Why the FCC Is Likely To Ignore Net Neutrality Comments and Listen To ISPs 140
Jason Koebler writes: Time and time again, federal agencies like the FCC ignore what the public says it wants and side with the parties actually being regulated — the ISPs, in this case. Research and past example prove that there's not much that can be considered democratic about the public comment period or its aftermath. "Typically, there are a score or so of lengthy comments that include extensive data, analysis, and arguments. Courts require agencies to respond to comments of that type, and they sometimes persuade an agency to take an action that differs from its proposal," Richard Pierce, a George Washington University regulatory law professor said. "Those comments invariably come from companies with hundreds of millions or billions of dollars at stake or the lawyers and trade associations that represent them. Those are the only comments that have any chance of persuading an agency."
Then we need more shaming (Score:3, Interesting)
Like Netflix has done, and YouTube is starting to do. Point out which ISP's are not providing you with the bandwidth YOU bought to download the content YOU requested.
Google can even do better. In order to not detract from the bandwidth YouTube has available for an ISP users, it can stop crawling web sites on the ISP's network. After Verizon or Comcast sees that none of their hosted platforms are indexed on Google, then Google can offer to sell them separate 'hi-speed' indexing peering points.
Re:Simple Solution.... (Score:2, Interesting)
This is the truth, because here's the nut.
We are a "Republic", a "Representative Democracy", not a Direct Democracy. We elect the representatives to REPRESENT us. The assorted government agencies do not need to "listen" to us directly, they need to listen to our Representatives.
The NRA is effective because it can rally it's base to interact with the Representatives in Washington. It doesn't take millions of people to swing local elections, it takes a few hundred or thousand.
If the EFF was able to become the "NRA of Internet Policy", if the EFF could rally it's several million members to weigh in on Congress, the EFF would have a stronger voice in government policy.
The NRA was not always this way, it hasn't always been a powerful political force. It takes time, numbers, action, and history for this to happen. The NRA has a proven track record of being effective at election time, otherwise it wouldn't be given the time of day. People ignorant of the issues that the NRA represent listen to the NRA anyway, because of its reputation and history.
The EFF, or someone like them, needs to get similar momentum in order to be a voice worth listening too, even if the individual lawmaker doesn't understand the topics being discussed. If the EFF had similar capability to the NRA, the lawmakers would pay attention anyway.
Re:They aren't looking for public comments (Score:5, Interesting)
No, the other option is to force infrastructure owners to stop selling ISP services and create a compulsory license fee for ISPs that wish to have their signal carried over the infrastructure.
Over night you have market competition.