by admin | May 25, 2021 | Corporate, Corporate Buzz, Markets, Social Media, Technology, World
Ajit Pai
San Francisco : Following a letter in which Twitter along with others had asked US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to reconsider its plan to end net neutrality, the agency’s Indian-origin Chairman Ajit Pai has dubbed the micro-blogging site as a “part of the problem”.
During an event hosted by the “free market think tank” R Street Institute and the “liberty”-focused Lincoln Network, Pai threw Twitter and other online services under the bus to show that it is not just broadband providers that can exert control over Internet content, Tech Crunch reported late on Tuesday.
“When it comes to an open Internet, Twitter is part of the problem. The company has a viewpoint and uses that viewpoint to discriminate,” he was quoted as saying.
“Twitter blocked Representative Marsha Blackburn from advertising her Senate campaign launch video because it featured a pro-life message. Before that, during the so-called Day of Action, Twitter warned users that a link to a statement by one company on the topic of Internet regulation ‘may be unsafe’,” he added.
“And to say the least, the company appears to have a double standard when it comes to suspending or de-verifying conservative users’ accounts as opposed to those of liberal users. This conduct is many things, but it isn’t fighting for an open Internet,” he noted.
On Monday, over 200 businesses asked FCC to reconsider its plan to end net neutrality after the agency announced voting to rollback rules adopted in 2015 that require internet service providers to treat all online traffic equally.
As per current net neutrality rules, all businesses are allowed to compete equally. But without those rules, online businesses may be stymied by internet providers that prioritise their own interests, the companies said.
The FCC will vote on the proposal, known as Restoring Internet Freedom Order, at its December 14 open meeting.
Pai highlighted two downsides to the present rules — decrease in investment and stifle innovation.
Pai last week had said that the so-called net neutrality rules “imposed heavy-handed, utility-style regulations” upon the internet that have “depressed investment in building and expanding broadband networks”.
On content, he said that recent experience shows that so-called edge providers are deciding what content consumers see. These providers routinely block or discriminate against content they do not like.
“In this way, edge providers are a much bigger actual threat to an open Internet than broadband providers, especially when it comes to discrimination on the basis of viewpoint… So let’ss be clear,” he said.
“They might cloak their advocacy in the public interest, but the real interest of these Internet giants is in using the regulatory process to cement their dominance in the Internet economy,” he added.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | World
Washington : A week after the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced voting to rollback rules adopted in 2015 that require internet service providers to treat all online traffic equally, over 200 businesses have asked the agency to reconsider its plan to end net neutrality.
In a letter to FCC, more these businesses and trade organisations, including Airbnb, Reddit, Shutterstock, Twitter, among others, highlighted internet’s growing role in the US economy, The Verge reported.
The letter cited figures saying that $3.5 billion in online sales happened in 2016 on Cyber Monday, marketing term for the Monday after the Thanksgiving holiday in the US, and $3 billion on Black Friday.
Throughout all of 2016, online purchases accounted for $400 billion in sales, the letter pointed out.
As per current net neutrality rules, all businesses are allowed to compete equally. But without those rules, online businesses may be stymied by internet providers that prioritise their own interests, the companies said.
Indian-origin FCC Chairman Ajit Pai last week said that the so-called net neutrality rules “imposed heavy-handed, utility-style regulations” upon the internet that have “depressed investment in building and expanding broadband networks”.
“Today I have shared with my colleagues a draft order that would abandon this failed approach and return to the longstanding consensus that served consumers well for decades,” Pai said.
“Under my proposal, the federal government will stop micromanaging the internet.”
The FCC will vote on the proposal, known as Restoring Internet Freedom Order, at its December 14 open meeting.
According to the letter: “An internet without net neutrality protections would be the opposite of the open market, with a few powerful cable and phone companies picking winners and losers instead of consumers.”
The lack of rules could force businesses into internet slow lanes or they could be blocked altogether, or forced to pay a toll.
“This would put small and medium-sized businesses at a disadvantage and prevent innovative new ones from even getting off the ground,” the letter pointed out.
Pai’s proposal is almost certain to pass, with Republicans controlling three of the Commission’s five seats.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Corporate, Corporate Buzz, Markets, Technology
San Francisco : After several tech giants, including Google and Facebook, supported Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) plan to roll back Obama-era net neutrality rules, Apple called on the US communications regulatory agency to keep “strong, enforceable open internet protections”.
“An open internet ensures that hundreds of millions of consumers get the experience they want, over the broadband connections they choose, to use the devices they love, which have become an integral part of their lives,” Cynthia Hogan, Apple’s Vice President of Public Policy, said in a letter to the agency.
The FCC, led by its Chairman Ajit Pai, voted in May to start the formal process of unwinding the 2015 rules. Those rules treat regulation of internet more like that of a public utility such as water or electricity and prohibit broadband providers such as Verizon and Comcast from creating a tiered system of access, the Guardian reported on Wednesday.
Under the current net neutrality rules, it is illegal for companies to offer a high-speed lane to corporations able to pay more or to effectively slow a rival service.
The FCC’s proposal asks whether the agency should eliminate the rule banning Internet service providers from creating fast lanes (or slow lanes) that could favour one service over another, which critics say could allow them to pick winners and losers online.
Pai has said the regulations stifle corporate innovation and investment and are not necessary to guaranteeing an “open internet”.
However, Apple argued that paid fast lines should not replace “content-neutral transmission of internet traffic,”.
The tech giant has also called for increased competition and transparency in the broadband market.
“We work hard to build great products, and what consumers do with those tools is up to them – not Apple, and not broadband providers. Apple therefore believes that the Federal Communications Commission should retain strong, enforceable open internet protections,” the letter said.
Apple said the current rules reflect open internet principles and that those principles “should form the foundation of any net neutrality framework going forward”.
“Simply put, the internet is too important to consumers and too essential to innovation to be left unprotected and uncertain,” the company said in the letter.
Cloud major Oracle had voiced support for Pai’s plan to roll back its net neutrality rules.
Oracle wrote a letter to the FCC and played up its “perspective as a Silicon Valley technology company”, hammering the debate over the rules as a “highly political hyperbolic battle”, that is “removed from technical, economic, and consumer reality”.
Other companies — like AT&T and Verizon — that support Pai’s plan have made an argument that the rules stifled investment in the telecommunications sector, specifically in broadband infrastructure.
—IANS
