Why we should be worried about "net neutrality"

FCC adopts net neutrality rules
Federal Regulators have issued new rules that ultimately will affect how Americans access videos over the Internet and how carriers charge for content. The 3-2 vote by the Federal Communications Commission on Tuesday strikes a balance between Silicon Valley content creators, who use digital networks to deliver their virtual wares, and the cable and telephone companies that want to sell their own content and services to customers in addition to hooking them up to the World Wide Web. The new rul...

FCC adopts net neutrality rules
Federal Regulators have issued new rules that ultimately will affect how Americans access videos over the Internet and how carriers charge for content. The 3-2 vote by the Federal Communications Commission on Tuesday strikes a balance between Silicon Valley content creators, who use digital networks to deliver their virtual wares, and the cable and telephone companies that want to sell their own content and services to customers in addition to hooking them up to the World Wide Web. The new rul...

Net Neutrality Vote: Twitter Users As Divided As FCC
On Tuesday, the FCC voted to adopt a framework that aims to preserve an "open Internet" by prohibiting Internet service providers from discriminating in how they handle information traveling over their networks. "The rules," according to the AP, "require Broadband providers to let subscribers access all legal online content, applications and services over their wired networks -- including online calling services, Internet video and other Web applications that compete with their core businesse...

Obamas FCC: Move aside, peasants, were in charge [Darleen Click]
John Fund points out this is just the beginning The Net Neutrality vision for government Regulation of the Internet began with the work of Robert McChesney, a University of Illinois communications Professor who founded the liberal lobby Free Press in 2002. Mr. McChesney’s agenda? “At the moment, the battle over network neutrality is not to completely eliminate the telephone and cable companies,” he told the website SocialistProject in 2009. “But the ultimate goal is to ...

The Real Story behind Net Neutrality
I hesitated about writing about Net Neutrality. It seemed to be covered by everyone. However, this is nothing less than shocking. I urge everyone to read the expose in its entirety. Click on the Wall Street Journal link embedded in the story. Behind the innocent-sounding name and expressed aims of the FCC’s Net Neutrality initiative, voted in by the Commission yesterday by a 3-2 partisan vote, is a very sinister leftist agenda. John Fund of the Wall Street Journal has done excellent work r...

FCC Net Neutrality Ruling: What Does It Mean For You?
Are some versions of the Internet more equal than others? The Federal Communications Commission passed its first-ever Regulation of the Internet today, in a Net Neutrality Compromise that saw its 3-2 vote split sharply along party lines. The full text of the new regulations will not be published until later this week, but the broad strokes of the deal are now known. There will be two sets of regulations governing the way an Internet service provider is allowed to control your access, depending o...

Senator Jim DeMint Calls For Repeal Of FCC's Internet Takeover
Only so much Rhetoric or a vow the senator can keep? From this source , quoting Senator DeMint:“The Obama Administration has ignored evidence that this federal takeover will hang a millstone of regulatory and legal uncertainty around the neck of a vibrant sector of our economy. "Proceeding on its own liberal whims rather than facts, this FCC has chosen to grant itself broad authority to limit how businesses can bring the Internet to consumers in faster and more innovative ways. “Americans...

'Net neutrality': ObamaCare for the Web
Michelle Malkin When Bureaucrats talk about increas ing our "access" to x, y or z, what they're really talking about is in creasing exponentially their control over our lives. As with the government Health Care takeover, so with the newly approved government plan to "increase" Internet "access." Call it Webcare. By a vote of 3-2, the Federal Communications Commission on Tuesday adopted a Controversial scheme to ensure "Net Neutrality" by turning unaccountable Democratic appointees into meddli...

Economic Outlook: Policing terra digitalis
Published: Dec. 22, 2010 at 10:35 AM In modern times, it is hard to muddy unsullied waters, because, frankly, there aren't many unsullied waters left. There are footsteps on The Moon. That would be, some would say Wednesday morning, because Democrats have yet to establish a strong enough presence there to regulate the lunar surface. That will come, however. The latest frontier on terra firma is the Internet or the World Wide Web, capitalized because for esoterically minded editors (and who says ...

Al Franken: The Internet as We Know it Is Still at Risk
In today's Net Neutrality action by the Federal Communications Commission there's good news and bad news. The good news is that, thanks to Commissioners Copps and Clyburn -- not to mention a nationwide network of Net Neutrality Activists -- the proposal approved today is better than the original circulated by FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski. For instance, the FCC has now stated that it does not condone discriminatory behavior by wireless companies like Verizon and AT&T; -- an important piece th...

FCC Votes Itself Judge Dredd of the Internet
In a Speech delivered on January 19, 2010, Julius Genachowski, the Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, declared that transparency “is particularly important for Consumer Protection and Empowerment.” He praised “access to information” as “essential to properly functioning markets” and stated that “policies around information disclosure...can be enormously helpful in ensuring that markets are working.” Does Genachowski believe it’s less imp

FCC Ignores Net Neutrality Ruling
When Julius Genachowski’s FCC board voted to regulate the Internet, it did so without regard for a Federal Court’s ruling that the FCC didn’t have the authority to regulate the internet . Here’s what the AP is reporting on the FCC’s attempted powergrab: A federal court threw the future of Internet regulations and U.S. Broadband expansion plans into doubt Tuesday with a far-reaching decision that went against the Federal Communications Commission. The U.S. Court of...

Net Neutrality
But what is known is that today’s developments will have far-reaching effects. Good or bad? Hard to say. It’s very difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff on this issue, since all sides seem to have compelling arguments to make. Our readers know that we subscribe to the general principle that “that government is best which governs least” (or, as Doug Casey would contend, “governs not at all”). And this would seem to be especially true with regard to the...

The FCC Pleases No One
On Tuesday, the Federal Communications Commission voted to approve new rules for "Net Neutrality." And as a Compromise between net neutrality Activists, Conservatives and telecommunication companies, the rules don't seem to satisfy anyone. For wired Internet, the new rules maintain the status quo. Cable and DSL providers can't meter your internet access, and have to let you use the applications, online services, and devices you want, regardless of how they affect the network. Verizon...

Sleepy Agency Causes Stir
The FCC is in many ways a typical federal agency that makes decisions impacting all of our lives but doesn't draw much public attention until it does something Controversial. Tuesday's unanimous decision to improve and expand 911 services to include text messaging and video streaming was buried by a contentious 3-2 ruling placing greater Regulations on Internet providers. Chairman Julius Genachowski tried his best to downplay any disagreement over the commission's Net Neutrality order. "Today,...

They're Calling It Net Neutrality, But It Isn't
It's no exaggeration to say that this decision marks the beginning of the end for the Internet as we know it. Senator Al Franken laid out what's at stake with this ruling, saying: "The FCC's action today is simply inadequate to protect consumers or preserve the free and open Internet. I am particularly disappointed to learn that the order will not specifically ban paid prioritization, allowing big companies to pay for a fast lane on the Internet and abandoning the foundation of net neutralit...

They're Calling It Net Neutrality, But It Isn't
It's no exaggeration to say that this decision marks the beginning of the end for the Internet as we know it. Senator Al Franken laid out what's at stake with this ruling, saying: "The FCC's action today is simply inadequate to protect consumers or preserve the free and open Internet. I am particularly disappointed to learn that the order will not specifically ban paid prioritization, allowing big companies to pay for a fast lane on the Internet and abandoning the foundation of net neutralit...

Republicans roar 'No' to net neutrality
WASHINGTON, Dec. 22 (UPI) -- Republicans in Washington Wednesday vowed to take action to strike down the Federal Communication Commission's just-passe Net Neutrality rules. The FCC board, in a partisan 3-2 vote Tuesday, approved rules guaranteeing unbiased service from Internet providers. In effect, the rules say an Internet carrier cannot slow or block consumer access to Web sites that produce legal content, PC Magazine reported Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, the incoming House Majority Leader, sa...

Internet Access is Not a Civil Right
Michelle Malkin, CNSNews.com When Bureaucrats talk about increasing our “access” to x, y or z, what they’re really talking about is increasing exponentially their control over our lives. As it is with the government Health Care takeover, so it is with the newly approved government plan to “increase” Internet “access.” Call it Webcare. By a vote of 3-2, the Federal Communications Commission on Tuesday adopted a Controversial scheme to ensure “net ...

McConnell: Net neutrality? What the hell.
The Federal Communications Commission today adopted a neutered version of Net Neutrality, over the dissent of its Republican members. This means that Internet service providers will not be able to block access to lawful content and websites. It does not, however, mean that ISPs wouldn't be able to establish tiered pay-for-priority systems (e.g., an extra $5 per month to get video to stream faster). The new rule also is fairly weak with regards to mobile service providers, even though the future ...

The Net Neutrality Coup
Human Events: The Federal Communications Commission has voted to impose the Controversial “Net Neutrality” Regulations on the Internet, by a vote of 3-2. It was a partisan vote, three Democrats against two Republicans. “Controversial” isn’t really the right word for Net Neutrality. “Reviled” would be more appropriate. As a Fox News op-ed from Americans For Prosperity president Phil Kerpen points out, the Regulations have no support in Congress, the American People

Divided FCC adopts Internet rules
By Jasmin Melvin WASHINGTON | Tue Dec 21, 2010 7:09pm EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A divided Federal Communications Commission banned Internet service providers like Comcast Corp from blocking traffic on their networks, provoking warnings the rules would be rejected in the courts and threats from Republican lawmakers to overturn them. The 3-2 decision on Tuesday highlighted a huge divide between those who say the Internet should flourish without Regulation and those who say the power of high-sp...

Obama and FCC approve net neutrality rules that mirror those in China and Iran
WASHINGTON - Yesterday, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) gave Internet providers AT&T, Comcast and Verizon an early holiday present.  In a 3-2 vote, President Obama’s FCC signed a “Compromise” that ended the Internet’s Democracy and openness by selling it out to corporations, which will eventually result in a gated U.S. Internet system that rivals those in China or Iran.  However, these new rules are already being spun by the Obama administr...

Rep. Marsha Blackburn Promises to Undo FCCs Internet Regulations
Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), a longtime advocate of Internet freedom, said she’s undaunted by the Federal Communications Commission’s decision to adopt Net Neutrality rules. Instead, she thinks the FCC’s action will be a catalyst for renewed commitment on the issue in the 112th Congress. “What we will do is first use this as a way to show how we’re going to keep that Pledge to America,” she said yesterday at The Heritage Foundation. “We said in the Pledge that an

Malkin Op-Ed: 'Net Neutrality' - Obamacare for the Web
When Bureaucrats talk about increas ing our "access" to x, y or z, what they're really talking about is in creasing exponentially their control over our lives. As with the government Health Care takeover, so with the newly approved government plan to "increase" Internet "access." Call it Webcare. By a vote of 3-2, the Federal Communications Commission on Tuesday adopted a Controversial scheme to ensure "Net Neutrality" by turning unaccountable Democratic appointees into meddling online traffic c...