FCC hands Net Neutrality over to FTC

Google's Wish List gets filled (or not)

[tangor]

Americans may get a less Google-friendly and less-politicised regulatory regime if America's trade watchdog, the FTC, adopts responsibility for "net neutrality provisions", as reports today suggest. But under Trump, will the FTC have any teeth?

Both Politico and The Wall Street Journal report that Ajit Pai – chairman of the US comms regulator, the FCC – will shortly hand net neutrality over to the FTC, which until recently had oversight over most internet issues, including competition and consumer privacy. That intention should come as no surprise – Pai has cited the FTC as a competent authority before the FCC extended its powers, most dramatically with the reclassification of internet services in 2015, which gave it sweeping new powers.

[theregister.co.uk...]
Commentary on variety of topics concerning FCC rule changes that will put the FTC back in charge of the internet (the way things were) which has general privacy rules (which FCC modified under last Admin and got fiddled with this Admin), access, how the pipes work, etc. In the middle of it all is Google with a Wish List which is partially listed in this article.

Only thing I am waiting for is the net to be officially declassified as Title II which will really put us back to where we were before politicians got involved. (At present none of the FCC under last Admin were implemented, but the threat of that happening really messed with not only heads, but future planning!)

[keyplyr]

This has been lobbied by AT&T and Verizon and other carriers who want their cut when users stream high bandwidth files over their networks, but previously were not allowed to charge if the users were not their customers (example: Netfilx users.) Get ready to possibly pay much more to stream movies, music, etc.

There was also strong discussion whether networks should have the right to charge website owners usage fees when site visitors travel over their networks.

[tangor]

In all the noise there might be a kernel of truth, but for the most part it is noise, grumbling, and speculation with no basis in fact. That said, I'd rather the FTC have control of privacy than FCC as the FTC has been an arbiter of customer privacy from day one by law. FCC came to the game a bit later (1930s)

All the rest is market based and markets generally have a way of leveling themselves since the customer fans the flames with their dollars and voting with their wallets.

This taking a bit off the top of an already fully paid access is trying to wring another buck out of a fully paid agreement. The talk of infrastructure "loading" is merely an admission "we didn't build it right so help us!" or (worse) a scam to generate dollars WITHOUT upgrading infrastructure.

The web is a wonde4rful place. And like real life has its share of do right, do wrong, fudge, scam, and johnny-come-lately with 2 cents in the pocket with appropriate whines.

[keyplyr]

Since Pai said Net Neutrality was a mistake and he would reverse it, a better title of the article & the thread could be "FCC hands Net Oversight to FTC" since there is no more Net Neutrality.

[webmasterworld.com...]