In my recent post on this issue, I said I hating digging into it because it’s such a slog. So in that regard, kudos to Grammy-winning composer/artist and activist Maria Schneider for assembling what might be the most comprehensive and digestible narrative lately presented on this subject. Published as a guest post at The Trichordist, Schneider lays out the backstory, which led the FCC to adopt the OIO rules in 2015 that everyone thinks are so essential to freedom and the internet. Here are few highlights …
“The current posture of “net neutrality” having its home in the FCC, has its origins in 2007, when Google, quite remarkably, essentially bribed the FCC to include certain “net neutrality” conditions into an FCC auction of huge swaths of broadband capability.”
“It seems the FTC stats on policing ISPs are impressive. The FCC has never done that, it’s not in their DNA. And their ability to police is even very limited, unlike the FTC. The power of the people is best reflected through the FTC, not the FCC.”
“…the current contrived definition of “net neutrality” really means that ISPs are required to maintain, at their own expense (which is actually the consumer’s expense), a totally “open” set of highways, that are unobstructed by any natural market forces at all, so that Google can drive its fleet of Ferraris at high speeds, with absolutely no traffic rules. It makes Verizon (and therefore us, who pay Verizon’s bills), Google’s bitch.”
Read Schneider’s full article here.
