Posted by Richard Koman @ February 18, 2008<\/p>\n
Google, Amazon.com — as well as FreePress and Public Knowledge — are lining up in favor of Rep. Ed Markey’s new version of net neutrality legislation, PC World says<\/font><\/a>. “Free Press mistakenly relies on the [2005 FCC] Internet Policy Statement as creating rules the commission can enforce,” Comcast said.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Markham Erickson, the Open Internet Coalition’s executive director, said Comcast’s assertion:<\/p>\n appears to declare war on Internet users, policy makers and even the FCC. It essentially says that the FCC has no legal ability to protect consumers from discriminatory behavior.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Comcast denied that interpretation. There’s no question that a reasoned examination of the facts will demonstrate the folly of net neutrality. However, we are concerned that an effort to seek public input is intended to be a stalking horse for federal Internet regulation. The continued push by special interests to regulate Internet neutrality undercuts the best hope Net users have for faster, more affordable broadband.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n <\/div>\n\n
In the last go-round of the net neutrality debate — in which legislation went down to failure — the big ISPs claimed there was no need for the “added regulation.” But in the aftermath of Comcast’s throttling of upstream BitTorrent traffic, something buy viagra sydney<\/a> “remarkable” has happened.
In its response to a petition by Free Press, Comcast argued that the FCC has essentially no enforcement powers against its actions.<\/p>\n\n
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The Markey bill is not as far-reaching as the bills that died last year but Gigi Sohn, president of Public Knowledge, says: “It’s the right bill at the right time.”
The bill calls for the FCC to conduct a study with eight public comment sessions around the country. The telecoms’ “communication” outfit, Hands Off the Internet, looks to be ready to fight even this year’s watered-down version:<\/p>\n\n