Free the Web -- From the FCC!
We read:
"Last year, Comcast tweaked its network-management system to delay slightly the uploading of data through BitTorrent, one of the peer-to-peer services people use to swap movies, music and other large-bandwidth content. Comcast didn't discriminate against BitTorrent based on the content or, it says, to compete, arguing that it acted under its terms of usage so that consumers overall had the best experience. (Think of how controlling traffic with red lights gets to the ultimate destination faster.) Comcast and BitTorrent agreed in March that Comcast would find other techniques to manage its network. The companies issued a news release saying "these technical issues can be worked out through private business discussions without the need for government intervention." The FCC didn't take the hint.
The real problem is how to maintain the Web as a free and open commons, available for all to use in reasonable ways. An article in Britain's Guardian newspaper put it well: "The family gathers for tea, and there are four cream cakes for four people. If one person grabbed three of them, words would be said. However, peer-to-peer sharers think it's perfectly OK to grab three quarters of the communal internet bandwidth."
Instead of offering ways to keep the Web unclogged, the FCC decided that from now on it must approve how Internet service providers manage the fast-changing demands on bandwidth. The rationale suggests that the FCC now thinks of the Web as a "common carrier," the phrase earlier generations of regulators used to justify government management of industries.
Today's call for government regulation is under the well-intentioned cry of "net neutrality," not the more accurate, "Let's regulate the Web the way they regulated railroads." If setting reasonable tariffs for railroad freight was overreaching, imagine regulators trying to set reasonable practices or prices for different packets of online data. Do we really want an FCC as modern-day ICC deciding how many YouTube video downloads are reasonable?
Internet service is a competitive business, though cable and telecommunication companies do themselves no favors by occasionally acting like duopolists, and they should disclose their network practices. The key matter of social policy is that the Web needs more investment to keep capacity growing faster than Web developers find ways to use it. This is harder as large-bandwidth movies and music migrate online. It will be harder still if potential investors conclude that pricing and network management will be regulated by anything other than supply and demand.
Government's role on the Web is to ensure more competition and more consumer choice, not less competition and diminished consumer choice by turning the Web into a regulated industry. The Internet has become one of the most powerful innovations of our time, in part because it hasn't been burdened by government intervention. Those of us who want to keep the Web free should remember that the best way to keep an industry free is simply to keep it free.
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6 comments:
I thought the justification for FCC regulation od broadcast media was the intrinsic limited supply of spectrum. It was a public good. They would never regulate newspapers because there was no such "supply" limit. The Internet is unlimited, we can always add another T-1 or DS-3 between any two points add routers at both ends and plug into the existing net. Forever. It is no more a scarce, public resource than newsprint.
I guess people don't think anymore when it comes to increasing government power.
"The real problem is how to maintain the Web as a free and open commons, available for all to use in reasonable ways."
That is precisely the problem. Human nature being what it is, it is all but impossible to make something "free and open to all" and then expect all to be reasonable. Unfortunately, there are far too many people who see "free and open and unlimited" as simply an opportunity to abuse, especially in so-called third-world, or emerging countries, which are now the major source of most of the webs problems. (ie: fraud, virus's, etc.)
I am no fan of govt. intervention into anything, but leaving people to their own devices with absolutely no controls will (and already does) lead to major problems, which in time will give the govt. the excuse to intervene.
IMO while "regulating" what bandwidth people can use should be left to contracts stating how much they want to pay for.
That said, a concerted effort to crack down on internet crime (and that includes 99%+ of the use of filesharing applications, which are used almost exclusively for distributing stolen/pirated content) is the responsibility of law enforcement agencies, and the FCC might (within the US) have a role to play in that as the prime source of expertise in the area of communications among government agencies.
A first step could be to make ISPs criminally liable for crimes committed by their subscribers.
They are, by providing the infrastructure needed to commit the crime, an accessory to that crime just as much as someone who willingly provides a getaway car or safehouse for a group of bankrobbers.
When I signed up with any ISP (admittedly that was years ago) the contract stated that their services were not to be used for criminal activity.
Therefore criminal activity on their networks is a breach of contract, and ISPs have every legal means to terminate clients who take part in it (and to detect such activity).
Therefore, by not taking such action, they knowingly and willingly become an accessory to crime and should be held accountable for that.
When such steps are taken, the self-regulating power of the internet as touted by ISPs and users as its great strength should come into play as ISPs start to police their own networks and traffic to catch the perps and turn them over to law enforcement (or just prevent them from continuing their activities).
But ISPs won't do this until forced to by law enforcement and justice authorities as they know full well that they'd loose a lot of customers if it were voluntary and even a single one of them were to publicly state not to take part (all the pirates would just flock to that one, and that's the vast majority of customers).
Only by forcing them to enforce their contracts (and leveraging fines or suspension of business licenses for those that don't) can all ISPs be brought to do the right thing.
Then there's invasion of privacy, which is enough to stop most ISP's from doing what they should do.
The family gathers for tea, and there are four cream cakes for four people. If one person grabbed three of them, words would be said. However, peer-to-peer sharers think it's perfectly OK to grab three quarters of the communal internet bandwidth." This is poor analogy. The problem is that when the family gathers for tea, they are told that it is an all-you-can-eat buffet of cream cakes, but when the first person grabs three, and the second person grabs one, they then are told they are out of cream cakes.
A first step could be to make ISPs criminally liable for crimes committed by their subscribers.
They are, by providing the infrastructure needed to commit the crime, an accessory to that crime just as much as someone who willingly provides a getaway car or safehouse for a group of bankrobbers. This is just a crazy thought along with another bad analogy. The ISPs would be the roads not the car or safehouse. I also wouldn't want the ISPs looking at my communications to determine if a crime is being committed. Do you?
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