Linked by Thom Holwerda on Fri 9th Jun 2006 11:22 UTC, submitted by Dylan
The US House of Representatives definitively rejected the concept of Net neutrality on Thursday, dealing a bitter blow to Internet companies like Amazon.com, eBay and Google that had engaged in a last-minute lobbying campaign to support it. By a 269-152 vote that fell largely along party lines, the House Republican leadership mustered enough votes to reject a Democrat-backed amendment that would have enshrined stiff Net neutrality regulations into federal law and prevented broadband providers from treating some Internet sites differently from others.
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Member since:
2005-07-17
I've got a pair of wire cutters handy to try out the idea of "land neutrality". I think the telcos should pay me more rent money if they run fatter pipe across my property! Where's my basic freedom of control of my property at.. Oh wait, the STATE declared Eminent Domain and claims space on EVERYONE'S property they "rent" to the telcos. In addition the STATE grants only a few telcos access so not everybody can string their lines on the "commons" either. With out "land neutrality" there wouldn't be telcos, it would be a hassle to negotiate "fair" deals with every land owner and handle every change of land ownership like should happen in a good libertarian society.
Too few people remember the days when Ma Bell OWNED the phones.. the whole thing! We rented phones.. and using our own device was ILLEGAL. It wasn't until ATT was broken up we could own our own dial-up modems. The doctrine of "telephone neutrality" that the customer bought the "line" and the telco was obligated to connect to any telephone number you dial without restriction to the purpose as long as you paid the bill. If you started a company that used your POTS lines to connect to a data service with a T1 they couldn't stop you. Once that was in place the Internet took off. Even though the telcos in many places deliberately sabotaged the ma-n-pop ISPs by installing poor grade equipment for modem usage even after 2000!! Ever since the prospect of DSL the phone companies have been begging for a return to the Ma Bell days so they can own everything again. They're acting like little kids that keep begging over and over until the parent gives in because they can't remember why they said no in the first place!!!