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| Science & Technology |
| D.C. Circuit Rules Against Net Neutrality |
| 2010-04-06 |
| A federal appeals court has ruled that the Federal Communications Commission lacks the authority to require broadband providers to give equal treatment to all Internet traffic flowing over their networks. Tuesday's ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia is a big victory for Comcast Corp., the nation's largest cable company. It had challenged the FCC's authority to impose so called "net neutrality" obligations. It marks a serious setback for the FCC, which needs authority to regulate the Internet in order to push ahead with key parts of its massive national broadband plan. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose |
| #1 This is a big win for the forces of good. It likely puts the kibosh on the US government requiring ISPs to monitor users for copyright violations, or the equivalent of an "Internet Fairness Doctrine", which would shut down thousands of conservative Internet sites. Hopefully it also kills the downright evil ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) secret treaty between the US, European and Asian powers: “[The draft ACTA treaty] would require ISPs to police user-generated content, to cut off Internet access for copyright violators, and to remove content that is accused of copyright violation without any proof of actual violation. "ACTA also completely prohibits DRM workarounds, even for archiving or retrieving one’s own work. "As it stands, Internet users around the world would be headed for a new regime of IP enforcement — a culture of invasive searches, minimal privacy, guilt until innocence is proven, and measures that would kill our normative behaviors of file-sharing, free software, media downloading, creative remixing, and even certain civil liberties.” |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2010-04-06 12:27 |