I have never heard of anything like that happening in the US before 2015. Could you give me some examples of this happening?
I've heard about Google and Facebook and Twitter blocking sites and content that they consider inacceptable, such as Russian media outlets associated with Russian government. I have also heard about some Nazi sites recently being essentially booted from the Internet by companies no longer wishing to be associated with such sites. All this happened while 2015 regulations were still in place, so apparently NN, at least as far as 2015 regulations go, is no barrier to this.
However, I have never heard about ISP blocking access to an abortion clinic (excepting parental control, etc. setups of course, which are usually done in more localized manner).
> internet services in poor black neighborhoods may have their access to educational materials limited
How? Any why anybody, at a time where one can lose his job just for questioning HR diversity policies, and be booted from air for having the same name as a Confederate general, would be crazy enough to do such an outrageously racist thing, even if this were possible (which it almost certainly won't be)?
> While I think that's an unlikely outcome, it would be devastating to free speech, equality, and diversity.
If it's unlikely outcome, why Canadian politicians talk about it so much and do not talk about more likely things? Rhetorical questions, of course, I know they are just blowing hot air and duckspeaking.
Okay. Here's a quick timeline of related incidents where the ISP has modified someone's access to information - it includes an ISP blocking information about a labor strike against the company;
"""
TELUS: In 2005, Canada’s second-largest telecommunications company, Telus, began blocking access to a server that hosted a website supporting a labor strike against the company. Researchers at Harvard and the University of Toronto found that this action resulted in Telus blocking an additional 766 unrelated sites. http://thetyee.ca/News/2005/08/04/TelusCensor/
WINDSTREAM: In 2010, Windstream Communications, a DSL provider with more than 1 million customers at the time, copped to hijacking user-search queries made using the Google toolbar within Firefox. Users who believed they had set the browser to the search engine of their choice were redirected to Windstream’s own search portal and results. http://www.savetheinternet.com/blog/10/04/05/phone-company-h...
PAXFIRE: In 2011, the Electronic Frontier Foundation found that several small ISPs were redirecting search queries via the vendor Paxfire. The ISPs identified in the initial Electronic Frontier Foundation report included Cavalier, Cogent, Frontier, Fuse, DirecPC, RCN and Wide Open West. Paxfire would intercept a person’s search request at Bing and Yahoo and redirect it to another page. By skipping over the search service’s results, the participating ISPs would collect referral fees for delivering users to select websites. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/08/update-paxfire-and-sea...
- https://www.freepress.net/blog/2017/04/25/net-neutrality-vio...
"""
I feel that these incidents establish a strong precedent and behavioral pattern that makes the expectation of a hands-off approach by ISPs irrational.
That's not an argument.
> So you may no longer be able to search for an abortion clinic, or newspapers that have negative articles about the government could be blocked, internet services in poor black neighborhoods may have their access to educational materials limited, etc.
None of these hypotheticals are being seriously contemplated as potential outcomes of the FCC relinquishing its Title II authority over ISPs. Let's focus on the likely outcomes, not the unlikely ones.
Ok. Porn, Facebook, Netflix, Wikipedia, and General informational browsing.
Facebook is likely to become more cemented in their social media spot. Good luck to the competition - Facebook doesn't count towards data limits. Now, this could go many ways, but we already have issues with this walled garden and folks getting all their news from here. I suspect it is reasonable that such a thing will become worse.
Wikipedia could easily be included, which doesn't have some of the scaryness of facebook being free from data caps. Netflix draws customers, and some will offer hulu instead. This could be good or bad.
But general information to verify things from facebook or wikipedia? Want to browse porn? Forum for that autoimmune disease you have? Now you are going against your plan, going to look at sites that don't especially work with your ISP. Not if you've gotten over your cap. Maybe you are just throttled? Yup, the doctor's office page won't load quickly enough for you to fill it out and neither will your bank's. Oops. Welcome to dial-up speeds on today's internet. There aren't enough people on some of these niche websites to matter to the near-monopoly you call an ISP so folks can't make enough of a stink to get it changed.
And that's really the point. It isn't so much that they will automatically do such things - but the fact that we are so powerless to stop it, when it really shouldn't matter to the ISP whether I watch 5 minutes of cat videos on Youtube or 5 minutes of porn. I don't trust the companies to do the "right" thing without minimally basic regulations outlining things.
Yes, an internet version of Verizon’s “controversial and unsavory” text message policy it's blocking of NARAL is definitely a serious concern.
What are you going to do when Comcast decides that hey let's charge $50 more for VPNs and another $4.99 for messaging apps (pre-approved of course)? What will you do when Signal or Telegram aren't on that list due to "security" concerns? What will you do if an ISP decides that all encrypted traffic is bad and decides to create whitelisted exceptions?
Where will you go then?
VPN
> What are you going to do when Comcast decides that hey let's charge $50 more for VPNs
You can't charge "for VPNs" - VPN traffic is just encrypted traffic. Comcast can charge more for encrypted traffic, but that would be completely insane, ruinous for business and Comcast won't ever do it because that would be insane. And of course, it didn't do it until 2015, because it'd be insane. And if they were insane enough to do this, I'd just use AT&T or Verizon or T-Mobile or whatever there would be around. Of course, I won't actually have to do any of that because Comcast is not going to do this insane thing.
> and another $4.99 for messaging apps (pre-approved of course)
Comcast doesn't approve apps, in fact Comcast has no idea what am I running and whether there are such thing as "apps" on the OS that I am running. But many mobile providers do provide free traffic for certain messaging apps. I've used it when traveling overseas, very useful to send my wife a message "I've landed, everything's fine" without having to pay for a whole daily internet package that I am not going to use. Of course, from NN point of view it is an outrage that must be banned. I fail to see why. And of course, 2015 regulations didn't prevent that from happening either.
> What will you do if an ISP decides that all encrypted traffic is bad
Wake up? Why invent scenarios that everybody knows would never happen? ISPs had 30 years until 2015 to do it, and we were fine. But now of course suddenly they all go crazy and start destroying their own business because they want $4.99 from you.
Some form of the scenarios I've outlined have indeed happened in the past. From folks trying to ban competitor's emails to attempts to block specific applications and traffic types at every level. Also if China can block VPNs then I'm sure Comcast can figure it out too;
Here's a quick timeline;
"""
MADISON RIVER: In 2005, North Carolina ISP Madison River Communications blocked the voice-over-internet protocol (VOIP) service Vonage. Vonage filed a complaint with the FCC after receiving a slew of customer complaints. The FCC stepped in to sanction Madison River and prevent further blocking, but it lacks the authority to stop this kind of abuse today. http://news.cnet.com/Telco-agrees-to-stop-blocking-VoIP-call...
COMCAST: In 2005, the nation’s largest ISP, Comcast, began secretly blocking peer-to-peer technologies that its customers were using over its network. Users of services like BitTorrent and Gnutella were unable to connect to these services. 2007 investigations from the Associated Press, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and others confirmed that Comcast was indeed blocking or slowing file-sharing applications without disclosing this fact to its customers. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2007/10/eff-tests-agree-ap-com...
TELUS: In 2005, Canada’s second-largest telecommunications company, Telus, began blocking access to a server that hosted a website supporting a labor strike against the company. Researchers at Harvard and the University of Toronto found that this action resulted in Telus blocking an additional 766 unrelated sites. http://thetyee.ca/News/2005/08/04/TelusCensor/
AT&T: From 2007–2009, AT&T forced Apple to block Skype and other competing VOIP phone services on the iPhone. The wireless provider wanted to prevent iPhone users from using any application that would allow them to make calls on such “over-the-top” voice services. The Google Voice app received similar treatment from carriers like AT&T when it came on the scene in 2009. http://fortune.com/2009/04/03/group-asks-fcc-to-probe-iphone...
WINDSTREAM: In 2010, Windstream Communications, a DSL provider with more than 1 million customers at the time, copped to hijacking user-search queries made using the Google toolbar within Firefox. Users who believed they had set the browser to the search engine of their choice were redirected to Windstream’s own search portal and results. http://www.savetheinternet.com/blog/10/04/05/phone-company-h...
MetroPCS: In 2011, MetroPCS, at the time one of the top-five U.S. wireless carriers, announced plans to block streaming video over its 4G network from all sources except YouTube. MetroPCS then threw its weight behind Verizon’s court challenge against the FCC’s 2010 open internet ruling, hoping that rejection of the agency’s authority would allow the company to continue its anti-consumer practices. http://www.wired.com/2011/01/metropcs-net-neutrality-challen...
PAXFIRE: In 2011, the Electronic Frontier Foundation found that several small ISPs were redirecting search queries via the vendor Paxfire. The ISPs identified in the initial Electronic Frontier Foundation report included Cavalier, Cogent, Frontier, Fuse, DirecPC, RCN and Wide Open West. Paxfire would intercept a person’s search request at Bing and Yahoo and redirect it to another page. By skipping over the search service’s results, the participating ISPs would collect referral fees for delivering users to select websites. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/08/update-paxfire-and-sea...
AT&T, SPRINT and VERIZON: From 2011–2013, AT&T, Sprint and Verizon blocked Google Wallet, a mobile-payment system that competed with a similar service called Isis, which all three companies had a stake in developing. http://www.savetheinternet.com/blog/11/12/15/top-10-ways-car...
- https://www.freepress.net/blog/2017/04/25/net-neutrality-vio...
"""
These are just some of the abuses that the FCC has interfered with and circumvented in the past. I can't predict the future but I do believe that past behavior is indicative of future results.
Again, do you want to take the gamble that the honorable ISPs won't abuse their position of power to make everyone in the value chain pay out of their nose and threaten our industry's future growth?
I don't.
As you say, all fixed without needing net neutrality.
They were enforcing their policy of net neutrality. After the courts struck these regulatory options down, the FCC adopted the Title II order to continue enforcing net neutrality.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-court-netneutrality/u...
Yes, ISPs have attempted to block apps like BitTorrent because they use tons of bandwidth and ISPs oversell bandwidth, it is a known thing. Has zero to do with freedom of speech. And, of course, they did it in secret for a very simple reason - once this is known, they got their asses kicked by both customers and FCC. Pre-2015.
AT&T case isn't even related to NN - Apple routinely blocks apps competing with their services, and NN has nothing to say about it. That's what you get for choosing closed garden ecosystem.
Summarily, I see a bunch of instances where ISPs blocked services which competed with their own or overtaxed their networks, and got a rebuke from FCC. One case where it looks like genuine attempt at suppressing speech, and it happened in Canada. But ok, I grant you this - instead of "no examples in 30 years" we can say "one example in 30 years". Maybe you could find more, and we could have an example of some stupid ISP trying it every 2 years or so and getting their hands slapped. Hardly a case for introducing sweeping new regulations, and hardly a case to predict collapse of the whole internet if the regulations return to "once every 2 years, hands slapped" situation? What would you think would have happened under 2015 regs anyway? Just the same - once per 2 years, somebody would try something and get their hands slapped. You already have it.
> Also if China can block VPNs then I'm sure Comcast can figure it out too;
Pol Pot figured how to kill millions with common hoes, and Stalin figured out how to put millions in gulags in Siberia. That's not the reason to proclaim Comcast would do the same. Would they try some shenanigans now and then, to gain upper hand competing against other ISPs or trying to adjust to new and creative usage of their networks? Surely they will. And if they try something shady, the same thing would happen that happened in 2005. BitTorrent is still alive, and so is Comcast. Somehow it worked out, despite it being 10 years before the light of Obama shined on all of us. I am sure we'll be fine in 2025 too, and Comcast won't take our freedom of speech and won't put any of us in gulag for using BitTorrent or Tor or VPN.
That's a concern, too, for many people, but edge provider censorship is a different problem (and much easier to work around) than censorship on the pipe connecting you to every edge provider.
> much easier to work around
Being banned by hosting providers, CDNs and Google is easy to work around? I wonder how you conclude it's easy?
> than censorship on the pipe connecting you to every edge provider.
Except there's no single instance of such censorship I've heard so far happening before 2015, and NN not being about censorship at all. And many, many cases of censorship happening on all major sites, which people just shrug off "well, it's a private site, what do you expect?"
Yes, the people for whom edge provider censorship is a concern frequently do exactly that, and complain that regulatory intervention is necessary.
It's true that the people concerned about edge provider censorship and those concerned about access provider censorship are often different people.
> Except there's no single instance of such censorship I've heard so far happening before 2015
https://cs.stanford.edu/people/eroberts/cs181/projects/1998-...
> and NN not being about censorship at all.
The prohibition against blocking, etc., any lawful content or applications found in both the 2010 and 2015 regs is exactly about censorship, whether or not it is ideological.