US Court of Appeals says "Hell no" to net neutrall

U

UncannyGarlic

Sonny, I Watched the Vault Bein' Built!
The Federal Communications Commission does not have the legal authority to slap Net neutrality regulations on Internet providers, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday.

A three-judge panel in Washington, D.C. unanimously tossed out the FCC's August 2008 cease and desist order against Comcast, which had taken measures to slow BitTorrent transfers before voluntarily ending them earlier that year.

Because the FCC "has failed to tie its assertion" of regulatory authority to an actual law enacted by Congress, the agency does not have the power to regulate an Internet provider's network management practices, wrote Judge David Tatel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.

Tuesday's decision could doom one of the signature initiatives of FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, a Democrat. Last October, Genachowski announced plans to begin drafting a formal set of Net neutrality rules--even though Congress has not given the agency permission to do so. That push is opposed by Verizon and other broadband providers.

Comcast welcomed the ruling in a statement that said: "Our primary goal was always to clear our name and reputation." The National Cable and Telecommunications Association, the cable industry's lobby group, elaborated by saying that Comcast and its other members will "continue to embrace a free and open Internet as the right policy."

Supporters of Net neutrality claim that new Internet regulations or laws are necessary to prevent broadband providers from restricting content or prioritizing one type of traffic over another. Broadband providers and many conservative and free-market groups, on the other hand, say that some of the proposed regulations would choke off new innovations and could even require awarding e-mail spam and telemedicine the identical priorities.
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Full story at: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-20001825-38.html
 
Welcome....to...the machine...................................
 
Ugh, i'm all for seeing Comcast get its ass handed to it for traffic shaping / prioritizing... Sad to see them get the green light to go back to their ways.

Unfortunately, net neutrality had a few alarming portions to it. I also saw it tough to enforce. I know for a fact other networks shape traffic, all they do is deny it, their word against the end users... kind of effsored.

On another coin, there is the flippin' vigilante anti-spam agencies out there such as UCE Protect... Those guys, deserve the worst but I don't see anyone regulating agencies like them, despite their criminal practices.

What to do, what to do.
 
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