On Fri, 20 Aug 2010, Harry Penner wrote: > Yes, I reflexively distrust govt. Maybe you don't. I guess I should be > happy to just agree to disagree on that, as long as we can both agree > that the questions should be asked. Which I think we do (below). Sure, I don't work by reflex. I'm more thoughtful about it. >> I read a bunch of the stuff on this list today and a lot of it wasn't >> very impressive but I did like what Tony Yarusso wrote. I liked it so >> much that I'm appending it below. What's wrong with what Tony is >> saying? > > I like what he said too. Let's grant his framing of the problem for a > minute for the sake of argument: the providers want to regulate > [traffic], and the govt wants to stop that regulation. The problem, for > me, is that in order for the government to stop that regulation it has > to put in regulation [of provider behavior] of its own. Seems to me > that it's extremely difficult, if not impossible, to just "cancel out" > unwanted behavior without ripple effects. I'd have to see the proposal. There are always ripple effects, in a sense, but they might be good ripple effects. For example, a net neutrality regulation might give the big telcos less reason to try to buy up all the providers and create a massive internet conglomerate that controls what we see and manipulates the government through lobbying and massive campaign contributions. > If you grant that, then the govt doesn't just cancel out the providers' > regulation [of traffic]; it introduces regulation of its own. So > although I think Tony's model is certainly a desirable one I don't think > it's an attainable one, or at very least least not easily attainable. Well, that isn't much of an argument -- you don't think it's attainable. So what? If you were a top expert and a business professor with a law degree who specialized in internet business, then I'd care about your unsupported opinion, but only a little bit. I need more facts and information. > Like you said, we don't have that regulatory language in front of us to > evaluate, but it just seems very likely to me that whatever the govt > ends up putting in place to regulate the providers' behavior will have > unforeseen negative effects. Even if we define the problem narrowly > enough to only stop ISPs from blocking access to content, can that come > back to bite us? Will that stop ISPs from providing a value-add that > might block customers' access to phishing or malware sites? What's > going to be considered an ISP -- will a "good guy" who blocks access to > all kinds of sites, such as OpenDNS, be affected? (And if not, what's > to stop ISPs from just implementing their own independent OpenDNS-alike > to get around the rule, and then default to it as their DNS provider?) > What protocols will be affected -- will it prevent ISPs from blocking > direct SMTP sends from end-users to non-ISP mail servers (which I don't > particularly like, but supposedly cuts down on automated spam)? > > I think we're in agreement that all these questions have to be asked, > but we might be in disagreement as to whether the desired result can be > gained cleanly (or at all) using the govt intervention method. Like I > said, I'll settle for just agreeing to disagree on that, as long as we > can both agree that the questions should be asked, so that everybody's > got their eyes open going into it. Which I think we do. Peace. Exactly -- we have to take a careful look at the details of any proposed regulatory solution and see what the expert arguments are on all sides. I always like to hear what Stallman thinks, for one, and I'm sure he'll have a lot to say about any proposal. He's big into freedom, like me and you. Mike