RE: The time has come, my friends.
(01-16-2014, 02:53 PM)Nuke Wrote:FROM ANOTHER FORUM
(01-15-2014, 11:16 PM)fantanoice Wrote:To clarify the topic, the Federal Court in the USA has overturned restrictions saying that ISPs can't control the data you view on the internet, and that all data is equal. It's pretty hard to find an informative article that doesn't give off the stink of doomsday.
Firstly, what does this mean? It basically means that American ISPs can control your access to certain content. What people worry about is that it takes away the freedom of information on the internet, and may also slow down speeds of, for instance, YouTube of it conflicts with any of the companies partners. The Australian equivalent would be someone like Telstra taking away your freedom to access YouTube because of its ties with Foxtel.
There's nothing protecting net neutrality in USA now. That's the gist of it. I bet people like Rupert Murdoch have emerged from their sea of money and rubbing their hands together with so much glee. It's only a matter of time before Australia gets manipulated into a similar thing. While I agree that net neutrality should be a thing, I don't think that people who run news sites (Rupert Murdoch) would love ISPs cutting access based on corporate political BS. I mean, Foxtel IIRC is owned by News Corp (as in "New News Corp.", as opposed to "21st century Fox"), but the fact that he would probably lose money from the fact he'd need to bribe the ISPs to accept his site(s) is bad.
I think that this court ruling, which I didn't even realize was a thing until you mentioned it since I assumed it was an act by the politicians (POTUS and/or Congress) and not the judges/courts, was probably struck down for the fact that it restricts the privately-owned (as opposed to government-owned, to avoid confusion from googlers, lol) power to either control their networks, express themselves (by blocking certain sites), or both. There could be other things, too. For instance, after a quick Google search, I found that the FCC (Federal Communications Commission), which is a bunch of jackasses in the first place, made this rule. They don't have the authority that the Congress has over the law. There may have been a law that conflicted with their regulation, and thus the Congress would have won.
There's a light at the end of the tunnel, though! The Congress could probably make an actual law (relatively rare here, not because of gridlock but just because the executive branch has so much regulatory power now) or the Supreme Court (SCOTUS) in particular or any other federal court could just override this court!
Anyway, I'll just repost this at Ekunia, since there's a topic about it over there, too.
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