Monday, May 08, 2017

My Comment to the FCC on Net Neutrality Repeal

The Federal Communications Commission is now accepting public comment on its pending proposal to repeal Tom Wheeler's 2015 Title II "Net Neutrality" power grab. The Electronic Frontier Foundation offers an online tool that makes it easy to comment. They pre-fill the comment form with pro-Net-Neutrality language, but you can ditch that pre-fill verbiage and say anything you like. Here's my comment -- feel free to use any of it that you like in putting together your own:

Thanks to the FCC for taking up the matter of "Net Neutrality" repeal.

Title II "Net Neutrality" is a dangerous power grab -- a solution in search of a problem that doesn't exist, with the potential to become an engine of censorship (requiring ISPs to non-preferentially deliver "legal content" invites the FCC and other regulatory and legislative bodies to define some content as "illegal").

Title II "Net Neutrality" is also an instance of regulatory capture through which large consumers of bandwidth (such as Google and Netflix) hope to externalize the costs of network expansions to accommodate their ever-growing bandwidth demands. To put it differently, instead of building those costs into the prices their customers pay, they want to force Internet users who AREN'T their customers to subsidize their bandwidth demands.

Please go through with the repeal of Title II "Net Neutrality."

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