The commissioner, a 2006 President Bush appointee, told the Business & Media Institute the Fairness Doctrine could be intertwined with the net neutrality battle. The result might end with the government regulating content on the Web, he warned. McDowell, who was against reprimanding Comcast, said the net neutrality effort could win the support of “a few isolated conservatives” who may not fully realize the long-term effects of government regulation.

“I think the fear is that somehow large corporations will censor their content, their points of view, right,” McDowell said. “I think the bigger concern for them should be if you have government dictating content policy, which by the way would have a big First Amendment problem.”

“Then, whoever is in charge of government is going to determine what is fair, under a so-called ‘Fairness Doctrine,’ which won’t be called that – it’ll be called something else,” McDowell said. “So, will Web sites, will bloggers have to give equal time or equal space on their Web site to opposing views rather than letting the marketplace of ideas determine that?”

McDowell's scare tactics aren't new. Conservative bloggers have tried to sabotage the net neutrality debate by making a false connection to the long-dead fairness doctrine, which required regulated media outlets to give equal time to opposing views. If the government penalizes Comcast for crippling the internet, the argument goes, well then that friends is regulation; and if the government can regulate Comcast, it must, obviously, regulate the rest of the internet immediately. This kindles the fear of god in conservative talk show hosts like Rush Limbaugh, who would rather stay silent than let Al Franken take up his airtime calling him a big fat idiot.

In the spirit of fairness, Commissioner McDowell is more than welcome to respond, provided he respects our own regulations.

McDowell: Fairness Doctrine, Net Neutrality Linked [Broadcasting & Cable]
FCC Commissioner: Return of Fairness Doctrine Could Control Web Content [Business & Media Institute]
(Photo: Getty)

"The commission has adopted a set of principles that protects consumers access to the Internet," FCC Chairman Kevin Martin told The Associated Press late Thursday. "We found that Comcast's actions in this instance violated our principles."

The AP says that Martin will recommend "enforcement action" against Comcast and that the FCC commissioners will vote on the issue on August 1.

FCC chief says Comcast violated Internet rules [AP] (Thanks, Everyone!)
(AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File)

Reader Jesse writes (emphasis added):

I spent a long time last night looking into the way Charter is handling this program, and based on their own explanation it's obvious that the cookie is not a "real" opt-out. Here's why.

When a customer clicks a link, advertisement, or visits a page, Charter will capture the browsing data and send it to the third-party advertising provider. If Charter wanted to offer a functional opt-out, it would be at this deep-packet inspection level. The do not offer a way out of that service, however. The only thing they offer is the cookie-based solution you've previously covered, which merely tells the third-party organization not to match the machine with the DPI-harvested data or deliver the advertising. Customer browsing is still being captured and is still being turned over regardless of anyone's individual opt-out status, but the third party is just blocked from doing anything with it by the cookie.

I might also point out that by doing this Charter is explicitly requesting that their customers choose not to follow safe browsing best practices. Every modern browser available today has an option for clearing cookies when the browser is closed, and many people choose to take advantage of this practice, myself included. Charter is either demanding that I and many others either fill out their form several dozen times per day (every time we open our browser) or specifically switch off browsing features intended to keep customers safe. Neither of these are acceptable, of course.

I am going to contact Charter's executive team again this morning on the matter, as well as an attorney. I have not been notified of Charter's changes through a letter or email, and learned about this program last night via other means. Having read through the Cable Privacy Act, which governs Charter's use of personally identifiable information, I have discovered no fewer than three potential violations. Moreover, Charter is required by law to make any collected data available to its customers, so I would suggest that all Charter customers request their DPI browsing data on a daily basis, and file appropriate complaints when they fail to deliver it as required by law.

They're not going to stop doing this until or unless they lose more money than they make on it. We have vehicles available to us to lose them vast sums of money on this project, if only the word gets out.

Subsection D of the Cable TV Privacy Act states, in part: "A cable subscriber shall be provided access to all personally identifiable information regarding that subscriber which is collected and maintained by a cable operator. Such information shall be made available to the subscriber at reasonable times and at a convenient place designated by such cable operator." It's debatable whether the data Charter is collecting is "personally identifiable information" under this statute, which excludes from the definition "any record of aggregate data which does not identify particular persons." Maybe a subpoena would clear things up.

Cable TV Privacy Act, 47 USC § 551 [Cornell Law]
(Photo: Getty)

Reader Matt copied us on a letter he sent to Charter's VP of Customer Operations and CEO:

Dear Mr. Stackhouse,

I am a high speed internet subscriber in the Fort Worth, TX area. For the last year or so I have had Charter’s 10 Megabit service and I am a satisfied customer. I am writing, however, because I am concerned by your recent letter discussing the “enhancement” that will be coming soon to my Charter web browsing experience (targeted, in-line advertisement manipulation). I appreciate Charter’s respect for my privacy, but the method that Charter has provided to opt-out of this tracking scheme is insecure and woefully inadequate.

The method that you provide to opt-out is as follows. First, a customer must visit www.charter.com/onlineprivacy. Once at the site, the customer must enter his or her complete name and address. Upon submission of this personal information, the customer must accept a cookie from Charter that indicates his or her opt-out status. While this process sounds simple on face, further consideration reveals that this opt-out method is fraught with privacy concerns and places the burden on your paying customer, rather than Charter.

The most pressing privacy issue with this opt-out method is that the opt-out form presented at the aforementioned URL is not encrypted. As I’m sure you realize, this means that a user submitting his or her address to Charter is doing so in the clear, leaving this personal information open to eavesdropping. It is not difficult to create an SSL-encrypted web form. It is troubling that Charter has not done so in this case.

The fact that this opt-out system relies on a cookie to keep users opted out is also a privacy issue. By telling customers who visit the opt-out page that, “if you delete your cookies or cache files… you will have to opt-out again,” you are encouraging users to keep those files that good privacy practices dictate should be frequently purged. Ironically, the best reason to purge one’s cookies often is to prevent internet marketers from tracking one’s behavior online.

In addition to the critical privacy concerns, the steps required to avoid being tracked by this new advertising system place the burden on your customers, rather than on Charter where it belongs. A customer should be able to opt-out of this advertising tracking system in a manner that will rarely, if ever, require the customer to opt-out again. Instead, because the system uses cookies, a customer must insecurely opt-out of being tracked on each PC in his or her home. Further compounding the work that the customer has to do, if the he or she deletes cookies in accordance with safe browsing techniques, it will be necessary to insecurely opt-out on each and every PC again.

I suggest that rather than force your customers through unending iterations of opting out of this advertising system, you should allow customers like me to opt-out at the cable modem level via a secure, encrypted form on your website. I’m glad to hear that Charter has an appreciation for my privacy, but please change your opt-out process to demonstrate that you also have an appreciation for my time and security online.

Matt's letter focuses on the flawed opt-out clause, but the program itself, an implementation of "deep packet inspection," is more worrying to us. Deep packet inspection allows an ISP to monitor not only its users searches and visited websites, but also the type of activity (e.g., email or peer-to-peer), which could be used for traffic shaping and threatens net neutrality.

Charter to Monitor Surfing, Insert Its Own Targeted Ads [DSLReports]
(Photo: Getty)

The three main points of Comcast's argument, which Ars Technica covers in greater detail, are:

1. "Congress has not given the FCC authority to act on this matter"

2. "The FCC's Internet Policy Statement does not give the agency the authority to deal with the issue"

3. "Regulating Comcast's ISP policies may violate the Administrative Procedures Act (APA)"

The article concludes that this may just be "legal saber rattling" on Comcast's part—but that it might also be "a warning to the FCC to expect a lawsuit following any action against ISP P2P blocking. FCC Chair Martin says he hopes to finish his investigation of Comcast by late June. "

"Comcast: FCC lacks any authority to act on P2P blocking" [Ars Technica]
(Photo: Monty Python)

Comcast PR rep Jen Khoury told Portfolio, Comcast informed our local employees about the hearing and invited them to attend... Some employees did attend, along with many members of the general public," adding that, "For the past week, the Free Press has engaged in a much more extensive campaign to lobby people to attend the hearing on its behalf."

Whichever side you believe, one thing is for certain: Comcast employees are very tired (exhibit A, exhibit B).

The self-policing marketplace and blogosphere, combined with vigilant scrutiny from policymakers, provides an ample check on the reasonableness of such [network management] judgments.

Comcast: The Blogosphere Will Keep Us Honest [IP Democracy] (Thanks to Ninja of the DC!)
Comments Of Comcast Corporation (PDF)

My name is Marianne Maestas and I am with the Executive Customer Relations department of T-Mobile. I am contacting you on behalf of Mr. Robert Dotson in regards to the email that you sent him yesterday evening.

In your email, you express concerns, as you are not able to use your service for Twitter. As you have been advised, Twitter is not an authorized third-party service provider, and therefore you are not able to utilize service from this provide any longer. You indicate your feeling that this is a violation of the Net Neutrality.

T-Mobile would like to bring to your attention that the Terms and Conditions of service, to which you agreed at activation, indicate "... some Services are not available on third-party networks or while roaming. We may impose credit, usage, or other limits to Service, cancel or suspend Service, or block certain types of calls, messages, or sessions (such as international, 900, or 976 calls) at our discretion." Therefore, T-Mobile is not in violation of any agreement by not providing service to Twitter. T-Mobile regrets any inconvenience, however please note that if you remain under contract and choose to cancel service, you will be responsible for the $200 early termination fee that would be assessed to the account at cancellation.

The arguments are relevant to the issue at hand, because text messaging is not the Internet. Until your communication hits the TPC/IP layer, it's subject to all the corporate crap that phone messages are. The phone companies are more balkanized than you realize, clearly. Specifically, phone service providers are allowed to block any short code they want. Read the policies for using a short code to provide service.
http://www.usshortcodes.com/csc_obtainPol.html
T-Mobile already has the contractual right to pick and choose which short codes it supports.

"Net Neutrality outrage: reports of T-Mobile blocking Twitter" [ZDNet]
"Twitter, Tweeters, And T-Mobile: Everyone Loses" [Silicon Alley Insider]
"T-Mobile Attacks Net Neutrality Unnecessarily: Twitter Problem Not Its Fault" [Wired]

Eh, not likely. Though ISPs have proven their desire to block BitTorrent, ban political text messages, and censor concert lyrics, Markey's effort will keep the issue alive for Presidential contenders, rather than result in enacted law.

The leading Democratic presidential contenders — Hillary Clinton, John Edwards of North Carolina, Barack Obama and Bill Richardson — all have endorsed tougher neutrality safeguards to prevent broadband operators from potentially acting as content gatekeepers.

Details of the Markey bill were sketchy, but sources said the measure may be an updated version of the 11-page bill he introduced in May 2006 when broader Republican-backed telecom legislation was pending. Various ideas are being bandied about for the new iteration, including the possibility of mandating nationwide field hearings on the subject.

From Ars:

John Hart describes himself as a Comcast customer who has seen performance hits when using "Blocked Applications" targeted by Comcast's traffic management application, Sandvine. In his complaint, Hart says that Comcast severely limits "the speed of certain internet applications such as peer-to-peer file sharing and lotus notes [sic]." Comcast accomplishes this by "transmitting unauthorized hidden messages" to the PCs of those using the applications.

Comcast hit with class-action lawsuit over traffic blocking [Ars Technica]

ISPs want to block BitTorrent, ban political text messages, and censor concert lyrics. The only political solution to bad faith is to strip of ISPs of their right to discriminate.

Net neutrality advocates want two things: hearings in the Congressional Commerce Committees; and for the FCC to join them at the woodshed to slap Comcast with a massive fine. Now is the time to write to your Members of Congress, write to the FCC Commissioners, and visit SaveTheInternet.com.

Write Your Senator
Write Your Representative
PREVIOUSLY: How To Write To Congress
(Photo: SuziJane)

"Comcast's blatant and deceptive BitTorrent blocking is exactly the type of problem advocates warned would occur without net neutrality laws," Ben Scott, policy director at Free Press, also in Washington, said in a statement. "Our message to both the FCC and Congress is simple: We told you so, now do something about it."

"Sandvine already counts top U.S. cable provider Comcast Corp (CMCSA) among its customers, Barron's said." - Easing network debate may aid Allot/Sandvine-paper, Reuters, Sun Apr 8, 2007

Here's the orginal Barron's article (subscription required): Here's How the Drama Over 'Net Neutrality End

Sandvine also posted the article in the press archives section on their very own website.

Oops. Hard to play the no comment game when the facts are already in print.

PREVIOUSLY:
LEAKS: Insider Tells Us There's Proof Comcast Contracts BitTorrent Sabotaging To Sandvine
Comcast's "We Don't Throttle BitTorrent" Internal Talking Points Memo

"Comcast has made a major mistake in attempting to hinder peer-to-peer file sharing as an aspect of its network management," Rick Boucher, D-Va told CNet's Chris Soghoian. "The inability of customers to (share files) significantly diminishes their ability to utilize the Internet for one of its most important applications, which is user-to-user content."

He also noted that "file sharing is already being used for a wide variety of perfectly lawful and appropriate applications."

That's nice, but will Comcast's shady dealings with BitTorrent prompt congress to address net neutrality? Reply hazy. Try again.

Congressman to Comcast: Stop interfering with BitTorrent [CNet]

His editorial is a laundry list of problems readers here are too familiar with. Verizon blocking politically charged text messages; AT&T slipping "we'll terminate your account for speaking badly of us" language into its terms; carriers pushing for a tiered network so they can charge different amounts for different types of data; or, carriers being hostile to consumer-friendly peer-to-peer and file sharing technology because it can't be controlled by the entertainment industry; the fact that the baby bells and their siblings are gradually reassembling like the Blob. He even drops in the fact that the U.S. lags behind far too many regulated countries in broadband capabilities, despite carrier claims that a hands-off approach will make us superior.

He closes with, "The hands-off approach hasn't served consumers well. And the Web is far too important to entrust the free flow of information to the shifting whims of a few big companies. Government must step in and tell them to leave our content alone." It's like a giant momma bird ate up all the complaints and documented misbehavior posted in The Consumerist over the past 12 months and spat it into the mouths of Business Week's print edition readers. Hooray.

"Get Your Hands Off the Web" [Business Week]
(Photo: Getty)

This fairytale-like story of consumer choice prompted Brodsky to look for comparison charts of services. What he found—a mag's list of 25 common UK broadband companies versus what we presume to be his own local set of offerings—can't be used for true side-by-side measurement, but it's still a striking illustration of the stunted state of "innovation" and competition in the US market.

Click the links for more details on pricing and plan details, if you dare.

US Broadband Companies (offerings available in Montgomery County, Maryland, from HuffingtonPost.com)	25 UK Broadband Companies (most of which are available nationwide; from Which? magazine, August 2007)
Verizon Comcast	AOL Be BT Bulldog Demon Eclipse Freedom2Surf Global Karoo Internet Madasafish MetroNet Nildram Orange (formerly Wanadoo) Pipex PlusNet Sky Supanet TalkTalk Tesco Telecoms Tiscali Toucan UK Online Utility Warehouse Virgin Media (cable/DSL) Waitrose Zen Internet

"Our Internet Policy Is A Disgrace: Here's The Proof" [HuffingtonPost via Yahoo! News]
(Photo: Getty)

The Assistant Attorney General in charge of the department's Antitrust Division added, "Consumers and the economy are benefiting from the innovative and dynamic nature of the Internet." The department also said that its antitrust enforcers will take action when necessary to allow broadband competition, which removes the need for net neutrality regulation.

"DoJ Opposes Net Neutrality Rules" [InformationWeek]

A few seconds after you connect to someone in the swarm the Sandvine application sends a peer reset message (RST flag) and the upload immediately stops. Most vulnerable are users in a relatively small swarm where you only have a couple of peers you can upload the file to. Only seeding seems to be prevented, most users are able to upload to others while the download is still going, but once the download is finished, the upload speed drops to 0. Some users also report a significant drop in their download speeds, but this seems to be less widespread. Worse on private trackers, likely that this is because of the smaller swarm size.

"We're not blocking access to any application, and we don't throttle any traffic," says Charlie Douglas, a Comcast spokesman.

Douglas didn't explicitly deny the use of deep packet inspection or traffic shaping products. "[Comcast] has a responsibility to manage our network to ensure our customers have the best service, and we use available technologies to do so."

Comcast Throttles BitTorrent Traffic, Seeding Impossible [TorrentFreak]
(Photo: CarbonNYC)

"[The muting was] a major mistake by a webcast vendor and completely contrary to our policy. We are working closely with the vendor and the band to post the song in its entirety on this site and ensure that this does not happen again."

Pearl Jam, known for taking strong public stands on political and market issues, published the following on their website and are using the incident as an example of why we need net neutrality:

"This troubles us as artists but also as citizens concerned with the issue of censorship and the increasingly consolidated control of the media. AT&T's actions strike at the heart of the public's concerns over the power that corporations have when it comes to determining what the public sees and hears through communications media."

Resources: www.pearljam.com

AT&T Silences Pearl Jam; Gives 'Net Neutrality' Proponents Ammunition [Forbes]

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Update
Several readers have correctly pointed out that net neutrality is not about either free speech or corporate censorship. Net neutrality specifically refers to the concept of an open network, one free of restrictions on the type of equipment used on it or the mode of communication. In practical terms, net neutrality is concerned with protecting the "last mile" of residential broadband networks so that individual ISPs can't block services or technology wholesale, without allowing for competition.

Instances such as the Pearl Jam censorship, even if they are accidental as AT&T says, serve as easy ammunition for net neutrality proponents because they remind consumers of how corporations and free speech don't always mix. AT&T is not obligated to give Pearl Jam an open platform to speak politically; the fear, however, is that if companies like AT&T controlled the last mile, they could effectively stamp out any competition—and then they could control what the customer watches, hears, or reads. The Pearl Jam incident is a weak argument since AT&T was the commercial sponsor of the webcast, but because censorship is such an emotional topic, we're not surprised it's being used. (And because it's being used, weak or not, the tag "net neutrality" remains valid.)

We're sure some readers have far more knowledge about this topic than we do, and we invite them to elaborate on the topic or politely correct us in the comments below.

Resources:
Wikipedia entry on network neutrality
ACLU page that explains some net neutrality issues in plain English
Public Knowledge Net Neutrality White Paper
3-minute video explaining net neutrality

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

(Photo: Getty)

• Net Neutrality as Told By Gun Wielding Halo Maniacs
• What's Net Neutrality? Also a PSA, but tamer, fewer plasma rifles, more white space.
• NJ Townsman Fights Verizon on Net Neutrality
• Daily Show's John Hodgman Explains Net Neutrality
• Verizon on Net Neutrality: "Trust Us."

Little is said on the ISP's part, so in the interest of fairness, let us present several links explaining why Net Neutrality is the worst thing since moldy bread. — BEN POPKEN

• Mike McCury: It's important to upgrade the "creaky" internet.
• Scott Cleland: Net Neutrality = Socialism
• Hands Off The Internet: Grassroots anti-net neutrality group, except that it's funded by telcos.
• Don't Regulate! Faux-amateur animation explains how Net Neutrality is a plot to replace network admins with fat cat bureaucrats.
• Debunking Net Neutrality Myths: Telco-sponsored blog debunking the "myth" of Net Neutrality. Net Neutrality is a unicorn.
• National Cable & Telecommunications Association's 30-second political style ad against Net Neutrality. While you're there, visit the sidebar items under the heading, "Cable: A Great American Success Story."

Why would a 20 year old college student — only take time out of his lazy days pursuing his English major and dreamily strumming on his guitar — spend ten months writing an extremely focused blog about arcane debates involving cable television and the future of Internet access?

Correct answers include: schizophrenia, or he's a paid PR flackey of Verizon. Guess which is the correct answer?

Lies, cable TV, and Patrick Hynes [Borderline] (Thanks, John!)

"The point is that with net neutrality all internet packets - whether they come from a big company or a single citizen - are treated in the exact same way."

"So what's the debate? That actually seems quite fair."

"Yes, almost too fair. It's as if the richer companies get no advantage at all."

An excellent skewering of Net Neutrality by John Hodgson Hodgman and The Daily Show. We wanted to pull this man's spinal column out of his urethra when he did those smug, execrable Mac vs. PC ads, but he's redeemed himself in our eyes now.

Previously: Daily Show Ties Ted Stevens' Tubes

Have no fear people, this crazy old politico isn't in a position where his uninformed opinions might do harm, he's only a member of the Senate commerce committee currently deciding on Net Neutrality.

(Thanks to Anderew!)

They want to deliver vast amounts of information over the internet. And again, the internet is not something you just dump something on. It's not a truck.

It's a series of tubes.

And if you don't understand those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and its going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material.

We're a bit late at laffing at this bozo, but better late than never. I love how he refers to 'emails' as 'internets'. We bet the air quotes were wagging during that speech.

Your Own Personal Internet [Wired]

comment on this post

Since April of last year, Cox has worked with Authentium to develop a security suite. The company has been non-reactive to requests by Craigslist to get it removed from their blacklist. Some Digg users confirm the outages, while others are able to get on Craigslist just fine over Cox lines.

Incidentally, Cox has its own online classifieds service. Reports Silicon Valley Watcher:

"Craigslist has approached Authentium several times to get it to stop blocking access by Cox internet users but it has been unresponsive. Jim [CEO of Craigslist] wasn't aware that Cox had its own classified ads service. "That changes things, " he said."

More at Silicon Valley Watcher.

comment on this post

The clip comes from the Halo Machinima talk show, This Spartan Life.

Don't let the ISPs chop up whats free and open, structure it into tiers and then sell it back to you at a premium. Fight back with plasma grenades.

Net neutrality: it's the 21st century Tragedy of the Commons, except for no good reason.

Previously:

• What's Net Neutrality?
• NJ Townsman Fights Verizon on Net Neutrality
• Verizon on Net Neutrality: "Trust Us."

If you're new to the issue, here's a simple and quick primer on what it's all about, told in our favorite format: moving images with sound!

via The Bivings Report.

Town resident Tom L is lobbying town council to have three principles upheld in the deal they're currently negotiating with Verizon:

1. A la carte cable service. Subscribers only pay for the channels they want instead being forced into bundles.
2. No opposition to a future municipal WiFi plan. Verizon has fought savagely to oppose municipal wi-fi plans in the past.
3. To obey the tenets of Network Neutrality and not implement a tiered internet access structure. Verizon and other telcos have been talking a lot lately about charging more to visit certain, higher bandwidth sites, like YouTube or Apple iTunes.

Read more at Tom's blog he set up to track this important issue.

Red Bank is one of several pilot towns chosen for the new program. If successful, the same battle will be fought at the local level across the nation, unless of course Verizon gets its way with the federal government and eliminates its responsibility to negotiate with individual towns on cable franchises, as detailed in this Business Week article.

Verizon is claiming that we can. In fact, they recently told Congress: "Our commitment to our customers, our commitment to [the U.S. Congress] is this: We will not block, impair, or degrade content, applications, or service."Mark that word: commitment.

Now go read David Isenberg's account of the last commitment Verizon made to him as a customer, when his phone line went out. They committed to be there within an 11 hour window to restore service. That commitment flew out the window as soon as it became inconvenient for Verizon to do so. We've all had experiences like this. How quickly do you think Verizon's "commitment" to offer web surfers unimpaired Internet access will last when the executives decide that that's inconvenient or just not profitable?

Verizon: "Trust us." [Isen.blog]