Another DL E-mail

With President Obama's weekend announcement,  I can't not say something about the recent Net Neutrality news. A couple years ago, I began a paper called "Do the Cupcakes Matter? An Exploration of lobbyist influences over Internet Policy" based off of this story (https://www.publicknowledge.org/news-blog/blogs/fcc-cupcakes-and-humbug). What was funny is back in the day I proposed a move to Title II and it got rejected by my thesis committee as being "unrealistic". I kind of got the last laugh this weekend when President Obama said what me and many other advocates have said for a long time, the internet should be regulated like your telephone rather than a private highway.

For years, Comcast/ATT/Time Warner have said "we built it, its ours to service as we please." What has this meant? In short, its meant that within the big companies power was the ability to control what happens on their networks. For the most part, some may argue, they have used this power for good by trying to limit large bandwidth applications that impact the end user experience. However, some customers noticed that their internet was slowed when they were running things like World of Warcraft. Well, World of Warcraft used a protocol that Comcast had determined was used for mostly illegal purposes and blocked it. This case known as "Brand X v. Comcast" brought the most recent issues with the Corps managment to light. Comcast changed the way they did things (in theory).

It seemed like this issue was going to be swept under the rug. Even Netflix caved into pressure and now pays for what could be called "peering" fee to Comcast and Verizon (see herehttp://time.com/80192/netflix-verizon-paid-peering-agreement/) to allow for the company to have faster access to the network. The Big Corps long argued for this because they wanted companies like Netflix to help pay for "infrastructure". (again BS but thats another story....)

I know I have kind of taken a round about turn to explain history but why should you care? The reason is the internet is the great equalizer. Net Neutrality is a free speech issue because if companies like Comcast can control content whats stops them from pushing only their products? Or Time Warner blocking Comcast content because they own rival TV stations? Truth is nothing. Nothing stops these companies from deciding that one day they will block access to rival content.. Or since Corps are now people; lets say political candidates that one side supports..And we all know how much Liberals love their access to unedited and raw news. We also like the ability to use the net to organize and create movements.

So in the next few weeks as the holidays approach and companies send the FCC and congress their yearly cupcakes.. We'll see how this issue begins to truly shake out.