FCC approves plan to consider paid priority on Internet - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/05/15/fcc-approves-plan-to-allow-for-paid-priority-on-internet/ <comment><USER2> The title and post are both quite misleading. The commissioners didn't approve Tom Wheeler's plan (to regulate the Internet under Section 706), but voted to go ahead with the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking and commenting period. Tom Wheeler stated multiple times that Title II classification is still on the table.

There'll now be a 120 day commenting period; 60 days of comments from companies and the public, and then 60 days of replies to those comments from the same. After that, the final rulemaking will happen.

It's likely that the docket number for comments will continue to be 14-28, so if you want to ask the FCC to apply common carrier rules to the Internet under Title II, you can do so here: [http://apps.fcc.gov/ecfs/upload/display?z=r8e2h](http://apps.fcc.gov/ecfs/upload/display?z=r8e2h) and you can view previous comments here: [http://apps.fcc.gov/ecfs/comment_search/execute?proceeding=1...](http://apps.fcc.gov/ecfs/comment_search/execute?proceeding=14-28)

It's probably best to wait until the actual text of the NPRM is made public though, which'll likely happen very soon.

Edit: WaPo have now updated the title of the article to make it more accurate: "FCC approves plan to consider paid priority on Internet." Old title was "FCC approves plan to allow for paid priority on Internet."

<comment><USER3> Ok. That's 120 days to make Title II a household word.

Broadband's current classification as an information service, as if it's some sort of MovieFone for the 21st century, is so far removed from reality that the public should be in an uproar about it. Verizon itself has sought to classify its fiber buildouts under Title II so it can get fixed-rate access to existing right-of-way infrastructure, [1] on the technicality that its VOIP service running across those lines is regulated under Title II. Yet the main reason for building it is, of course, broadband, which dodged Title II on the even flimsier grounds of those ISP email and start pages you never use.

People should be holding signs outside the FCC building with "Title II" on them. The chair of the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, Michael Powell, has ominously said attempts to reclassify broadband as Title II would be "World War III"[2] – but if he wants a fight, the FCC really should oblige him, and consumers should be beating the drums.

[1] [http://www.theverge.com/2014/5/14/5716802/game-of-phones- how...](http://www.theverge.com/2014/5/14/5716802/game-of-phones-how-verizon- is-playing-the-fcc-and-its-customers)

[2] [http://www.theverge.com/2014/1/15/5311948/net-neutrality- and...](http://www.theverge.com/2014/1/15/5311948/net-neutrality-and-the- death-of-the-internet)

<comment><USER4> You really do not want broadband classified under Title II. You will get the war you want, but it will be a war everyone loses.

Why do you think DSL is such a ghetto? It's because it's subject to a higher level of regulations, and nobody wants to invest money in such a highly- regulated industry: [http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Goldman-Sachs-Wants- Veriz...](http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Goldman-Sachs-Wants-Verizon-to- Sell-All-Landline-Assets-117774).

Classifying cable broadband under Title II will definitely have the effect of killing Comcast and Time Warner's profit margins. Hooray! Your tribe wins, and the big evil telecom companies will be cut down to size!

Except the telecom companies make up 6 of the top 25 companies with the highest U.S. capital expenditures: [http://news.investors.com/technology/091913-671712-institute...](http://news.investors.com/technology/091913-671712-institute- ranks-highest-us-corporate-capital-spending.htm). You think they're going to keep pouring all that money into low-margin heavily-regulated infrastructure? No, they'll do what Goldman wants and divest themselves of regulated business lines, and take that money and put it into a profitable business sector.

<comment><USER5> This is something most people don't seem to get. Government control == stagnation.

<comment><USER6> By "get" I think you mean "accept". I don't think most people accept it because the evidence does not overwhelmingly support this statement.

<comment><USER5> >because the evidence does not overwhelmingly support this statement

To which evidence are you referring?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> "And he promised a series of measures to ensure the new paid prioritization practices are done fairly and don't harm consumers."

I have a measure in mind that won't harm consumers. Don't allow ISPs to discriminate against users regarding their already paid for internet traffic based on what they request. (Gee that sounds a lot like net neutrality.)

Anything less is open for abuse.

Perhaps "Discrimination" is a good word to tar this with, because it is. It's discrimination against companies, but it's also discrimination against users based on their tastes, preferences, and possibly socioeconomic status.

To say nothing of de-facto censorship issues.

<comment><USER8> _Don 't allow ISPs to discriminate against users regarding their already paid for internet traffic based on what they request._

It's (relatively) cheap for Netflix or their CDN partners to connect their content-serving systems to a few dozen "meet me" rooms where it's "easy" for Comcast to hook as many wires up as necessary to receive the requested data into their network at an acceptable rate. That's all Netflix or their CDNs need to worry about. And so it's (relatively) cheap for them to scale the amount of data they serve as their customer base, average viewing time and stream quality grow.

But Comcast has to deliver all this data to tens of millions of customers spread out around the nation. While it would be nice if their networks were sufficiently provisioned to serve, say, half their customers 20Mbit/sec continuously during primetime, that is just not the network they have today. It will always be cheaper for Netflix to turn up the spigot than for Comcast to build out its infrastructure. Should "network neutrality" force Comcast to spend billions every time Netflix doubles its streaming rate?

<comment><USER9> Basically the answer to this is yes. If Comcast spends all of this money to upgrade their network and the cost to the end user goes up for the better service, then there are really no problems here. That's basically how a market should work. That plan would actually encourage them to upgrade their networks over time and install things like fiber to meet the new demands of customers, instead of providing poor service like they do now.

<comment><USER8> The problem is that a network that can stream 20Mbit continuously to every customer (so they always can get the "advertised" bandwidth) would be absurdly expensive, and rates would have to go up accordingly. Why should someone who doesn't consume Netflix pay for this? Why should Comcast be afraid to sell you a 100MBit "bursty" connection (essentially the same kind of service they actually advertise now) because they'd be 'forced' to potentially have the capacity to serve 100MBit to every subscriber when Netflix goes to 8K-h.269 or what-have-you?

<comment><USER10> _The problem is that a network that can stream 20Mbit continuously to every customer (so they always can get the "advertised" bandwidth) would be absurdly expensive, and rates would have to go up accordingly_

Then maybe they should advertise a different bandwidth?

<comment><USER11> This is sort of like car advertisements, that always touts "350hp V8" or whatever, even though in the vast majority of real-life usage you can use that power for at most a second or two at some freeway onramp or in a passing lane.

Saying that the connection is technically capable of 20Mbit/s is different from _guaranteeing_ 20Mbit/s in any possible usage situation. The problem with my analogy is that people generally have an idea that you can't go faster than maybe 80mph regardless of what car you have, but there is no way to know if the "up to 20Mbit/s" connection means actual usage will show 15, 5, or 1... So yeah, they should somehow be required to tell you, at least at signup, what the typical throughput on your connection will be.

<comment><USER12> So you're ok with buying a 350hp v8 that can only really ever do 50hp? Except on toll roads you have to pay for again that you may use 'up to' 350hp, but you're still not guaranteed that.

The FCC isn't talking about speed that's a red herring. It's about access. What if the FCC say "Fine consumers must have a minimum of 1gbps" you're like "Huzar" and the FCC say "And anyone who pays a huge amount of money get a minimum of 100gps." ..hold the phone

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I don't get this whole net neautrality discussion that is going on in US (and maybe somewhere else, just haven't paid attention).

Consumers pay based on speed of their connection. If ISP feels like the consumers are not paying enough, raise the prices.

Service providers (not ISPs, but the ones who run servers that consumers connect to) pay based on speed of their connection. If the ISP feels like service providers are not paying enough, raise the prices.

Why in the earth there is a need for slow/fast lanes and data caps?

I'm four years old. So please keep that in mind when explaing this to me. :)

<comment><USER14> > Why in the earth there is a need for slow/fast lanes and data caps?

It's just an alternate way of pricing the service. You could ask similar questions about a lot of industries:

\- Why does Github charge the way it does and not just price the service per megabyte of data stored or per commit, etc?

\- Why do fast food restaurants offer free soft drink refills for $0.99 but not offer a single fill for $0.50?

\- Why do residential bandwidth providers not offer a service with guaranteed gamer-quality low latency?

\- Why do restaurants not offer a discount for customers who decline the free bread and water?

<comment><USER15> \- Why does the water supplied to my home come in clear and polluted varieties?

\- Why does the electricity supplied to my office come in normal power and brown power versions?

Oh, wait.

<comment><USER4> Those examples are funny, because, e.g. our water infrastructure is the subject of underinvestment to the tune of $55 billion a year: [http://geospatial.blogs.com/geospatial/2011/12/asce- report-o...](http://geospatial.blogs.com/geospatial/2011/12/asce-report-on- the-impact-of-under-investment-in-water-infrastructure-in-the-us-.html)

When you make an industry a public utility, and eliminate market-rate profit incentives, you get underinvestment, which is exactly what we see in water, power, etc: [http://www.asce.org/failuretoact](http://www.asce.org/failuretoact).

You can talk all you want about making internet service into "dumb pipes" but you can't make investors and shareholders pour billions of dollars a year into the "dumb pipe" business. They'll just dump their regulated business lines and shift the money to something more profitable, like Goldman is encouraging Verizon to do: [http://stopthecap.com/2012/01/09/wall-street-encourages- veri...](http://stopthecap.com/2012/01/09/wall-street-encourages-verizon-to- get-completely-out-of-landlinefios-business).

<comment><USER15> Investors and shareholders are not in favor of pouring billions of dollars a year into infrastructure either. That's why we're seeing this rent seeking behavior, and one reason why we have slower speeds than other modern nations.

Yes, I am in favor of municipal fiber-to-the-home solutions paid for with public dollars given the critical importance of these "dumb pipes".

<comment><USER4> > Investors and shareholders are not in favor of pouring billions of dollars a > year into infrastructure either.

Comcast spent $5.4 billion on capital expenditures in 2013: [http://www.cmcsa.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=821438](http://www.cmcsa.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=821438). TWC spent $3.2 billion: [http://ir.timewarnercable.com/investor- relations/investor-ne...](http://ir.timewarnercable.com/investor- relations/investor-news/financial-release-details/2014/Time-Warner-Cable- Reports-2013-Fourth-Quarter-and-Full-Year-Results/default.aspx).

Verizon and AT&T regularly top the list of companies with the highest U.S. capital expenditures, and Comcast and TWC are usually in the top 25: [http://www.businessinsider.com/the-25-companies-investing- mo...](http://www.businessinsider.com/the-25-companies-investing-most-in- america-2012-7?op=1).

> That's why we're seeing this rent seeking behavior, and one reason why we > have slower speeds than other modern nations.

Like? We compare quite favorably to countries like Canada and Australia, which have similar problems as we do with lack of density. According to Akamai's testing, we're in the top 10 worldwide for measured average connection speeds: [http://www.akamai.com/dl/akamai/akamai- soti-q413.pdf?WT.mc_i...](http://www.akamai.com/dl/akamai/akamai- soti-q413.pdf?WT.mc_id=soti_Q413) (page 19, Figure 20). Ookla's NetIndex puts us ahead of Canada and Australia, and only slightly behind the UK and Germany: [http://www.netindex.com](http://www.netindex.com). Our Northeastern states, like New Jersey and Pennsylvania, which have density comparable to continental Europe, have average connection speeds comparable to France, the EU standout.

> Yes, I am in favor of municipal fiber-to-the-home solutions paid for with > public dollars given the critical importance of these "dumb pipes".

You don't, because when public dollars are involved, you get "lowest common denominator" levels of investment. Comcast's average user uses 2-5 GB/month. If telecom infrastructure was provisioned according to these people voting, do you think the resulting level of investment would be at a level that would make the folks on HN happy?

<comment><USER15> > Comcast spent...

Absolute dollars isn't as interesting as a trend. According to the National Cable Telecommunications Association, expenditure on broadband infrastructure has declined over the past 5 years. [http://www.vox.com/2014/5/12/5711082/big- cable-says-broadban...](http://www.vox.com/2014/5/12/5711082/big-cable-says- broadband-investment-is-flourishing-but-their-own-data)

> We compare quite favorably to countries like Canada and Australia.

According to a 2013 report by Ookla, US ranks 31st in download speeds. [http://venturebeat.com/2013/11/26/america-falls-a- dismal-31s...](http://venturebeat.com/2013/11/26/america-falls-a-dismal-31st- on-ranking-of-consumer-download-speeds-report/)

> You don't, because when public dollars are involved, you get "lowest common > denominator" levels of investment.

That must explain why Comcast and other monopoly providers fight municipalities tooth and nail against local broadband projects. I respect your opinion, but I disagree that communication infrastructure is not a public good.

<comment><USER16> _> We compare quite favorably to countries like Canada and Australia._

 _According to a 2013 report by Ookla, US ranks 31st in download speeds._

You know you didn't disagree with him at all, right? Your source shows the US beating out Canada comfortably, and Australia overwhelmingly.

The US is not going to match the #1 and #2 on your list, Hong Kong and Singapore, _ever_ , because it is trivial to wire up a single dense city with weak democratic red tape.

I can't say this with 100% (I may have missed one comparing lists from different sources), but it looks like there's no country within an order of magnitude of America's land area that has higher download speeds on Ookla's list.

 _EDIT_ Yep, confirmed. It looks like the biggest country that is faster than the US is France, which is 547,000 sqkm, while the lower US's land-only area is over 7.6 million sqkm.

<comment><USER17> > The US is not going to match the #1 and #2 on your list, Hong Kong and > Singapore, ever, because it is trivial to wire up a single dense city with > weak democratic red tape.

But even the most densely populated areas in the US have terrible Internet access. A small portion of New York City has FiOS, but the vast majority has Comcast or Time Warner, and those are about$60 for 20Mbps _advertised_ [0].

I'm willing to give Singapore the fact that it's a smaller government[1], but the bottleneck in providing better Internet access in NYC is _not_ the NYC government.

[0] I am in midtown Manhattan, probably the most densely populated area in the country, and I am getting 700 KB/s as I type this, so I'm not even getting anything close to what's advertised.

[1] And the population is about 2/3 the size of NYC

<comment><USER4> At the state level, on Ookla's data, New York performs pretty comparably to France and Belgium. It may be that there are cities in France and Belgium that have faster internet service. But they have better subways, etc, too. Most Americans cities are terribly managed. While Verizon is trying to deploy FIOS in New York, De Blasio has hired a civil rights lawyer to look into the issue of poor people not being able to afford FIOS! I would say the bottleneck is definitely NYC's government!

<comment><USER17> > At the state level, on Ookla's data, New York performs pretty comparably to > France and Belgium.

Because they're including Weill Cornell Medical College and Digital Ocean in the data (those are the top ISPs in NYC, on their map).

It's not very meaningful unless we (A) can separate out consumer ISPs from business ISPs[0], (B) Know what speeds everyone is paying for and has available (currently this is all lumped together), and (C) knows how much everyone is paying for that service.

> While Verizon is trying to deploy FIOS in New York, De Blasio has hired a > civil rights lawyer to look into the issue of poor people not being able to > afford FIOS! I would say the bottleneck is definitely NYC's government!

As someone who actually lives in NYC and has tried to get FiOS installed in multiple buildings, there are two problems. One is that buildings have exclusive agreements to provide television service through either Time Warner or Comcast (usually because the superintendant and/or owner gets free cable as a result of this agreement), and that Verizon refuses to provide FiOS Internet unless they can also provide television service.

Verizon is fully aware of this problem, and they've framed it in a way that allows them conveniently to point the finger at another entity.

Verizon is "trying" to deploy FiOS in New York, but they're not really interested in expanding their coverage.

> De Blasio has hired a civil rights lawyer to look into the issue of poor > people not being able to afford FIOS! I would say the bottleneck is > definitely NYC's government

This would only be relevant if the NYC government were the ones actively blocking people who can afford to pay for FiOS from having it installed, but as explained above, that's not the case.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'm confused by this headline (and a bit by the proceeding).

After watching the FCC hearing, it seemed like all of the people who were "for" open internet, and spoke of it from the consumer level (including Wheeler) voted _for_ the proposal. The commissioners that said the FCC didn't have jurisdiction to regulate and to leave the market alone, voted _against_ the proposal.

Isn't it the case that if they had voted against this, that we would have been in the exact same boat we are in now and therefore the agreement that Netflix signed would continue unabated?

In that case, it really didn't matter what they voted.

<comment><USER19> The people at the FCC are saying the opposite of what they mean.

Yes, we are in the same boat with Netflix having to pay for bandwidth as before. However, by the FCC officially sanctioning something that would have been technically illegal before the Federal ruling, they've basically reversed course and declared open season on content providers the ISPs don't like.

<comment><USER4> > The people at the FCC are saying the opposite of what they mean.

No, net-neutrality proponents are saying the opposite of what they mean. They couch this in terms of "protecting the open internet." Except there never was an "open internet." Before the short-lived net neutrality regulations, cable companies were allowed to do whatever they wanted with their network. And that's true now that the regulations have been struck down. The cable companies do not need any sort of action by the FCC to be able to come to these agreements.

What net-neutrality proponents want is new regulations to keep cable companies from doing something that they currently are allowed to do, and except for a small period of time, were historically always allowed to do.

<comment><USER19> If the government blocks fair competition in a market [through controlling who can provide last mile connections by right of way], they need to provide regulation to enforce fairness on the other end [those that provide last mile connections can't pick and choose whose packets they carry and at what QoS].

There used to be counterweights involved [e.g. Comcast had to play ball fairly] which effectively forced neutrality. Netflix, for instance, wasn't a 'problem' back in 2007 for the ISPs. We didn't have the ISPs pulling QoS BS like this in the 90s because people could and would switch providers. They can't now unless they want to go back to using dialup.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> In my mind one of the key questions to ask in this debate is, if the eventual rise of a more closely controlled internet destroys this frontier, what's next?

Right now thanks to a close confluence of remarkable factors, the barriers associated with starting something are almost negligible. The steady march of Moore's law combined with visualisation has given us servers that cost fractions of a penny to lease per hour. No one has had to beg or pay middlemen to use that server and reach customers around the world. At the other end, customers can finally view these bits, often streamed wirelessly, on magical slabs of glass and metal in their hand or what would have passed for a super- computer in a bygone age... All of this combined with a myriad of other factors has allowed anyone to start a billion dollar company. If this very fragile ecosystem is damaged and it dies out, where should someone ambitious go next to strike out on their own?

<comment><USER21> They won't, this is how you kill a sector of the economy. Hopefully it won't come to that, but then again, that's why this is important.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> If Comcast gets their way, the FCC will have effectively ended up sanctioning the balkanisation of the US's internet users in to cable company controlled fiefdoms.

Each cable company will then assume the role of warlord for their userbase and proceed to dictate the terms and agreements under which their users will experience the internet. All of which guided solely by their desire to maximise profits.

If people aren't worried yet, they should be. Serfs didn't enjoy medieval Europe for a reason.

The only two viable routes out of this nightmare are:

1\. Enshrine net-neutrality / common carrier status in law

or

2\. Radically break up the US ISP/cable market so that real competition exists. This way Comcast is free to try and milk every teat they can find. If users or content providers don't like the result, Comcast can wither on the vine and die while competitors pick up their fleeing users.

</comment><comment><USER23> Wait a minute! You mean my ever-increasing ISP fees at my home are _not_ for the ISP to build a better network? You mean to tell me the ISP is now going to charge content providers for the ability to provide me with content that I'm already paying my ISP to deliver? You mean to tell me my content providers are now going to likely increase their fees to cope with this "fast lane"?

This sounds an awful lot like extortion, and double billing.

ISP's... you have one (1) job. Deliver packets.

</comment><comment><USER24> "Even one of the Democratic commissioners who voted yes on Thursday expressed some misgivings about how the proposal had been handled.

"I believe the process that got us to rulemaking today was flawed," she said. "I would have preferred a delay.""

\</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>---

But... she voted yes anyway. WTF?

<comment><USER7> For whatever reasons, she must have felt moving forward with a rule was better than not, regardless of the process issues.

I may disagree with the decision, but I understand her position.

<comment><USER23> "I would have done this differently. I would have taken the time to consider the future"

Yet she did not consider the future one bit.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> The internet is slowly being transformed into cable television

<comment><USER26> Yes. And certain companies are pushing hard to make them succeed these days. Mozilla is one of them.

<comment><USER27> I don't understand this comment. Can you explain?

<comment><USER28> By agreeing to incorporate DRM in the browser Mozilla is, according to that comment, agreeing to let the problem get worse.

One of the characteristics of cable TV is, precisely, that you don't get access to the content if you don't pay. DRM is one way of achieving this, and Mozilla in this case is accepting that without even a struggle.

If I understood the parent comment correctly, that is.

<comment><USER29> This is incorrect.

Mozilla fought the DRM implementation more than any other browser. They were at the point where they unfortunately had to implement it, otherwise their user base wouldn't be able to access services like netflix etc. At that point it's better to keep your user base instead of them switching to another browser and having no voice.

<comment><USER28> You raise a good point. I'm not smart enough to give a good reply to the issue on my own, so instead I'm going to quote the relevant part of the FSFs statement[1] from a different discussion[2]:

> We understand that Mozilla is afraid of losing users. Cory Doctorow points > out[3] that they have produced no evidence to substantiate this fear or made > any effort to study the situation. More importantly, popularity is not an > end in itself. This is especially true for the Mozilla Foundation, a > nonprofit with an ethical mission.

[1] [https://www.fsf.org/news/fsf-condemns-partnership-between- mo...](https://www.fsf.org/news/fsf-condemns-partnership-between-mozilla-and- adobe-to-support-digital-restrictions-management)

[2] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7749108](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7749108)

[3] [http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/may/14/firefox- cl...](http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/may/14/firefox-closed- source-drm-video-browser-cory-doctorow)

<comment><USER29> I'd argue you are smart enough to give a good reply. You've given your reference material as well (which I should have done previously). You are reading and engaging in Hacker News topics, this means you are way above the "average" person. You are smart enough to give a good reply :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Its not a plan to allow paid priority on the Internet -- that's _already allowed without any restriction_ since the old Open Internet order was struck down by the D.C. Circuit. Its a plan to, within the limits placed by the court order striking down the old plan, _limit_ practices that violate the neutrality principles the FCC has articulated as part of its Open Internet efforts, including paid prioritization.

</comment><comment><USER31> Simply put, this is absolutely terrible. How are start ups and small business web companies supposed to compete when their reach to consumers will automatically be slowed compared to larger competitors who pay for faster pipes?

And who is to govern the rates (and tiers) of faster speeds? I can only assume ISPs will determine a cost based on aggregate bandwidth. But who is to say there can't be a fast lane, a faster lane, and a fastest lane? Sounds anti competitive to me (even the big name companies are against this!).

Last: "The telecom companies argue that without being able to charge tech firms for higher-speed connections, they will be unable to invest in faster connections for consumers" > Google Fiber is cheaper for one. Seconds, the telecom giants have all increased subscriptions so there is more money there. And, as time goes along shouldn't these providers become more efficient and costs should decrease anyway? Must be nice to have a sudo-monopoly in some markets.

</comment><comment><USER32> As an European I probably should be glad about this, since this combined with all the NSA spying issues and implementing backdoors into US products [1], should increasingly force innovation out of US and bring it to Europe, but somehow I'm not.

All the ISPs will slow down all the major companies services, unless they pay up. There is no "faster" Internet. It's just "paying to get normal Internet back", like they've already done with Netflix:

[http://knowmore.washingtonpost.com/2014/04/25/this- hilarious...](http://knowmore.washingtonpost.com/2014/04/25/this-hilarious- graph-of-netflix-speeds-shows-the-importance-of-net-neutrality/)

[1] - [http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/05/photos-of-an- nsa-...](http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/05/photos-of-an-nsa-upgrade- factory-show-cisco-router-getting-implant/)

<comment><USER33> Anything the US does they will eventually try and put into a trade agreement and force others to do too.

We should never look over the water and be thankful it's not happened to us, because all we're seeing is how our (near) future is likely to be.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Most important quote since the title is misleading:

" The proposal is not a final rule, but the three-to-two vote on Thursday is a significant step forward on a controversial idea that has invited fierce opposition from consumer advocates, Silicon Valley heavyweights, and Democratic lawmakers. "

</comment><comment><USER35> > approved in a three-to-two vote along party lines,

Why the fuck are there party lines in the FCC? Or any other regulatory body for that matter?

<comment><USER30> > Why the fuck are there party lines in the FCC? Or any other regulatory body > for that matter?

Because regulators aren't angels that descend from heaven, but people peforming a political function, appointed and confirmed by elected politicians.

Or, more succinctly, _because representative democracy_.

<comment><USER36> I think the question was not why there are members of different parties in the FCC, but why do they differ in this vote based on partisan membership? I.e. why would one party find these rules good while the other not? It's as if one likes net neutrality, while the other doesn't.

<comment><USER30> > It's as if one likes net neutrality, while the other doesn't.

"As if"? For the whole length of the net neutrality policy debate, the support has concentrated in the Democratic Party and the opposition has centered in the Republican Party -- not just on the FCC, but in Congress and everywhere else. The reason the Democratic majority of the FCC keeps trying to find a way to advance Open Internet principles within the framework of existing law that at best addresses the issue indirectly is because neither mostly-Democratic supporters of express FCC authority (or mandate) for net neutrality nor mostly-Republican supporters of expressly prohibiting the FCC from regulating for net neutrality have sufficient support in Congress to pass legislation incorporating those goals and get it signed into law or override a Presidential veto.

<comment><USER36> Let's rephrase it then. Net neutrality is a very reasonable idea (same way as antitrust regulations are). Why do Republicans oppose it? They like monopolistic abuses on the Internet?

<comment><USER37> It's quite simple; net neutrality represents regulations on business. Republicans are anti-(business)-regulation, believing that a completely free market will deliver the best result to consumers. Of course, in this case that disregards the reality of 80 years of telecom monopolies (and derivative companies thereof,) i.e. mammoth established players with a history of playing dirty to stomp all others out of the marketplace; it is possible that in a blank slate scenario that regulation-less competition would lead to a good result for consumers, but even that is not a foregone outcome. In short, market idealism.

<comment><USER36> That's the point. One has to be blind to reality to have such "idealism". They should know better.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> People having the freedom to look at whatever they choose on a level playing field may not be in the interests of all concerned.

The consolidation of media companies possibly served interests other than profits. Look at what Putin is allegedly doing with the internet. Maybe in a way the eventual intent of this is the same. And for the same purposes. I don't think we should let it get started just in case.

</comment><comment><USER39> I don't understand the ISP's point of view on this issue. Please correct me if I'm wrong. But it seems that ISPs are saying "Hey, we offer this great service. But bandwidth hungry applications like Netflix are just using too much data. And we need to throttle their data usage, or they need to pay us more money."

The ISPs, then, are claiming to be victims. When in reality they simply promise services that they can't cost-effectively deliver.

If I make contracts to give all of you a new pair of shoes every month. And you pay in advance. And then I run out of shoes before I can deliver on my promise...doesn't that mean that I don't know how to effectively run my business? Isn't that my fault for promising a service that I can't provide? Why would anyone feel sorry for me?

</comment><comment><USER40> At this point everyone is officially invited to comment on the proposal. In around 60 days, the FCC will respond to your comments and redraft a proposal. Please comment! [http://www.fcc.gov/comments](http://www.fcc.gov/comments)

</comment><comment><USER26> "What a nice internet connection you have there. It would be a real shame if something happened to it...".

So we had a good time, haven't we...

</comment><comment><USER41> Can anyone make a serious argument on behalf of the carriers? Given the court decisions, the only way to protect the American people and the economy is to reclassify ISP's under Title II.

For the skeptics, it appears to come down to the question: which route offers better prospects for upgrading our internet infrastructure? _Choice one_ is relying on a for-profit corporation with an effective monopoly that is beholden to shareholders; _Choice two_ is relying on elected politicians beholden to the voters.

If you think there is a different argument that can be made on behalf of the carriers or if you can make the above one better, I would be very interested in hearing it.

<comment><USER42> > Can anyone make a serious argument on behalf of the carriers? Given the > court decisions, the only way to protect the American people and the economy > is to reclassify ISP's under Title II.

If you ignore the various arguments about ISPs trying to get paid twice for the same content, consider the possibility of an ISP and a major high- bandwidth content provider (YouTube, Netflix, Akamai, etc) trying to build a deal that's better for both of them _and_ for the consumer. For instance, consider a CDN on the ISP's network. Consumers get content faster with lower latency; the content provider reduces their bandwidth costs by sending only one copy of $POPULAR_CONTENT rather than one per customer; the ISP has lower costs and makes its customers happier.

Network neutrality would ban that, too. So this isn't the kind of thing that can be settled with simple blanket statements like "carriers should not make deals with content providers" or "all content should be treated identically".

> For the skeptics, it appears to come down to the question: which route > offers better prospects for upgrading our internet infrastructure? Choice > one is relying on a for-profit corporation with an effective monopoly that > is beholden to shareholders; Choice two is relying on elected politicians > beholden to the voters.

I'm always impressed when people can say with a straight face that politicians listen to voters. Voters don't care about issues like these, unless you can divide the issue across party lines _and_ successfully make it one of the very small number of visible issues in a political campaign.

I'd be more interested in seeing proposed solutions to the "effective monopoly" problem than to network neutrality. Solve the monopoly and issues like network neutrality will disappear along with it.

<comment><USER41> Thanks for the thoughtful response. Care to explain your CDN/ISP hypothetical further? Wouldn't the content providers who are capable of paying have an advantage over those who aren't?

I'm not clear on how money changes hands in your case, but undoubtedly this arrangement would favor the ISP. As far as peering goes, it's a bit more complicated... server locations are more mobile than consumer locations, so there is less concern about an effective geographic monopoly for backbone providers. Without fully thinking through the economics of peering, my initial thought is that there should probably be a regulated amount that ISP's can charge to peer with backbone providers. Maybe cost plus a maintenance fee based on traffic volume.

Regarding voting, I just feel it's the better of two imperfect solutions.

<comment><USER42> > Thanks for the thoughtful response. Care to explain your CDN/ISP > hypothetical further? Wouldn't the content providers who are capable of > paying have an advantage over those who aren't?

Of course, just as Amazon has an advantage over smaller retailers, and Netflix has an advantage over new steaming services. Incumbents always have certain advantages, and business deals always favor those involved in them over those not involved in them. Money makes things easier. But "an advantage" isn't "an insurmountable advantage", and HN is full of startups coming up with innovative ways to circumvent incumbent advantages.

> I'm not clear on how money changes hands in your case, but undoubtedly this > arrangement would favor the ISP.

Not necessarily. This doesn't need to be a win/lose zero-sum scenario; it's entirely possible, in the scenario I described, for all three of the customer, the ISP, and the content provider to come out _ahead_.

> As far as peering goes, it's a bit more complicated... server locations are > more mobile than consumer locations, so there is less concern about an > effective geographic monopoly for backbone providers.

That's certainly true. And in general, I think it's much more critical to find a solution to the ISP monopoly problem than to the network neutrality problem, because ISP monopolies lead to quite a few other issues as well.

> Without fully thinking through the economics of peering, my initial thought > is that there should probably be a regulated amount that ISP's can charge to > peer with backbone providers. Maybe cost plus a maintenance fee based on > traffic volume.

I can understand where that idea would come from, but ick; there are _so many_ things wrong with that idea.

Perhaps it would make sense to legally separate the "last-mile" provider from the large-scale bandwidth provider, with the former providing only connectivity to a local meet-me room. I don't particularly _like_ that idea, but it seems far less awful than alternatives.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> This doesn't sound good:

"6\. Enhance competition. The Commission will look for opportunities to enhance Internet access competition. One obvious candidate for close examination was raised in Judge Silberman's separate opinion, namely legal restrictions on the ability of cities and towns to offer broadband services to consumers in their communities."

[http://www.fcc.gov/document/statement-fcc-chairman-tom- wheel...](http://www.fcc.gov/document/statement-fcc-chairman-tom-wheeler-fccs- open-internet-rules)

<comment><USER44> The FCC wants to _override_ state laws banning municipal competition. This is one thing they have right.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> The investment in Obama by tech luminaries must be a huge disappointment.

<comment><USER46> Obama proclaiming his "commitment to net neutrality" \- [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-mW1qccn8k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-mW1qccn8k)

Tom Wheeler, the FCC Chairman, was appointed by President Obama and confirmed by the majority Democratic U.S. Senate in 2013 (lead by Harry Reid who also claims to be pro net neutrality) is going to kill Net Neutrality.

Please take some time to remind democratic politicians & supporters why practicing this sort of politics will come with a price.

<comment><USER30> > Tom Wheeler, the FCC Chairman, was appointed by President Obama and > confirmed by the majority Democratic U.S. Senate in 2013 (lead by Harry Reid > who also claims to be pro net neutrality) is going to kill Net Neutrality.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit _already_ killed net neutrality. Wheeler is trying to resurrect it within the limits set by the Court (if you want more than that Court will allow under current statutory authority, you need to get more net neutrality friendly people in Congress so that they can change the statute to give the FCC more authority with regard to net neutrality.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> peak internet:

[http://blog.kozubik.com/john_kozubik/2010/12/peak- internet.h...](http://blog.kozubik.com/john_kozubik/2010/12/peak- internet.html)

</comment><comment><USER48> Great! the FCC has officially sanctioned ISP's to be Trolls, demanding some gold to cross their bridge. This guarantees that there will always be multiple levels of peering speed even if the connections are upgraded and are able to easily handle the load. They won't want to give up their troll gold. That's just peachy, thanks for letting us get screwed over even more, Go USA! </Sarcasm>

<comment><USER30> > the FCC has officially sanctioned ISP's to be Trolls, demanding some gold to > cross their bridge.

No, the DC Circuit did that when it struck down the FCC's old Open Internet order. The FCC has proposed a draft plan to limit harassment by the trolls, and asked the public for comments on how to make it better before "official sanction" is given to any rule.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> We truly have the best government money can buy.

</comment><comment><USER50> There is no way in hell this can go ahead. Also, minor nitpick, but this is a rather misleading post. Nobody approved anything, the vote was merely a green light to go ahead with the proposal, nothing has been approved just yet, it's not that easy.

Some of my "favourite" takeaways:

 _He stressed consumers would be guaranteed a baseline of service_ Just like your internet provider says they don't throttle torrent traffic, but a few major ISP's have been caught out doing just that. The same is going to happen if this proposal goes ahead. Unless people breaking the rules are reported, they won't be caught and where will the resources for reporting infringer's come from?

 _Wheeler 's proposal is part of a larger "net neutrality" plan that forbids Internet service providers from outright blocking Web sites_ I have no doubt in my mind, the reform Wheeler is pushing for is merely a door and there are definitely bigger things in store once the flood gates have been opened. The pressure will be too great to close them again.

 _The agency said it had developed a "multifaceted dispute resolution process" on enforcement and would consider appointing an "ombudsman" to oversee the process._ The FCC has a shady history of resolving disputes, this is merely hot air to make the reforms not sound so bad. What happens when the resolution process breaks or is overwhelmed and can't cope with the number of infringements taking place?

As for a handful of key entities controlling what happens with the pipeline, China is a classic example of what happens when you let a sole entity dictate something like the Internet and even then, the great firewall doesn't stop everything.

Then there are questions about conflicts of interest. What happens when say a company like Comcast owns a stake in a company like Netflix and conspire to extort a competitor like Hulu (asking for exorbitant amounts of cash for speed). Who sets the price of these fast lanes and will prices be capped to prevent extortion? Too flawed to work.

<comment><USER51> > What happens when say a company like Comcast owns a stake in a company like > Netflix and conspire to extort a competitor like Hulu (asking for exorbitant > amounts of cash for speed).

Comcast actually owns part of Hulu, but its a purely economic ownership interest (See [https://www.fcc.gov/transaction/comcast- nbcu](https://www.fcc.gov/transaction/comcast-nbcu) for more information)

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> And now Comcast is planning data limits for all customers, what conincidence. [http://money.cnn.com/2014/05/15/technology/comcast-data- limi...](http://money.cnn.com/2014/05/15/technology/comcast-data- limits/index.html)

<comment><USER53> Metered service is, ultimately, what they want. They are envious of the kinds of margin wireless carriers are getting for data transfer over their networks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> _After weeks of public outcry over the proposal, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said the agency would not allow for unfair, or "commercially unreasonable," business practices. He wouldn't accept, for instance, practices that leave a consumer with slower downloads of some Web sites than what the consumer paid for from their Internet service provider._

Because they've done such a bang-up job of that thus far..? It's no secret that at comparable advertised speed, Netflix on Comcast was far worse than Netflix on other ISPs.

I'm not sure if they're really so deluded to think their enforcement is super great, or if they're just delivering placating sound bites.

</comment><comment><USER55> If this were a matter of prioritizing traffic on the internet backbone, then I would be in favor. There is nothing wrong with charging congestion fees.

However, in this case, we are talking about cable companies, and the bottleneck is presumably the last mile. So what these laws are really doing is enabling cable companies to extract even more monopoly rents, in the form of discriminatory pricing (even though it is the content providers that pay, the pipeline in question is closer to the end user than the content provider, and so if the issue were congestion pricing, and not discriminatory pricing, the charge would be on the end user, who is already paying).

</comment><comment><USER56> So what happened? It seems like just yesterday that the FCC was the one creating the rules around net neutrality. A federal court over-turns this and all of a sudden the FCC decides to go the complete opposite direction?

<comment><USER30> > So what happened?

Media misrepresentation happened.

> It seems like just yesterday that the FCC was the one creating the rules > around net neutrality.

It still is.

> A federal court over-turns this and all of a sudden the FCC decides to go > the complete opposite direction?

No, this is an attempt to revive, within the constraints of the court decision, what was struck down. The reporting that this is about "allowing" or "considering" paid prioritization ignores the fact that, as a result of the court decision, paid prioritization is allowed _now_ , without any restrictions. This proposal would declare some paid prioritization (where it is offered exclusively to an affiliate of the ISP) presumptively illegal, and seek to restrict paid prioritization even outside of that which is presumptively illegal. This is in the exact same direction (though not the exact same mechanism, _since that was ruled outside of the FCC 's authority_) as prior net neutrality orders from the FCC, which is why the same 3-2 partisan alignment on the FCC exists on the issue that has existed on net neutrality as a broad concept for quite some time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> Just making it easier for other countries. Shoot yourself in the foot, USA!

</comment><comment><USER58> This portion of the piece is interesting to me: "He wouldn't accept, for instance, practices that leave a consumer with slower downloads of some Web sites than what the consumer paid for from their Internet service provider." Definitions are tricky, but since we all pay for more bandwidth from our ISPs than we utilize from any one site (or almost all of us, I think), sticking to this rule would mean ISPs would not have the power to throttle individual data sources. Is that not a correct interpretation?

</comment><comment><USER59> It really is time to decentralize and move forward with mesh networking.

<comment><USER60> Can you point me towards what I can do right now to move towards this? I already maintain an open guest network but I presume there's more I could be doing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> I know all the basic ins and outs of bandwidth. But why is this so complicated? I pay x amount for access to the Internet at x speed. I use internet. I pay the access fee.

</comment><comment><USER62> There should be a fast lane, it should also be the only lane.

</comment><comment><USER63> _" If a network operator slowed the speed of service below that which the consumer bought, it would be commercially unreasonable and therefore prohibited," Wheeler said._

I find this quote very interesting. Currently the trend seems to be that the sticker speed on a connection bears little resemblance to the actual speed. I wonder if he has a plan to change that or if this was just an offhand remark.

</comment><comment><USER64> Assuming the plan were to be approved, and given that the FCC is an American government organisation, are there any implications for those in other countries?

Also, how can an American government organisation consider paid priority on The (global) Internet? Isn't it better to say that "FCC approves plan to consider paid priority on Internet for those who connect to it via a US telecoms provider"?

<comment><USER30> > Assuming the plan were to be approved, and given that the FCC is an American > government organisation, are there any implications for those in other > countries?

If its approved, then there would be limits -- which do not currently exist -- on what USP based ISPs could do to discriminate between content sources in providing access to consumers. This includes, among others, content sources in foreign countries. So it certainly has implications for foreign _content providers_ , but probably less for foreign _consumers_.

> Also, how can an American government organisation consider paid priority on > The (global) Internet?

Its not. Its considering _limiting_ what US broadband providers can do.

</comment></comment><comment><USER65> The actual notice of proposed rulemaking (or "NPRM," as ad-law nerds call it): [http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-14-61A...](http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-14-61A1.pdf)

I haven't read it in full yet, but I've read the introduction, and the press coverage (surprise!) does not seem quite right to me.

</comment><comment><USER66> Who amongst the political rulers of the country, apart from Jared Polis and Ted Cruz, is fighting against this?

I don't mean populists who make vague promises about net neutrality in order to be elected, then put people in place to undermine their promises -- I mean people who are in a position to fight the FCC, and who are _actively_ doing it.

</comment><comment><USER67> I hope there will be companies, upon being asked by an ISP to pay more for higher priority in their network, who will tell them to get the f*k off and advocate usage of VPN and anonymisers for their users so they're not identified as US residents.

<comment><USER68> Which only works until your VPN provider also refuses to pay up and gets put in the slow lane for having too much traffic.

<comment><USER69> Business opportunity: Start VPN service and pay for the 'faster lane'. Advertise to users that they won't have throttled anything. ISPs become the utility that they should be.(Although at a higher cost to the end user)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER70> You can't offer bandwidth at a premium, without reducing the bandwidth available to others. That's (physically) how the Internet works. No matter what Wheeler says, there's no way that paid prioritization of traffic can be done fairly.

</comment><comment><USER71> The mistake will be to allow even a tiny hole in net neutrality. Once they get hold of something it will be only a matter of time to make it larger. However it sounds harmless any dent to net neutrality should be fought against fiercely.

</comment><comment><USER72> The FCC doesn't even agree with ISPs on the definition of what, exactly, constitutes "Broadband" connectivity.

Meanwhile the monopoly in my area continues to receive my payments, no matter what they do.

</comment><comment><USER73> The fix is in. Now what are you going to do about it?

</comment><comment><USER74> No one I know in the public want this, only ISP. Why the fuck are we even having a commenting period on this fucking knock it down.

</comment><comment><USER75> Who nominated this former lobbyist for the FCC spot? And who voiced/voted their approval? Voters should know.

</comment><comment><USER36> I don't really understand why it's divided by partisan membership.

</comment><comment><USER76> Maybe I am missing something, but what is the argument ISPs have for this?

<comment><USER46> They are a very large contributor to Democratic politicians.

<comment><USER63> To be clear, the Democrat appointees are the ones pushing for a return to net neutrality.

<comment><USER46> Factually acurate. And what do Obama & Congressional and Senate Democrats have to say about it? at most feigning some concern, but ultimately doing nothing. They don't care net neutrality, having somewhat plausible deniable and making Comcast, at&t et al happy is a win win for them.

Do you really think the FCC chairman would do this or be able to do this against Obamas wishes?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER77> Well, this is no coincidence. ISPs have been working on this for years.

<comment><USER78> ISPs or telecoms? Telecoms have been working on this for years.

<comment><USER26> Sometimes, ISPs are both.

<comment><USER40> Well, that's the issue. ISP's are being classified as telecoms.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER79> anywhere that the internet can be routed via paid priority is the spot where the snooping can be installed.

</comment><comment><USER80> So why isn't internet an utility?

</comment><comment><USER81> If that would pass - wouldn't be this a great opportunity for european hosting companies to seize the hosting market?

<comment><USER82> Probably not. Installing last-mile infrastructure is expensive. I understand that it's also often political; early cable TV installations were often local monopolies granted by local governments.

Even if they tried, the incumbent ISPs can afford to underprice their services to make it uneconomical for competitors. E.g., they might lower prices drastically in competitive areas, and raise them in uncompetitive ones.

</comment></comment><comment><USER83> G_G america.

</comment><comment><USER84> Okay, from all the public discussion so far, NYT, WaPo, various fora, etc., I totally fail to 'get it'. Maybe I know too much or too little; likely a mixture of both.

Help! More details anyone?

To be more clear, let's consider: I pay my ISP, a cable TV company, so much a month for Internet service with speeds -- Mbps, million bits per second -- as stated in the service, maybe 25 Mbps upload (from me to the Internet) speed and 101 Mbps download speed.

Now those speeds are just between my computer and my ISP. So, if I watch a video clip from some server in Romania, maybe I only get 2 Mbps for that video clip because that is all my ISP is getting from the server in Romania.

And I am paying nothing per bit moved. So, if I watch 10 movies a day at 4 billion bytes per movie, even then I don't pay more.

Now, to get the bits they send me, my ISP gets those from some connection(s) to the 'Internet backbone' or some 'points of presence' (PoP) or some such at various backbone 'tiers', 'peering centers', etc.

Now, long common in such digital communications have been 'quality of service' (QoS) and 'class of service' (CoS). QoS can have to do with latency (how long have to wait until the first packet arrives?), 'jitter' (the time between packets varies significantly?), dropped packets (TCP notices and requests retransmission), out of order packets (to be straightened out by the TCP logic or just handled by TCP requesting retransmission), etc. Heck, maybe with low QoS some packets come with coffee stains from a pass by the NSA or some such! And CoS might mean, if a router gets too busy (the way the Internet is designed, that can happen), then some packets from a lower 'class' of service can be dropped.

But my not very good understanding is that QoS and CoS, etc., don't much apply between my computer and my ISP and, really, apply mostly just to various parts of the 'Internet backbone' where the really big data rates are. And there my understanding is that QoS and CoS are essentially fixed and not adjusted just for me or Netflix, etc. E.g., once one of the packets headed for me gets on a wavelength on a long haul optical fiber, that packet will move just like many millions of others, that is, with full 'network neutrality'.

So, I ask for some packets from a server at Netflix, Google, Facebook, Yahoo, Vimeo, WaPo, NYT, HN, Microsoft's MSDN, etc. Then that server connects to essentially an ISP but with likely a connection to the Internet at 1, 10, 40, 100 Gbps (billion bits per second). And, really, my packets may come from Amazon Web Services (AWS), CloudFlare, Akamai, some colocation facility by Level3 or some such; e.g., the ads may come from some ad server quite far from where the data I personally was interested in came from.

Note: I'm building a Web site, and my local colocation facility says that they can provide me with dual Ethernet connections to the Internet at 10 Gbps per connection.

Note: Apparently roughly at present it is common commercial practice to have one cable with maybe 144 optical fibers each with a few dozen wavelengths of laser light (dense wavelength division multiplexing -- DWDM) with data rate of 40 or 100 Gbps per wavelength.

So, there is me, a little guy, getting the packets for, say, a Web page. Various servers send the packets, they rattle around in various tiers of the Internet backbone, treated in the backbone like any other packets, arrive at my ISP, and are sent to me over coax to my neighborhood and to me.

So, with this setup, just where could, say, Netflix be asked to pay more and for what? That is, Netflix is already paying their ISP. That ISP dumps the Netflix packets on the Internet backbone, and millions of consumer ISPs get the packets. My ISP is just a local guy; tough to believe that Netflix will pay them. Besides, there is no need for Netflix to pay my ISP since my ISP is already doing what they say, that is, as I can confirm with Web site

[http://www.speedtest.net](http://www.speedtest.net)

I'm getting the speeds I paid my ISP for.

Netflix is going to pay more to whom for what?

Now, maybe the issue is: If the Netflix ISP and my ISP are the same huge company, UGE, that, maybe, also provides on-line movies, then UGE can ask Netflix to pay more or one or the other of the UGE ISPs will throttle the Netflix data. Dirty business.

But Netflix is a big boy and could get a different ISP at their end. Then the UGE ISP who serves a consumer could find that the UGE ISP still throttles data from Netflix but not from the UGE movie service? Then the consumer's ISP would be failing to provide the data rate the consumer paid for.

Or, maybe, the UGE ISP that serves me might send the movies from the UGE movie service not part of the, say, 101 download speed from my ISP to me and, instead, provide me with, say, 141 Mbps while the UGE movie is playing. This situation would be 'tying', right? Then if Netflix wants to be part of this 141 Mbps to a user who paid for only 101 Mbps, then Netflix has to pay their UGE ISP more; this can work for UGE because they have two ISPs and 'own both ends of the wire'.

I can easily accept that a big company with interests at several parts of the Internet and of media more generally may use parts of their business to hurt competition. Such should be stopped.

But so far the public discussions seem to describe non-problems.

</comment><comment><USER85> Yet another blow to Net-Neutrality...

<comment><USER86> I don't see a problem. You can switch ISP if your current one isn't net- neutral. Why should you force businesses to operate in certain way? They're not breaking any laws.

<comment><USER49> Clearly you aren't living in the United States. My choices are Comcast, Comcast, and Comcast.

I'm really starting to think mesh networks are going to be the only solution.

<comment><USER86> Are there no smaller, 'independent' ISPs which aren't part of conglomerates that are unlikely to remain net-neutral?

<comment><USER49> Again, you clearly aren't from around here.

To be less facetious, I could also choose AT&T DSL, but they don't offer competitive bandwidth. And they aren't exactly a small independent ISP. There might be ISPs that offer "business class" service, but their prices probably start at least 3x what I currently pay. I'm not even sure they would offer service in an apartment complex either.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Twitter CEO Endorses DuckDuckGo - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/jack/status/1199783221162053633 <comment><USER2> I switched my iPhone to Duck Duck Go over the last few days simply because I hate hate HATE getting linked to Reddit AMP pages from Google.

Reddit (and Stack Exchange) pages are what I use most to find honest discussions about some topic. Very convenient to use those results to filter through the blogspam.

Reddit's AMP pages are especially bad, with multiple annoying pop-ups that don't get cookied when you dismiss them on AMP. I don't understand what Reddit is getting out of the deal... their mobile site is equally as "mobile" as the AMP page. The AMP experience is _so bad_.

No preference to un-AMP yourself on Google. So, I switched my search engine. The DDG results seem significantly worse, or at least very different. But old.reddit.com pages load perfectly, and fast.

<comment><USER3> Another advantage of DDG: the result links are straight to the destination, unlike with Google where there's a tracking redirection in between. This is great on Android, as I can open the link straight in an app (like Wikipedia) without going to the page first and then launching the app.

<comment><USER4> Yes, not to mention when you want to share the link in DDG you share the original link directly but in Google you'd share the redirector link.

Given Google's scale they probably don't care about the long tail of technical users such as us.

<comment><USER5> I tried this just now and this particularly seems to be a problem on Firefox.

On iOS (WebKit) and Chrome, Google's search results can be copied just fine - there's no redirector because Google uses hyperlink link auditing (<a href="..." ping="...">).

Firefox does support ping but disables it by default for privacy reasons.

Which is good, I guess, because now the link tracking is more apparent, but it does still happen and leads to a worse UX for the user.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I have mixed feelings about this. If you recommend DuckDuckGo, Qwant, Ecosia you're essentially recommending Bing. Each of them have to show bing ads, forward the users' IPs as per Bing's terms of service (to fight ad fraud etc). Similarly, if you recommend StartPage, you're recommending Google. Same drill with ads.

I like DuckDuckGo. But unless they build their own search - I think the fundamental problem has not been tackled. There is no good, independent, private search alternative.

[Edit] I am not trying to single out DDG. There are a few replies that either demand for proof (rightfully) or suggest Bing is used only sometimes. I do not have conclusive proof, but have worked on search. Here's a couple of things for the curious:

1\. Try to run this test: If you query "what is my ip" in duckduckgo (DDG), or any of the other ones I mentioned, you will notice in the description of one of the top results this IP: 220.127.116.11. It's a BingBot IP [0]. It's a good enough test to spot where results are coming from.

2\. Open two browser windows side by side with DDG and Bing. Turn on results for the country you are in in DDG. Look attentively. Try image search.

It is clear that DDG does some re-ranking based on its own, but it's very often the same results.

[0] [https://whatismyipaddress.com/ip/184.108.40.206](https://whatismyipaddress.com/ip/22.214.171.124)

<comment><USER7> Aren't DuckDuckGo searches a mixture of Bing, Yahoo, Yandex and their own crawler?

I don't know a great deal about their infrastructure and would love to learn more about it.

<comment><USER8> This article is from 2017, but has some more technical detail behind DDG than other articles do:

[https://www.wired.co.uk/article/duckduckgo-anonymous- privacy](https://www.wired.co.uk/article/duckduckgo-anonymous-privacy)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Honest question: how do you people even cope with the crap results?

I'm a StartPage user, but decided to try DDG for some time after the System1 debacle [1]. The Swedish localized search results are downright unusable compared to StartPage/Google. I'm really trying to give it a chance, but I keep reaching for SP in every other search.

[1] [https://reclaimthenet.org/startpage-buyout-ad-tech- company/](https://reclaimthenet.org/startpage-buyout-ad-tech-company/)

<comment><USER10> Because they aren't crap for me the vast majority of the time. I often hear about local results, but flipping the "Germany" switch gives me great German results.

There are 2 cases when I need to use !g, both of them are when there aren't many results:

1\. Rare error, simply not in their index

2\. Ambiguous term and I need to force a part of the query to appear. Because DDG thinks it's perfectly fine to ignore the user sometimes and show you completely unrelated things even if you tried your best to tell them what you are looking for __and __it's in their index.

Sadly recently google started doing that as well. Not as bad as DDG, the first few results are still an answer to my query, but then they decide to spam the results with useless sites that don't have the term.

edit: formatting

<comment><USER11> Use !s instead, it will take you to startpage which are essentially the same results as on Google, without having to go to Google.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> DuckDuckGo is still not ready to be my daily driver.

Here's my last significant Google search: "monaco IndentAction.Indent"

The documentation I was looking for[0] was the:

\- 1st hit on Google[1]

\- 17th hit on DDG[2]

but to be fair I didn't find it within the first _10_ (!) pages of Bing[3], so at least it's better than Bing. And I work for MSFT. I submitted feedback to DDG & Bing, hopefully it helps.

[0] [https://microsoft.github.io/monaco- editor/api/enums/monaco.l...](https://microsoft.github.io/monaco- editor/api/enums/monaco.languages.indentaction.html)

[1] [https://www.google.com/search?q=monaco+IndentAction.Indent&o...](https://www.google.com/search?q=monaco+IndentAction.Indent&oq=monaco+IndentAction.Indent)

[2] [https://duckduckgo.com/?q=monaco+IndentAction.Indent&t=h_&ia...](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=monaco+IndentAction.Indent&t=h_&ia=web)

[3] [https://www.bing.com/search?q=%2bmonaco+IndentAction.Indent&...](https://www.bing.com/search?q=%2bmonaco+IndentAction.Indent&filters=rcrse%3a%221%22&FORM=RCRE)

<comment><USER13> 2nd result on [https://searx.me/](https://searx.me/), thanks metaseach!

<comment><USER14> Underrepresented search engine. I don't understand how a federation of searx forks hasn't popped up yet

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Digital ad company CEO endorses competitor of rival digital ad company.

<comment><USER16> Twitter makes less than $3B/year on ads. Google makes $135B+.

Are they really competitors?

<comment><USER17> Yes, they are. Both have ads as their primary revenue stream. It does not matter if they are unequal in size, they still compete in the same space.

<comment><USER18> DuckDuckGo also makes money through ads.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Google appears to be doing increasingly creepy stuff in pursuit of higher revenues.

For instance, I've recently noticed videos being recommended on my Android TV which are particularly related to, or the exactly the same as, those I watched recently on my computer (all done in private mode, no Google login anywhere). This has happened twice after resetting everything. It therefore appears that, contrary to their statements on tracking IP addresses, they're infact using them for recommendations and tracking. We can only imagine what else they are collecting behind the facade of SVs slef-conceited "liberalism".

</comment><comment><USER20> This is awesome - happy to see privacy oriented search become more popular. I think DuckDuckGo needs a better name though - Something more ubiquitous. Duck, maybe? Quack?

<comment><USER21> There was a rant by some other HN user about how DDG owns "duck.com" yet refuses to just point it to a search page.

<comment><USER22> duck.com DOES redirect to duckduckgo.com. IIRC Google used to own duck.com and wouldn't redirect, but once DDG got ownership they redirected it.

<comment><USER21> Visiting the page incognito, you're hit with a modal dialogue that you have to dismiss before you can search.

<comment><USER22> This does not happen in FireFox. Are you suggesting Google is still playing dumb games?

<comment><USER23> I can repro this in Firefox. Are you disabling Javascript?

<comment><USER22> Ahhh found it. uBlock was preventing it. I can reproduce now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I've heard about Duck Duck Go for a while and just never bothered. But I finally decided to try it. It was easy. Settings -> Search Engines -> DuckDuckGo.

And so far it's just fine. Gives me great results when searching for coding stuff.

</comment><comment><USER25> Duckduckgo is great. But also because the easy !g !gi !tw shortcuts to search in google or twitter as well.

Surprised to find lately that a lot of my searches only return relevant results in a twitter search.

<comment><USER26> Also w! for wiki.

The bang commands are super useful.

<comment><USER27> That's a feature of most browsers location bar. Just assign a letter/string to any bookmark of your liking and voila! No need to depend on DDG and exclamation points for your quick searches.

A few of my favorites include hn for HN's algolia, th for thesaurus, wes for Wikipedia in Spanish and d for... duck duck go.

<comment><USER25> That is true. but my first search is always duckduckgo. Only if that doesn't tell me straight away to I go for a !bang search. The location bar now is filled with a ddg url so easier to just add ! to the search box of ddg.

And as I switch machines, browsers, profiles, and privacy mode all day long the only ubuiqitous thing is that ddg is the default search engine.

I don't use the !w shortcut as usually whatever/whomever I have searched for is in the info box on ddg's right-hand column and it usually has a wikipedia link if I need to get more detail.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> Seb-C I did try DDG and Startpage a few years ago but ultimately gave up because the results were not good.

I gave another try to DDG since about 3 weeks and so far the results are pretty good. Not only they got better on the last few years, but for me Google got worse at the same time.

Almost everytime I search in Google nowadays, I have to reformulate my search 2~3 times to get decent results. I often need to add double quotes, ask for reddit or specify the language. Google today just tries too much to read my mind, guess what I want and make interpretations instead of just doing what I asked. Because of this huge waste of time, I became frustrated over time.

Also, I am French, use English very often (including at work) and live in Japan, so the explicit region filter of DDG is really a bless compared to the obscure and almost always wrong way Google handles this.

<comment><USER28> Dude, Google is so much worse now... I have no idea what has happened.

<comment><USER29> Having to make several searches means even more ads are presented ...

<comment><USER28> Genius

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I tried DDG a while ago and it didn't feel natural to me. It will be so hard for me to change a search engine after using Google for 20 years. I am too attached to this search engine and it is good enough for my needs. I rarely change things that are working for me. It feels strange for me when I am using other search engines. I feel like I am cheating on my spouse. The first thing I do when I buy an iPhone is to hide Safari and download Google Chrome. Same thing when I buy a new Windows laptop, or reinstall Windows, I use IE/Edge to download Chrome and never use IE/Edge again. Chrome is the main reason I haven't switched to another search engine. It works better with Google apps and I rely on Google apps a lot.

<comment><USER14> > rarely change things that are working for me.

But what if said things change to the point that they're unrecognisable? What if said spouse cheats you? Because that's what's happening.

<comment><USER30> The benefits of using Google far outweighs the bad side of Google. When I want to search for private things, I go incognito mode. I clean up my activity log from time to time. I only allow Google Maps to track my location when I am using it. To be sure that they don't track my location, I use iPhone, not Android. That way I know they won't sneak some way to track me without my consent.

<comment><USER31> incognito mode does not prevent your search from being tracked.

<comment><USER30> Any evidence to backup your claims that they track incognito searches? They promised not to track and I don't see anything that suggests they do track me when I am incognito.

<comment><USER32> Incognito is "private" in the sense that it doesn't leave a trace locally, on your computer.

From [https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/95464?co=GENIE.Plat...](https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/95464?co=GENIE.Platform%3DDesktop&hl=en) :

> \- Chrome won't save your browsing history, cookies and site data, or > information entered in forms. > \- Files you download and bookmarks you > create will be kept. >\- Your activity isn't hidden from websites you visit, > your employer or school, or your internet service provider.

Your IP, referrers etc are still visible. The only thing is you're perhaps not logged in. It doesn't do much to protect you at all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I've tried it and the results just aren't as good as Google. For example, it does not index Javascript-heavy pages, which means a lot of documentation websites for popular open source projects are seen as blank pages by their indexer and simply won't be ranked.

Also, the ability to identity a given user allows Google to serve personalized and therefore more relevant search results (which of course means you also get personalized ads).

</comment><comment><USER34> I felt that it was time to try to switch to DDG, so I just went to the duckduckgo website, and it proposes to "add it to chrome".

It leads to a chrome extension page asking me to give complete read access to what pages I visit to the DDG extension.

Naive question : how can I know what DDG will do with that data ? (And yes I realize that this question applies to any search engine or extension)

<comment><USER35> Google already knows the pages you visit, worst case if you give them to DDG you are making the playing field even.

<comment><USER34> Well the worst case is exactly what I would like to avoid. Otherwise, what's the point ?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I call publicity stunt. Jack is doing just as much to censor free thought as is Google.

<comment><USER37> 100%

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> I was very impressed listening to Weinberg on The Angel Philospher podcast recently, and have been very happy with DDG as my default engine for about a year. And yet it was only yesterday that I realised that (for a certain section of the web) adverts on DDG are playing to a self selected audience - basically it's like running banner ads on HN.

Weirdly you seem to have to go through BingYahoo - [https://www.shivarweb.com/9242/how-to-advertise-on- duckduckg...](https://www.shivarweb.com/9242/how-to-advertise-on-duckduckgo/)

</comment><comment><USER39> This is basically just endorsing Bing though. There's nothing wrong with that mind you, but I think it's important to realize that DuckDuckGo is effectively just a wrapper around Bing.

</comment><comment><USER40> Yes @jack yes! Hopefully more high-profile thought leaders will enter the public discourse to advise on more sane, privacy-respecting alternatives.

I'm glad I was relieved of hating @jack at least momentarily. :')

<comment><USER41> May I ask why hate @jack ?

<comment><USER42> Sacha Baron Cohen recently called out jack and the other "silicon six."

[https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/21/sacha-baron-cohen-rips-on- fa...](https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/21/sacha-baron-cohen-rips-on-facebook-and- big-tech-for-sowing-hate.html)

<comment><USER43> Don't get me wrong, I love his work, but I don't really understand why what he has to say about tech is any more relevant than any other celebrity. It's not like he has some deeper insider knowledge of the subject.

<comment><USER42> From the Anti-Defamation League:

> Sacha Baron Cohen is the well-deserved recipient of ADL's International > Leadership Award, which goes to exceptional individuals who combine > professional success with a profound personal commitment to community > involvement and to crossing borders and barriers with a message of diversity > and equal opportunity.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymaWq5yZIYM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymaWq5yZIYM)

<comment><USER44> Argument from authority from someone else. This isn't a logical argument.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Searching google nowadays feels like searching an ad database. For me it isn't even a matter of privacy but about exclusion of 90% of the web out there. Bing is not bad either, nor is yandex. What else is there? Remember when google was like this? [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8JT9QWA- eY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8JT9QWA-eY)

<comment><USER46> They also focus on the "buying" portion of the internet way too much. Either that, or 90% of the internet is revolved around buying shit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> Given the amount of M$ ads DDG has showing latelly does not surprises me they might be partnering with bing.

<comment><USER48> > M$

Hello, 1990's Slashdot called and would like its tired old '$' satire back.

<comment><USER49> M$ would like their tired old 1990s business practises back, oh wait they never left. Just like the M$ shorthand which we see less simply becuase we talk about them less.

It's reputation they fully earned. You can write "Microsoft" in full whenever you like if you prefer too. I think it's pretty reasonable to casually express contempt at every opportunity for any business that puts money vastly further ahead of ethics than they need to. You can disgaree with that if you like too.

Facebrick is the new M$. What do we have for Goog? "do no evil" with strickeout for more money? $GOOG?

<comment><USER48> My friend, I think you missed the sarcasm and possibly some satire in my comment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> > The app is even better!

What does that mean? I guess [https://duckduckgo.com/app](https://duckduckgo.com/app) is a browser, and a browser extension? The app is a relatively better browser than DDG search is a search engine?

<comment> sprite-1 The DDG app is honestly pretty bad... the last time I tried it, there wasn't even support for tabs so you're stuck with one page view at a time.

Honestly, IDK why anyone would not just use Firefox Mobile. It's got addons support too

<comment><USER51> Not sure when you last tried the app but it does indeed support tabs!

<comment> sprite-1 I believe I tried it a week or so after it launched. Although, I still stand by my point that Firefox Mobile offers the privacy-oriented approach of the DDG app and so much more via addons that it's pretty hard to justify using the DDG app unless the phone is really low-end enough that Firefox chugs on it

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> The idea about private browsing is silly to me frankly. Sure DuckDuckGo can be more "private" than Google on its face, but unless they are incorporated deep in Switzerland and dev/null all traffic from a US-based IPs, they are obligated, by laws, to record-keeping and in general KYC even if its only mere "search quote" and "IP address". Otherwise the would quickly get shut down by authorities (DHS in this example) under suspicious of aiding/abetting terrorism the moment someone punches "how to make bomb" and they do not properly store relevant meta-tag information.

<comment><USER53> Citation that KYC dictates that a Swiss company record US IPs and what the punishment is for not?

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> Sometimes I use bing when google is showing biased results.

</comment><comment><USER55> how much marketshare does ddg need to have before we stop calling google an outright monopoly on search?

</comment><comment><USER56> There's an app??

<comment><USER57> Yes:

[https://duckduckgo.com/app](https://duckduckgo.com/app)

[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.duckduckgo...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.duckduckgo.mobile.android)

[https://apps.apple.com/us/app/duckduckgo-privacy- browser/id6...](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/duckduckgo-privacy- browser/id663592361)

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> Nice endorseyment

</comment><comment><USER59> I guess twitter will not be acquired by google anytime soon

</comment><comment><USER60> It's too bad gullible people are falling for duckduckgo's so-called privacy promises.

<comment><USER61> Curious, what privacy promises do you believe DuckDuckGo won't fulfill? Genuinely interested to learn.

</comment></comment><comment><USER62> Wow, Twitter is on a roll with their inactive user purge, refusal to sell political ads (yes, issue ads are still allowed but monitored) and now this.

I applaud these moves.</comment>


A debate about open debate - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/16/opinion/cancel-culture-harpers.html <comment><USER2> > Credited to Black users of Twitter, cancellation has been said to share a > lineage with midcentury civil rights boycotts, insofar as it enables those > with little political power to litigate perceived injustices in the more > accessible forum of popular culture (the cancellation court of public > opinion, if you will).

When you can get almost every giant multinational corporation to repeat your message and give huge donations to your cause, and when the supposedly most racist president in recent US history was barely able (or just wasn't willing) to make a dent in immigration numbers, do you _really_ have "little political power"?

</comment><comment><USER3> No paywall: [https://messaging-custom- newsletters.nytimes.com/template/oa...](https://messaging-custom- newsletters.nytimes.com/template/oakv2?uri=nyt://newsletter/481fb57b-ac5f-5f1c-9225-98f348ef4382&productCode=DB&te=1&nl=debatable&emc=edit_db_20200717)

</comment><comment><USER4> There's no such thing as fully open debate, there is a vast multitude of potential opinions out-there, and even in these Internet times, between platform limitations and personal limits, and few legal limitations, virtually no one gets all possibilities. Which is to say, "cancel culture" isn't anything new. People have been denying platforms to other people forever.

The thing is that the US has a long history of ordinary liberal democracy coexisting with white supremacy. Not just in opinions but in actual reality - Jim Crow was the law in a large minority of the country 'till the 1960s in significant minority of the country. This situation looms large in efforts to deny a platform to white supremacy.

"Should we allow free speech for white supremacists" has been a constant question of civic class but with the tacit and generally disingenuous implication that none of the people in such effete debates would ever subscribe to such things but that this is what happens in an "oh-so-wide-open- and-tolerant" society as the US. When the reality was loud speech favoring white supremacy been just below the surface in a fair portion of American society.

Consider how Charles Murray's soft racist positions get a wide display at US college financed by a large network of right wing racists. Charles Murray has appeared in large university ballrooms, not because of academic credentials but because of money - protests by the student and faculty have periodically forced this racist to retreat.

That's the fight to allow or deny people platforms has been going on as long as platforms exist. Not every fight the left or right engages in hear is reasonable. But the fight deplatform misogynists and racists in particularly from socially significant platforms seems good and the push back seems disingenuous. "Free speech for anyone, even Nazis" is frequently "free speech for the pure mainstream and for Nazis but no one else" \- remember Milo Yiannopoulos.</comment>


Show HN: We are developing a de-centralised internet archive - <AUTHOR> https://archain.org <comment><USER2> Perhaps I could contribute the HTML from my scraper. Instead of destroying the markup I download daily across 40 sites - I could push it to Archain.

</comment><comment><USER2> your website is too cool!

Bout time we had a new archive. Thanks.</comment>


Nerd girl needs your support ... - <AUTHOR> http://www.toplessrobot.com/2010/11/dear_nerd_girls_a_young_nerd_girl_needs_your_suppo.php

<comment><AUTHOR> More information:

[http://www.chicagonow.com/blogs/portrait_of_an_adoption/2010...](http://www.chicagonow.com/blogs/portrait_of_an_adoption/2010/11/anti- bullying-starts-in-first-grade.html)

</comment><comment><USER2> Cute kid, but not a story worthy of Hacker News. Just one of those things where you teach your kid a life lesson and move on.</comment>


Pyxshell: Unix pipes in Python - <AUTHOR> http://nojhan.github.com/pyxshell/

<comment><USER2> See also 'plumbum' <https://github.com/tomerfiliba/plumbum>

</comment><comment><USER3> See also 'pyp' -- <http://code.google.com/p/pyp/></comment>


Is Google evil? - <AUTHOR> http://www.nydailynews.com/tech_guide/2009/03/13/2009-03-13_is_google_evil.html

<comment><USER2> Almost any point of theirs could be countered with don't use their product.

The one I saw that couldn't was caching web pages and if you don't want your website to be cached maybe you shouldn't have a website or take measures to ensure it isn't. I mean really how much harm has google done compared to all the new things they introduce people to?</comment>


The Unsettling Mystery of the Creepiest Channel on YouTube - <AUTHOR> http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-unsettling-mystery-of-the-creepiest-channel-on-youtube?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=atlas-page <comment><USER2> Link to Youtube channel: [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClZgZSNNQkhncRVj6lmNpWw/vid...](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClZgZSNNQkhncRVj6lmNpWw/videos)</comment>