, so I didn't even bother checking the other two, just used the revenue for those two averaged over four companies).
So, they're spending an average of 0.016% of their income on lobbying.
Frankly, given the power of the federal government, spending that LITTLE to buy favourable legislation is surprising.
Do remember, the more power the government has, the more worthwhile it is to just buy laws that favour you.
No, that would be graft, not corruption. There is a difference, though it's pretty much hairsplitting....
Re:Why isn't this influence peddling or corruption (Score:4, Funny)
Being sarcastic.
That looks like a very very good return on investment :)
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So, they're spending an average of 0.016% of their income on lobbying.
Revenue is not profit.
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Annual revenue for those companies averages in excess of $50B each (...)
So, they're spending an average of 0.016% of their income on lobbying.
Revenue and income are different things.
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People tend to think of "lobbying" as a dirty word, but keep in mind that lobbying also works on behalf of ideals and organizations you believe in. The EFF is involved in lobbying, for instance, and organization that many of us here appreciate and support. Or, pick an organization you care about, and you can bet they're doing some lobbying of their own. That's not inherently a bad thing.
The word essentially has it's roots in ordinary citizens waiting in the capitol lobby to bend the ear of their represen
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Well said, thanks a lot. Where can I find a list of organizations that lobby for the ordinary folk? Can we have these organizations grouped by subject matter?
How for instance, is it OK for members of congress to have a medical insurance scheme that members of a certain party (that I will not mention), find so toxic to be of [any] benefit to the ordinary man and woman? I would like to know.
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There are many such organisations.
Be careful though as many have many more than one side to them. The lobbying is not necessarily what joe public thinks it is and is not necessarily what the companies paying into it think it is. The NRA is a prime example.
Why do politicians get good pensions and health care and if high up security for decades after they have left office? Hrmm.
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it was understood that it's more efficient to hire someone to collectively represent your interested and present them to your representatives, because it's impractical for a politician to meet individually with every single citizen of their district.
You can do that for free, or at least the costs should be separate and related directly to rallying the troops and forming your group so it can be heard above the crowd. That is not what is happening with lobbying. The currenct state of liobbying is giving mon
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That's why it's very important to wealthy people that money be equated with speech under US law, that way the richer you are the more free speech you have. It's also why they almost universally support regressive taxation (they call it "flat" or "fair" tax), and want to dissolve pension funds. Pension funds were the way everyday American had power over corporate America. Pension funds owned voting shares of corporations and used that power for their members. Public employee pension funds still do the same (
TELCO / ISP spending before and after (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.freepress.net/sites... [freepress.net]
This image tells all you need to know about Cable/Telco promises.
Once you have a monopoly that has no competition there is no reason to improve service or product quality and every incentive to drive it down to as low a level as you can without people rioting outside your offices.
Big Government is worse that Big Business (Score:1, Insightful)
I hate the concept of having the US government regulating the Internet any more than it already does. The FCC is a PoS, last thing I want is it getting between me an my path to the Internet. Regulation ends up hurting small business as bigger companies lobby to have regs set that push out little guy, look at the relationship between the big banks and government. When the banks fucked up and were set to fail, what did the US government do? Gave them tax payer money to survive. In return the banks give t
Net Neutrality fear-mongering? (Score:2)
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You could make an argument based on fact that high speed internet has gotten cheaper and better in constant dollars.
In 2000, I paid something like $123/month ($90 then) for 768Kbps and one static IP.
In 2015, I pay for $85/month for 18Mbps and a /29.
In absolute terms, it's $5 cheaper for 20 times faster service with much greater flexibility (more static IPs). In constant-dollar terms, it's 30% cheaper.
Now, I'm not defending cable. I think the content providers saw that cable companies could jack up rates
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It got coverage at the time, but I haven't been able to find a link. I've been looking for awhile.
The problem with the phrase Net Neutrality is that it refers to two discrete concepts which should each have separate names. Some folks mean a ban on consumer-level blocking or prioritiza
Show them no mercy, for you shall receive none (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Show them no mercy, for you shall receive none (Score:5, Interesting)
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The only possible way to counter these bastards is with an absolute avalanche of public backlash. It worked in turning Wheeler around; now we need to turn up the heat on our so-called 'representatives'. To hell with big cable and telecom. Burn their crops and salt their fields. Rip their monopolistic power from their hands and savour the sound of them kicking and screaming the entire way.
I was going to get right behind you but I have a raid on this afternoon and I can't live without my internet connection tonight.
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... an absolute avalanche of public backlash... worked in turning Wheeler around
No it didn't. Wheeler has been grinding an axe against the cable companies for years, ever since his idea of "America Online, delivered over cable networks" didn't pan out. (Wheeler wrote about this in his editorial on the subject.) He just waited until after Obama was safely reelected to implement the plan that Obama has wanted since day one.
I wanted Net Neutrality (Score:1)
I wanted Net Neutrality. I did not want a 300+ page regulatory clusterfuck that essentially is the opposite of Net Neutrality.
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By begging your telco masters ever so kindly to take twice as much money from you for a promise not to block the websites you want to use like Netflix, only to have them renege like they've been doing with the money you're giving them now?
The Republicans have introduced a Net Neutrality bill that would ban paid prioritization, making this practice illegal. Since it wouldn't mandate settlement-free peering and it isn't explicitly designed to perpetuate monopolies, the Democrats are holding out for Title II.
The issue is NOT net neutrality (Score:4)
The real issue - the elephant in the room which the net neutrality debate serves to dance around - is lack of effective local competition.
The USA professes free trade, etc, etc but is actually one of the most restrictive countries to do business - and (possibly illegal) state/regional sweetheart deals on local loop mean there is no effective competition for broadband services (A duopoly is as bad as a monopoly and in most areas there is a legislated monopoly on local loop).
With effective competition, net neutrality is a non-issue. There's a reason that this is only popping up in the USA and that's because the vast majority of consumers face a market with either only 1 or 2 broadband providers.
Meantime in Europe, I sit on a 100Mb/20Mb VDSL circuit - unthrottled - getting full bandwidth - and knowing that if my ISP plays stupid games with access to Netflix I can switch to another one with 2 phone calls. They know it too, so they actually provide good customer service instead of the surly service commonly encountered Stateside.
do not trust (Score:1)
The Fed appears to be propping up the legacy copper telcos and entertainment industry -- courtesy of a myriad lobbyists.
Does the Fed version of net neutrality make sense? Some say that net neutrality is a meaningless concept, given enough bandwidth.
Perhaps stronger efforts to light up the $ 200 B. of dark fiber that We the People funded in the 90s, and moving the telco and TeeVee wiring over to fiber, should be done first.
Encouraging the executive branch to reinterpret a 1996 telephony law and apply it to t