AT&T "kills net neutrality," announces sponsored data

[Robert_J_King]

Sounds crappy. Can it be revoked or appealed?
EDIT: In individual states or is it all final?

 

[Norik]

What does this mean?

Net neutrality means that all data is treated equally by governments and service providers. Without net neutrality, any ISP could put a paywall behind certain sites (make you pay for things like youtube/netflix/etc), put a data cap on internet subscriptions (some of them already do this, essentially, if you go over xGB/month you have to pay a fee), etc.

Essentially, this has the potential of turning the Internet into what the cable TV industry currently is.

I don't usually trust the Huffington Post, but this editor really hit the nail on the head:

Consider for a moment the things that we would not have right now on the internet without net neutrality.

YouTube. This would present a threat to Verizon, etc. cable TV business so they would limit its bandwidth to make it unusable. Similarly for Netflix, Hulu, Vimeo, etc.

Skype. This would present a threat to their phone business of course so slow it down until it is unusable. Ditto for every other voip service other than the network's own.

Today these are established companies and might be able to ransom their way with the cable companies to get the clear access. Or extort the customers for extra charges to be able to run Youtube, netflix, and Skype. But what about the next new startup? If Verizon likes the new market could they just start their own competitor and deny the original entrepreneur the bandwidth to run well? Would facebook ever occur if Myspace could just go to the cable companies and say 'here is a bunch of money so that we are the only social network site that runs well. Would Myspace exist if friendster had done it?

We are going from an internet where new things were successful because they caught the imagination of users to one where they are successful because Verizon decides that they are profitable for them.

And if you are thinking 'but I get my internet from somebody else' There are only six tier-one providers on the internet 'backbone' in the US and they don't cover everywhere equally. So if one of those big companies decides to limit a site or service pretty much the whole country will suffer.

Places like Russia and China were the first to kill Net Neutrality because that way political dissent can be easily dealt with.

Can it be revoked or appealed?

I wouldn't hold my breath in the current political climate.

 

[Cricket]

Hypothetical silver lining in this shitty cloud:
Online play becomes even less viable. Vibrant offline scenes emerge across the U.S.

 

[The Landslide]

The best part of waking up

is seeing this and being miserable.

 

[Der Lindwurm]

And as usual, no one gives a fuck.

I think, fortunately, a lot of people do give a fuck about this and have been making a lot of noise about it, the same as when net neutrality became a big issue in 2006-2007 (from which we get Stevens' infamous "series of tubes" remark). I think this is one thing that the government actually won't be able to just slip past most people (though it's indeed scary what it can and does otherwise).