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Trump Appoints Third Net Neutrality Critic To FCC Advisory Team (dslreports.com) 191

Last week, President-elect Donald Trump appointed two new advisers to his transition team that will oversee his FCC and telecommunications policy agenda. Trump has added a third adviser today who, like the other two advisers, is a staunch opponent of net neutrality regulations. DSLReports adds: The incoming President chose Roslyn Layton, a visiting fellow at the broadband-industry-funded American Enterprise Institute, to help select the new FCC boss and guide the Trump administration on telecom policy. Layton joins Jeffrey Eisenach, a former Verizon consultant and vocal net neutrality critic, and Mark Jamison, a former Sprint lobbyist that has also fought tooth and nail against net neutrality; recently going so far as to argue he doesn't think telecom monopolies exist. Like Eisenach and Jamison, Layton has made a career out of fighting relentlessly against most of the FCC's more consumer-focused efforts, including net neutrality, consumer privacy rules, and increased competition in the residential broadband space. Back in October, Layton posted an article to the AEI blog proclaiming that the FCC's new privacy rules, which give consumers greater control over how their data is collected and sold, were somehow part of a "partisan endgame of corporate favoritism" that weren't necessary and only confused customers. Layton also has made it abundantly clear she supports zero rating, the practice of letting ISPs give their own (or high paying partners') content cap-exemption and therefore a competitive advantage in the market. She has similarly, again like Eisenach and Jamison, supported rolling back the FCC's classification of ISPs as common carriers under Title II, which would kill the existing net neutrality rules and greatly weaken the FCC's ability to protect consumers.
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Trump Appoints Third Net Neutrality Critic To FCC Advisory Team

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  • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 30, 2016 @06:48PM (#53397563)

    A conman, racist and misogynist walk into a bar.
    Bartender says: "What will it be Mr. Trump"

  • Why not? (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Since he also appointed a ex-Goldman Sachs executive for the Treasury...

    • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 30, 2016 @07:09PM (#53397707)

      Yeah, it's a good thing Clinton lost because she was so in bed with Wall Street. And I'm glad we got Trumpnwho is so anti establishment and he's gonna look out for us little people.

    • Yep.... more of the revolving door we have always had.
      So far it seems like Trump is doing much of the same as everyone else who gets into higher office. Surround himself with the establishment and those who have monied interests in things going their way.

      So much for draining the swamp... he will make the biggest swamp every in America.... Its going to be HUGE!

  • by ADRA ( 37398 ) on Wednesday November 30, 2016 @07:13PM (#53397739)

    "which would kill the existing net neutrality rules and greatly weaken the FCC's ability to protect consumers."

    Cool, now ISP's can be sued for copyright violations through their pipes! The most likely outcome will be that EU three-strikes regulations will seem pretty generous after the lobbies get at the bill that fills this regulatory void. My presumed outcome is that ISP's will disable service if a subscriber is accused of being in violation of copyright. The threat of direct law suits are just too high to simply give nominal protection to their customers (a large number of whom actually violate copyright laws daily). Oh, but there's some form of arbitration which makes Youtube's take-down system seem fair and balanced.

    • by sims 2 ( 994794 )

      Wouldn't it be great if ISP's were actually held liable? They would be begging to be put under common carrier regulation within days!

      Uhmmm IIRC the US gained a six strike system back in 2012
      https://torrentfreak.com/isp-s... [torrentfreak.com]

      • You think they'd actually go to court?

        Far more likely they'd just immediately knuckle under to the MPAA/RIAA/etc and grant them the power to basically demand that a given user get cut off from the internet, without so much as a chance to defend themselves. That's what the media cartels REALLY want.

        Worse, most of the media owners increasingly now ARE your ISP, so they wouldn't even have to go to court, just send over an interoffice email.
        • Until they disconnect 10% of their users and see that profit drop. Seeing as most of the high bandwidth users download info illegally. they will flip faster than a liberal at a trump rally!
          • Yeah, there aren't really that many use cases for really fast connections for personal use. HD streaming, even 4K streaming won't saturate a 100Mbit/s link, but heavy torrenting definitely will.

            The biggest pirates also buy the fastest connections and pay the biggest subscriptions.

            Unless of course the ISPs want to focus on just business customers, who can definitely saturate a 1Gbit/s link no problem, given enough employees. But that's a much smaller and tougher market, which requires significantly more reso

    • Cool, now ISP's can be sued for copyright violations through their pipes!

      Net neutrality has nothing to do with this issue, and FCC Commissioners can't change it anyway. But thanks for the red herring.

      The law you're referring to is the Safe Harbor provision of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. It's a law that was passed by Congress (with bipartisan support) and then signed into law by the President. Because Safe Harbor is part of a law, the only way for Trump to get rid of Safe Harbor is to get majorities in Congress to pass a second law repealing it. The FCC has nothing to do

    • Cool, now ISP's can be sued for copyright violations through their pipes!

      That's easy to deal with. Just split up the internet into bundled access so that you can pay for the parts you want just like cable. Then they can control what you do and don't see on the internet. Problem solved.

  • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 30, 2016 @07:29PM (#53397857)

    Has Trump made any appointments that could even be perceived as being for the good of the general public? Virtually all the ones I've heard of sound like the most obvious form of industry/'conservative" shills possible.

    • Seem so.
      I think this will be the most corporate-centric administration ever.
      The twist might be a bit of anti-globalism... but if a company has a veneer of being pro-US and pro-Trump, then they will largely be lauded up and down and given the keys to the kingdom.

      • by Xest ( 935314 )

        It wont be anti-globalism because anti-globalism is inherently anti-corporatism. Anti-globalism would hurt Trump's own businesses and whilst he may have claimed to have stepped back from them (for at least 4 years) he'll still want his family to be getting rich off them.

        I suspect you'll see targetted protectionism however claimed as anti-globalism - i.e. "We're placing sanctions on the Chinese because we're anti-global" when in fact those sanctions will just be targetted protectionism against say China's fi

        • I agree... more of a veneer of anti-globalism was what I was meaning. The appearance of anti-globalism... but meanwhile going gang-busters like kids in a candy store.
          Little restraint.... under the very thin veneer.

          Of course everything will be for the benefit of the citizens as always.

  • by Skuld-Chan ( 302449 ) on Wednesday November 30, 2016 @07:39PM (#53397927)

    Seriously - I want to hear from an avid trump supporter on how this - as well as his other cabinet appointments is draining the swamp (of special interest lobbyists).

    • Seriously - I want to hear from an avid trump supporter on how this - as well as his other cabinet appointments is draining the swamp (of special interest lobbyists).

      I don't think any of them thought that far ahead. Do you expect logic and reason from people who come up with a heckle like 'keep your government hands off my Medicare.'?

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • That's a strawman - I'd be happy if banned Schmidt and Zuckerberg as well from influencing politics as well.

        It will create jobs too - lawyers who will line up to start litigating end users.

        Plus - get a job at any ISP - we already pay for peering - this isn't about that really - it's about companies being able to actively punish ISP's for NOT paying.

    • Seriously - I want to hear from an avid trump supporter on how this - as well as his other cabinet appointments is draining the swamp (of special interest lobbyists).

      Firstly, this isn't a cabinet appointment.

      As to draining the swamp, he's already done this [politico.com].

      Thirdly, he's not in office yet, wait to see what he actually does.

      And finally, you always have to ask "compared to what?"

      The Democrats have no vision or leadership on this issue, or any other.

      Calling Trump bad on his choices is all they have.

      • by Skuld-Chan ( 302449 ) on Wednesday November 30, 2016 @08:11PM (#53398137)

        Right - so he's ok banning lobbyists, unless they actually work for him (Treasury Secretary as an example).

      • As to draining the swamp, he's already done this [politico.com].

        Thanks for that link, interesting. I have to rebut it a little, from the article:
        - This is actually a loosening of his earlier one.
        - It's just a promise, which any politician disposes of quickly, and there's already a lot of his transition team members in clear violation of it.
        - There's also a similar pledge the Obama administration put in effect (also broken for some new hires), with possibly a more stringent definition in the Lobbying Disclosure Act, and it applied a year in advance instead of 5 yea

      • There are lots of great rules that could be enacted to break the lobbying power.5 year ban in the link above would be a good start, but it is unlikely to come up for a vote. Too many people are part of the revolving door.

      • Seriously - I want to hear from an avid trump supporter on how this - as well as his other cabinet appointments is draining the swamp (of special interest lobbyists).

        The Democrats have no...

        It's interesting that you feel the need to drag the democrats in to answer a question about how this action matches his campaign promises.

      • by dywolf ( 2673597 )

        JFC you're dumb

  • It will be interesting to see if Drumpf supporters will blame Drumpf when they suddenly have to pay their ISP extra in order to reasonably stream Netflix videos, and more again to watch youtube videos, and more again to listen to spotify...

    Somehow I doubt it... they'll just blame the greedy corporations for doing what capitalist corporations do without recognizing the hypocrisy of loudly complaining about capitalists while staunchly supporting capitalism.

  • If you didn't vote Hilary you have yourself to blame, I hope whatever satisfaction you get (or whatever economic gains) from a Trump presidency outweigh the value of net neutrality to you.
    • not seeing Hillary being a hero for that

      http://www.insidesources.com/h... [insidesources.com]

      • not seeing Hillary being a hero for that

        Clinton might have just played footy with the subject for four years and have been replaced. Trump, on the other hand, is lining up to take a gigantic shit on it.

        • Trump can be replaced easily in four years too if the Democrats run a serious candidate instead of the farce that was Hillary. Hope they learned their lesson and get serious, otherwise you'll have Trump-type presidents until the end of time

    • I blame Hillary and the democrats. Hillary for being such a shitty candidate that she couldn't beat someone who may have been an even shittier candidate but it was close on the level of shit. I blame the democrats for selecting a shitty candidate. The fact that it was close in Minnesota and the state was one of the last to be called [startribune.com] is a testament to how shitty she was given that MN hasn't gone for the republican since 1972 [wikipedia.org].

      The republicans made it very clear they were done with the usual cast of character
  • The US gives the internet back to your local provider in full.
    Shaping, slowness, data caps, offers of pay for speed become the norm on many local ISP contracts.
    A user in an inner city area then has the option of one or two slow or really expensive ISP plans.
    If the users wants media from a server on the other side of the USA or in a fly over state they will have to pay for an extra fast account per month.
    Internet brands that have formed monopolies, duopolies or non compete cartels will get exposed as m
    • Pay up and hope it will be different this time or build a real network.

      I vote for that second one. We need a meshing network built from the ground up for security. Something with flood prevention built right in, where you can actually tell the next hop to stop flooding you and have it forwarded along the chain (and telling them is itself cryptographically secure to avoid spoofing, to avoid using it for DoSing.) Ring- or Star-wired networks are inherently vulnerable to bad actors.

  • Well, looks like Trump voters are about to get what they voted for. Unfortunately the rest of us too.
  • by Ungrounded Lightning ( 62228 ) on Thursday December 01, 2016 @10:12AM (#53401427) Journal

    Most of the harm from ISP misbehavior is the manifestation of one of two perverse-incentive situations:
      - integration of an ISP into a content-provider megacorp, leading to penalization of competitors or other perceived threats to the larger content-providing component.
      - an under-competitive market situation (monopoly, duopoly, other under-four-competitors) situation, allowing ISPs to provide less than they promised or less than what is expected of "internet service" without a "vote with their feet" option for customers.

    Both of these are not internet-technology issues and both are things the FCC handles poorly, and which are outside its mandate. They're better handled by such agencies as the FTC and DOJ, under antitrust and consumer fraud models, than by the FCC.

    With respect to the content-provider/ISP vertical integration issue: Trump has already come out opposing the ATT/ Time-Warner merger. Additionally, the mainstream media's pile-on against his campaign has left him with no love for the "content providers". I'd be willing to bet that he'd be all for antitrust action to split up the other ISP ("content transport") / news reporting ("content generation") partnerships under the rubric of "breaking up anticompetitive vertical integration". B-)

Keep up the good work! But please don't ask me to help.

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