FCC Commissioner Warns of Destructive FCC Policies 110
bugsy writes "Discrimination, Closed Networks and the Future of Cyberspace... Just over a month ago, Karl Auerbach asked, Is the Internet Dying?. Today, Commissioner Michael J. Copps, of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in a speech at the New America Foundation, is asking the very same question, 'Is The Internet As We Know It Dying?' and warning about FCC policies that damaged media now threatening the Internet. Coincidence?! Here is CircleID's report on these Remarks by Michael J. Copps, Federal Communications Commissioner: The Beginning of The End of the Internet? Discrimination, Closed Networks, and the Future of Cyberspace."
dying? how about changing (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:dying? how about changing (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the net reflects, to a great degree, the expectations of its users. I can remember back when there was no spam, Usenet was truly useful, and worms and viruses were exceedingly rare. The barrier to entry for the net was *very* high. Because of this, users tended to be participants more than observers.
As useful as the web is, it ushered in wave after wave of people whose prior experience with visual media was television. They bypassed the usual education of net.culture that one previously received by participating, as well as the ethical and practical lessons given by one's school or organization (and enforced by one's local surly sysadmin).
Now that people *expect* the net to be "television that you can click on", I think they are more likely to accept without complaint the commercialization and concentration of power that occurs with traditional broadcast media. Those of us who try to take a stand against this trend now seem outdated at best, radical kooks at worst.
Re:dying? how about changing (Score:2, Interesting)
I would agree that there are significant disadvanteges to the commercialization of the internet, yet I would hesitate to say the bad outweighs the good. The beauty of the internet is that it is still a realatively free (although less than before) medium and many great examples of user-created interactive content like Slashdot, for instance. You can also look at all the great open source software on the internet, that is certainly not commercial, and
Re:dying? how about changing (Score:2)
Some of the changes, OTOH, have merely revealed weaknesses in the old standards. SPAM is an example. The "correct" solution hasn't yet been identified. To my mind the correct solution would preserve anonyminity, but block SPAM
Re:dying? how about changing (Score:2)
The number of "channels" on the Web is practically unlimited, and Web advertising at its most intrusive (popups, flah, shockwave, Activex...) is as easy to bypass as TV advertising at its lest intrusive (ie. while using a VCR or Tivo). Even spam, wh
Re:dying? how about changing (Score:2, Insightful)
With everything as in Nature there are parasites and predators, vultures, malingering hangers on that form a food chain. The question is whether it can continue to support that food chain in its present form.
I am saddened to see that one of the first three responses is "So what?!?". Those kiddes amongst us that have not watched the net grow and mature and seen all t
Re:dying? how about changing (Score:1)
more spam, more trolls (many looking for FPs), more threats of litigation, more useless traffic, more viruses, more security holes. All these things are nothing new, and we deal with them as best as we can. For example you can browse Slashdot at 0 and miss most every lame try at a first post!
Also, I see more useful information, better search engines, faster connectons, more people, etc.
Room for concern, yes
time to panic...
you decide, I would rather stay in my seat u
Re:dying? how about changing (Score:3, Insightful)
It's not just the commerical media, it's the wide-spread access that's also ruining the internet.
I'll limit my rant to usenet; slashdot is too slow for the numerous post previews required to get a longer post right, or more brief.
Anybody remember usenet back in 1996? Or 1993? I remeber when you could hang out in the newsgroups for hours, reading thought, incisive, meaningful posts. alt.angst wa
It's true. (Score:2)
What would a Zen monastery be like if it was located in the corner of Grand Central Station?
What are the threats? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What are the threats? (Score:1)
Re:What are the threats? (Score:2)
I don't know about you, but I don't think I would call having my internet access filtered a treat.
Value Click buys Commission Junction (Score:2)
(Value Click buys Commission Junction [com.com].)
Amazon.com excluded, this merger will give one company control of about half the affiliate marketing industry. (affiliate marketing is a segment of the ad industry.)
Re:What are the threats? (Score:4, Funny)
Hillary Rosen just walked into my room, unplugged my network cable and ran away with it. I tried to call the police, but my Nokia phone exploded. I'm posting this from an internet cafe. I'm scared now.
Re:What are the threats? (Score:2)
Don't worry, everything will be fine. You're gonna be all right, trust me on this, ok? Deep breaths, that's right. Good. Ok, now tell us where you are, and we'll come and help you.... it's ok, you can trust us.
Great, that's great. We'll be right there.
*click*
Re:What are the threats? (Score:2)
it may not be dying but... (Score:4, Insightful)
Threats I see are things like the parasite and adware companies that are trying to install software on machines to either control or influence purchases.
Ad blocking and porn blocking software also poses a threat. The deal here is that the ad blockers have the choice of which ads to block. Already you are seeing situations where an advertiser reaches "terms" with an ad blocking company to let their ads through.
The number of paid listings on search engines in relation to free listings is growing.
When things like parasiteware and adblockers move from the desktop (where the user has some control) to routers where businesses control access, things get very scary.
Big media doesn't like all of these blogs stealing their thunder. Academic circles are incensed at all the commercial sites popping up everywhere and want to create little circles of their own.
Personally, I think most of the interests balance each other, but technologies like parasites and net partitioning need to be monitored closely and are likely to require regulation.
Re:it may not be dying but... (Score:1)
WTF would ever want to block porn? I thought porn is what the internet is all about...
Re:it may not be dying but... (Score:2)
This is the type of thing I find the scarriest of all. The Internet was designed so that all the smarts were on the edge -- the center nodes were just supposed to route traffic. The edge nodes put data into the network, and all the routers had to do was make sure it got to its destination.
Now, we have routers that try to do more. Firewal
Re:it may not be dying but... (Score:2)
Many of the problems that exist on the internet are due to government regulations. E.g., their sponsorship of ICANN turned a company that was ignoring it's charter into an official representative of the government.
It's true that some regulation is needed...but the government has such a poor record that I hardly think they would be likely to make things better, or even more stable. Some of the pro
Re:it may not be dying but... (Score:2)
You are correct that standards are a better solution than government regulations.
However, there also needs to a recourse against monopolistic efforts that try to use standards and pseudo standards to leverage their position in the market, or when companies go way outside accepted behave like many of the parasite companies do with drive by installs of products and redirected link
Corperate out-of-control! (Score:2)
Re:What are the threats? PlanetLab anyone? (Score:1)
It is already in operation and plans are to have it swallow everything else.
That is about the biggest threat
Re:New America Foundation (Score:1)
Re:New America Foundation (Score:2)
In actual fact they skipped the class.
So what ?!?! (Score:2)
But but... (Score:1)
D0o0o0o0om!!!!!!
Re:But but... (Score:1)
Not depending on the internet (Score:2)
One thing I'd love to see the FCC do... (Score:2)
One of the major things holding up growth of the Internet in the US is our lousy rollout of broadband (which has improved a lot since 1997 but is still not great... South Korea is still better hooked up than the US). Perhaps if the FCC mandated that phone companies and optical carriers open their networks to smaller competitors, we would all have optical fiber connections to our homes.
T
Re:One thing I'd love to see the FCC do... (Score:2)
How many square miles needed to be wired in S. Korea vs the US? How do population densities compare?
You are comparing apples to oranges.
Re:One thing I'd love to see the FCC do... (Score:2)
My point was simply that some sort of connectivity like South Korea is a good goal for the US. If we got even that far the Internet might make a serious impact on our lives and the FCC would have to help regulate something so important.
Of cou
Re:One thing I'd love to see the FCC do... (Score:2)
Re:One thing I'd love to see the FCC do... (Score:1)
For general purposes, dial-up is fine. Considering that the Internet is part of everyday American life, I think most people would agree. I've an Internet programming job, and a modem works fine for me at home. For the large majorit
Re:One thing I'd love to see the FCC do... (Score:2)
I mean, honestly, the fastest connection to the home (cable when it peaks at 3Megabits/sec or DSL at similarly high peak speeds) supports basic IP telephony and video over Internet.
On the other hand, imagine fiber connections which would bring a minimum theoretical
Re:One thing I'd love to see the FCC do... (Score:2)
How did such a guy get elected?
Um, they are appointed.
it's already dead (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:it's already dead (Score:1)
Television replaced movie theaters, yet they still exist. Each fills a niche, as does the Internet.
As each technological advance comes into its own right, it is first thought of as the end to whatever it i
Re:Bring out your dead. (Score:2)
When the majority of users were altruistic, the sum was more than the parts. These days, there is so much crap flying around the net, the stuff you really want it for is becoming harder to get to. The more people connect, the worse it gets.
So, to get to the note from your long-lost friend, you have to wade through hundreds of spam messages. To find the great hobbyist website on, say, model aircraft, you have to search t
Re:it's already dead (Score:3, Insightful)
Now, if the article is right, and network providers start filtering things out, cramming ads down your throat, then we're screwed.
In the meantime, you can still find all the free content, but now you also have access to commercial resources, too. Personally, I like it. Like many others, I have a list of web sites I check every m
money (Score:1)
The US Isn't THE internet.... (Score:2)
So the internet between most non-US countries will still continue to be fine... and in fact I'd say it would be improved because it will have greater use if hosts move outside the US.
LOL! (Score:2)
Damn dude, someone sure lied to you.
The company I work for has more IP address space than the entire country of China. China has about half the population of this planet.
If the US doesn't own the internet, it's pretty fucking close. 3 of the 13 Root Name Servers are in the US. I guess my main point is that just because you aren't in the US....don't think that our laws won't affect you. That is in fact the main problem for non-US countries.
Alright, to be fair, we don't o
Re:LOL! (Score:1)
Re:LOL! (Score:2)
Re:LOL! (Score:1)
USA may be where Internet came from, but USA is just _one_ country in the whole world.
If the US imposes regulations the rest of the world don't agree with, sure there will be enough non-US tech people to build an "alternative Internet". Laugh all you want... it can be done, (actually it has been done before with other technologies, such as, excuse my lazy mind, napster).
Re:LOL? (Score:2)
Ok first, I was stating a fact. We control the internet as it is now plain and simple. If the rest of the world dropped US connectivity or the things we control here in the US (IE Root NS) to create their on Inter(ExceptUS)net, then it wouldn't be THE Internet. I don't see how my remarks would warrant this attack.
I wasn't saying it was right, I wasn't saying it's fair to the rest of the world,
Re:The US Isn't THE internet.... (Score:1)
We're exporting bad policies just as fast as you can import them.
Don't think anyone is immune.
Dan
Re:The US Isn't THE internet.... (Score:1)
...such as goatse.cx ?
Re:Competition is alive and well (Score:1)
Be glad for once (Score:2)
Don't get discouraged if what in your eyes is considered common knowledge is (finally) entering the political stage. Someone puts it there. Someone is thinking. Consider this good (relative to the ever present slipping slope).
In sympathy with the US people (if cos only we in Europe are getting the same after a certain delay).
Death of the Internet Predicted (Score:4, Funny)
If you do a Google Search for "death of the internet predicted", it returns over 533000 results. Now we add some more.
-ez
Re:Death of the Internet Predicted (Score:3, Insightful)
Sure the internet as we know it won't die, but t
"effort to reverse the FCC is dead in the water" (Score:1)
here [thenation.com] is a nice little flash-based webpage too about the big ten media companies.
Re:"effort to reverse the FCC is dead in the water (Score:2)
Inch by Inch (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Inch by Inch (Score:1)
Then most of us go and take our knowledge... (Score:2, Insightful)
I can think of some parties that are not really amused if their pool of knowledge is taken away from them...
With the internet knowledge and ideas are for the grabs for institutions like the militaries NGO's etc...
Also the software companies loose track of their customers again...
Now we don't want that to happen, do we?
Is USA management that stupid and short sighted today?
Good news and bad news... (Score:1)
Bad news: Unfortunatly yes, I just got off the phone with the hospital and we can expect the sad news anytime now :o(
Good news: Ive have been named sole benefactor of its porn collection :oD
I guess it's back to FidoNet... (Score:2)
Issue - New regulations allow choke points (Score:2, Informative)
Under proposed regulations, owners of physical communications assets, e.g., phone and cable companies, are no longer required to be content neutral.
This allows for troubling new business models, politically motivated site censorship, control of access hardware and software and so forth.
For example, Verizon DSL could charge big sites for "premium broadband quality" access to their DSL customers. Yahoo and Google a
Re:Issue - New regulations allow choke points (Score:1)
People would be pissed if they found out they were buying a crippled. product like with turbotax.Bandwidth being cheap they would move to a provider that can serve up streaming porn the way they like it;fullscreen and high bitrate...
The facts (Score:2)
Plain and simple: If you are not working with some other person or organization to stop powerful in
Re:The facts (Score:1)
>unorganized masses
>They are cowering sheep ready to be slaughtered.
which one was it?
Anonymous Hero
Death of the Internet -- Bug or Feature? (Score:1)
Maybe it would not be such a bad thing if the internet were to die. We would all have to go back to work. It would probably jump start the economy.
The internet will persevere, and in the end... (Score:2, Insightful)
When I first heard people say things like: the internet, as it was in the good old days, will be gone, the fixtures(?
What of load of Chicken Little Crap (Score:1)
Copps argument boils down to: "The Internet has grown so beautifully fast because it was unregulated, uncontrolled, unfettered. So to keep it that way we (meaning him) must regulate it, control it, and, for good measure, throw in a little fettering."
The tightest bottleneck for 99% (ish) of us is that last 30 feet of wire between the pole and our home/abode/hovel. And for a decade now that bo
hmmm (Score:1)
Monopoly Mongers (Score:2)
Re:Monopoly Mongers (Score:1)
Monopolies Are Killing the Internet (Score:2)
Yes It's Microsoft.
How about Napster, is it any coincidence that it's IE and WMP only. This is the begining of the new software monopoly. Microsoft will now instead of bundling all the software on a pc where everyone uses it becuase it's there is now getting companies to make MS only products. S
The FCC regulators (Score:2)
Maybe then they could figure out what some major contributors are to the steady decline of the incredible creative energy (or innovation - but I hate that word) that characterized the earlier incarnations of the internet/www.
Michael Copps (Score:2)
Copps wants to agressively enforce an artificial standard of "decency" and fine stations, even taking licenses if their speech doesn't meet his standards.