For those who can't think beyond parroting the formula-phrases of corrupt
government officials.
"In the absence of any rules, violations of the open internet will become more
and more common."
Exactly. It happens slowly, so as not to alarm anyone too soon, and of course,
blame is always deflected when problems occur. Just as it was with the Netflix
case, which finally caused Tom Wheeler to do what's right.
Bert
-------------------------------------------------------------
https://www.freepress.net/blog/2017/04/25/net-neutrality-violations-brief-history
Net Neutrality Violations: A Brief History
Timothy Karr
April 25, 2017
For years a lineup of phone- and cable-industry spokespeople has called Net
Neutrality "a solution in search of a problem."
The principle that protects free speech and innovation online is irrelevant,
they claim, as blocking has never, ever happened. And if it did, they add,
market forces would compel internet service providers to correct course and
reopen their networks.
In reality, many providers both in the United States and abroad have violated
the principles of Net Neutrality - and they plan to continue doing so in the
future.
Here's what happens when cable and phone companies are left to their own
devices:
MADISON RIVER: In 2005, North Carolina ISP Madison River Communications
blocked the voice-over-internet protocol (VOIP) service Vonage. Vonage filed a
complaint with the FCC after receiving a slew of customer complaints. The FCC
stepped in to sanction Madison River and prevent further blocking, but it lacks
the authority to stop this kind of abuse today.
COMCAST: In 2005, the nation's largest ISP, Comcast, began secretly blocking
peer-to-peer technologies that its customers were using over its network. Users
of services like BitTorrent and Gnutella were unable to connect to these
services. 2007 investigations from the Associated Press, the Electronic
Frontier Foundation and others confirmed that Comcast was indeed blocking or
slowing file-sharing applications without disclosing this fact to its customers.
TELUS: In 2005, Canada's second-largest telecommunications company, Telus,
began blocking access to a server that hosted a website supporting a labor
strike against the company. Researchers at Harvard and the University of
Toronto found that this action resulted in Telus blocking an additional 766
unrelated sites.
AT&T: From 2007-2009, AT&T forced Apple to block Skype and other competing VOIP
phone services on the iPhone. The wireless provider wanted to prevent iPhone
users from using any application that would allow them to make calls on such
"over-the-top" voice services. The Google Voice app received similar treatment
from carriers like AT&T when it came on the scene in 2009.
WINDSTREAM: In 2010, Windstream Communications, a DSL provider with more than 1
million customers at the time, copped to hijacking user-search queries made
using the Google toolbar within Firefox. Users who believed they had set the
browser to the search engine of their choice were redirected to Windstream's
own search portal and results.
MetroPCS: In 2011, MetroPCS, at the time one of the top-five U.S. wireless
carriers, announced plans to block streaming video over its 4G network from all
sources except YouTube. MetroPCS then threw its weight behind Verizon's court
challenge against the FCC's 2010 open internet ruling, hoping that rejection of
the agency's authority would allow the company to continue its anti-consumer
practices.
PAXFIRE: In 2011, the Electronic Frontier Foundation found that several small
ISPs were redirecting search queries via the vendor Paxfire. The ISPs
identified in the initial Electronic Frontier Foundation report included
Cavalier, Cogent, Frontier, Fuse, DirecPC, RCN and Wide Open West. Paxfire
would intercept a person's search request at Bing and Yahoo and redirect it to
another page. By skipping over the search service's results, the participating
ISPs would collect referral fees for delivering users to select websites.
AT&T, SPRINT and VERIZON: From 2011-2013, AT&T, Sprint and Verizon blocked
Google Wallet, a mobile-payment system that competed with a similar service
called Isis, which all three companies had a stake in developing.
EUROPE: A 2012 report from the Body of European Regulators for Electronic
Communications found that violations of Net Neutrality affected at least one in
five users in Europe. The report found that blocked or slowed connections to
services like VOIP, peer-to-peer technologies, gaming applications and email
were commonplace.
VERIZON: In 2012, the FCC caught Verizon Wireless blocking people from using
tethering applications on their phones. Verizon had asked Google to remove 11
free tethering applications from the Android marketplace. These applications
allowed users to circumvent Verizon's $20 tethering fee and turn their
smartphones into Wi-Fi hot spots. By blocking those applications, Verizon
violated a Net Neutrality pledge it made to the FCC as a condition of the 2008
airwaves auction.
AT&T: In 2012, AT&T announced that it would disable the FaceTime video-calling
app on its customers' iPhones unless they subscribed to a more expensive
text-and-voice plan. AT&T had one goal in mind: separating customers from more
of their money by blocking alternatives to AT&T's own products.
NETWORK-WIDE: Throughout 2013 and early 2014, people across the country
experienced slower speeds when trying to connect to certain kinds of websites
and applications. Many complained about underperforming streaming video from
sites like Netflix. Others had trouble connecting to video-conference sites and
making voice calls over the internet.
The common denominator for all of these problems, unbeknownst to users at the
time, was their ISPs' failure to provide enough capacity for this traffic to
make it on to their networks in the first place. In other words, the problem
was not congestion on the broadband lines coming into homes and businesses, but
at the "interconnection" point where the traffic users' request from other
parts of the internet first comes into the ISPs' networks.
An Open Technology Institute investigation that drew on the Measurement Lab's
data analysis found these slowdowns were the result of "intentional policies by
some of the nation's largest communications companies, which led to
significant, months-long degradation of a consumer product for millions of
people." Major broadband providers, including AT&T, Time Warner Cable and
Verizon, deliberately limited the capacity at these interconnection points,
effectively throttling the delivery of content to thousands of U.S. businesses
and residential customers across the country.
VERIZON: During oral arguments in Verizon v. FCC in 2013, judges asked whether
the phone giant would favor some preferred services, content or sites over
others if the court overruled the agency's existing open internet rules.
Verizon counsel Helgi Walker had this to say: "I'm authorized to state from my
client today that but for these rules we would be exploring those types of
arrangements." Walker's admission might have gone unnoticed had she not
repeated it on at least five separate occasions during arguments.
The court struck down the FCC's rules in January 2014 - and in May, FCC
Chairman Tom Wheeler opened a public proceeding to consider a new order.
In response millions of people urged the FCC to reclassify broadband providers
as common carriers and in February 2015, the agency did just that.
Since Trump appointed him in January 2017, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai sought to
dismantle the agency's landmark Net Neutrality rules. In December, the FCC's
Republican majority destroyed all Net Neutrality protections, ignoring the
outcry from millions of people.
In the absence of any rules, violations of the open internet will become more
and more common.
Don't believe me? Let history be the guide.
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