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Congress To Investigate FCC
Posted by
kdawson
on Fri Jan 11, 2008 12:05 PM
from the so-there dept.
from the so-there dept.
SirLurksAlot writes to let us know that Congress is planning to question the FCC on the way the commission is run. From the article: "The FCC — and Chairman Kevin Martin in particular — are in hot water with Congress... While Martin was at CES, telling all who would listen that the FCC will investigate Comcast's traffic-shaping practices, the House Energy and Commerce Committee announced a formal investigation of the FCC. The news couldn't be more welcome to the industries that the FCC regulates.'"
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Politics: FCC To investigate Comcast Bittorrent Meddling 196 comments
An anonymous reader writes "FCC Chairman Kevin Martin said Tuesday that the commission will investigate complaints that Comcast actively interferes with Internet traffic as its subscribers try to share files online. A coalition of consumer groups and legal scholars asked the agency in November to stop Comcast from discriminating against certain types of data and to fine Comcast $195,000 for every affected subscriber. While known for months in tech circles, the issue wasn't given broad attention until an Associated Press report last year, in which reporters tested and verified the data blocking."
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Cash Cow Concerns (Score:5, Insightful)
Or perhaps this is just a remedial course on how to milk your cash cows [comcast.com].
Every so often congress has to look like it's investigating something when a source of income is threatened [cnn.com]. Is anything ever done about it? Not really [wikipedia.org].
But magically, without fail, the citizen is screwed in the end. Congress just wants to make sure some of that money ends up back at the top.
Re:Cash Cow Concerns (Score:4, Insightful)
The difference here is that the Congress controls the FCC's budget, whereas it has essentially no control over Microsoft or the oil industry. Only the FTC can really do anything to Microsoft/Big Oil directly, so there is a dilution of congressional oversight. Yes, congress having a hearing with oil execs or with microsoft is more for show. If they wanted to achieve anything in those two arenas, they would haul FTC folks in and say, "Why are you letting oil/microsoft fleece the public?"
With government agencies, though, Congress really does wield power. That power is called the budget. The Congress can, and hopefully will, fund portions of the FCC that are more to its liking, and not approve portions of the FCC's budget that it does not agree with (for example, budget line item 1643: Chairman's Salary? Yeah, we don't like how high that's gotten, we'll only approve this much).
Some day, I hope that democracy starts working again...let's see if this is a start?
Reid.out
Re:Cash Cow Concerns (Score:4, Insightful)
Let's hope nothing comes of this, because if there are major changes, it won't benefit us.
Re:Cash Cow Concerns (Score:4, Insightful)
And replace it with what?
Re:Cash Cow Concerns (Score:5, Insightful)
A regulated economy that balances the benefits of the free market (innovation, economic growth, job creation, etc) with the legitimate concerns of the population about abuses of that market (monopolies, shareholder protection, environmental protection etc).
I look at the corporate world as it exists now and I'm utterly disgusted. The message of the last 10-15 years seems to be "consume, consume, consume". No consideration is given towards stupid questions like "Can we afford it?" or "Is this sustainable". It's all about consumption and short-term profits. And they aren't even limiting themselves to just screwing over customers and the public anymore -- they are screwing over their own shareholders with some of these policies. Meanwhile the CEOs get golden parachutes worth tens of millions, regardless of the shape of the company after they leave it.
Hell, look at the recent stuff going on with the economy. Everything I've heard and read says that the economy is going south, unless people spend and consume. No consideration is given towards "Can people afford it?" If our economy is completely dependent upon deficit spending (both at the individual level AND the Governmental level) then it probably deserves to be cut down to size. Credit cards and Governmental Debt are not investments for the future.
Re:Cash Cow Concerns (Score:5, Insightful)
Then don't buy things (as someone below your comment has said) if you don't need them. Or, you might be interested in trying what these folks [sfgate.com] set out to do [goodmagazine.com].
I won't say I've gone anywhere near as far as these folks have done (I just picked up three Calphalon pans which were at least 50% off regular price as replacements), but as a rule, I don't buy something unless I absolutely need it. Cell phone? Don't have. Newest, latest, blingiest PC? Nope. 18 different electronic devices? Nada.
It's amazing how much money people can accumulate if they exercise a bit of self-control. I mean supposedly we're the smartest animals on this ball of rock, dirt and water. How about we use some of that intelligence.
Re:Cash Cow Concerns (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Cash Cow Concerns (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Cash Cow Concerns (Score:5, Insightful)
You don't vote it out. The warlord who comes out victorious in the ensuing battle for power will end up abolishing the state of anarchy.
Re:Cash Cow Concerns (Score:5, Insightful)
Freedoms have no inherent meaning without an authority (even the physical capacity of other people to force you to do their will counts as authority) to exercise them against, and no freedom can exist without an authority to enforce that freedom. These can be one and the same authority (the State itself enforces most of your freedoms against the State), but other people are, basically by definition, not one and the same, they are many and varied. Without an authority over all of you to keep you honest and decent to each other, you have no redress for the wrongs other people might do to you. Any system of redress capable of enforcing its decrees would amount to a State.
Re:Cash Cow Concerns (Score:5, Insightful)
...until somebody else's "free life" comes at the expense of your own wellbeing. Then you're fucked.
Re:Cash Cow Concerns (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Cash Cow Concerns (Score:5, Insightful)
Hey, I'm all for consumer protection laws and regulation, but with regards to the cable ownership rules I fail to see how they help me.
My understanding (correct me if I'm wrong) of the issue at hand is that the FCC wants to limit cable ownership to a percentage of the population, i.e: nobody can own more then 40% of the cable subscribers in the United States.
That's all well and good in theory, but how the hell does it help me? That regulation isn't going to magically encourage another cable company to set up shop in my Time Warner dominated area. As long as the cable companies have local monopolies I'm sure they will see no reason not to continue to raise prices and screw their customers.
More meaningful reform would be to separate the physical layer from the service. One neutral not-for-profit entity owns the fiber/copper/coax and leases it to whomever is interested in providing service. It will never happen but I'm at a loss for how else you'd encourage local competition for the last mile, at least with regards to non-wireless technology.
Re:Cash Cow Concerns (Score:4, Interesting)
I agree wholeheartedly. In our modern world the internet is as vital to the nation as its roadways. And just like how we don't have our roads privately owned and charging users for the privilege of driving on them, we all pitch into their expansion and maintenance via taxes. So the same we must do for our network infrastructure. The government needs to own the airwaves and the networks, and tax money must go towards supporting them.
More immediately however, we need to really bust the telco/cablecos' balls for collusion. There is absolutely no way cellular and land-broadband rates need to stay at their current state. There is absolutely and obvious collusion going on here, and we need to get them for it.
Here in Canada we've recently launched a governmental investigation into price fixing of chocolate. This is laughable. Here we are going after confectioners, when it is patently obvious that gas stations, telephone companies, and a whole slew of much-more-important vendors are doing the same, and gouging at even worse margins! But I suppose the chocolate industry doesn't buy enough politicians to avoid their wrath...
"Couldn't be more welcome" (Score:4, Interesting)
Probably true.
They probably don't like the way the FCC is regulating them, so a few "campaign contributions" later, their bought-and-paid-for, em, concerned Representatives and Senators just "happen" to investigate the FCC.
When are Pelosi and Reid getting around to earmark reform, anyway? Or will they be too damn busy investigating steroid use in baseball?
Meh, no wonder their approval rating is half of W's.
Unspecific (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Unspecific (Score:4, Interesting)
TFA says (Score:4, Interesting)
The best Congress money can buy (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The best Congress money can buy (Score:5, Insightful)
The news couldn't be more welcome ... (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know about that. In a recent action [tmcnet.com], the FCC gave away the store to "the industries that the FCC regulates". In spite of overwhelming outcry from consumers, the FCC handed industry what they wanted.
That's Great (Score:5, Funny)
Ads (Score:5, Insightful)
That's good, but I'd like to see them work on fixing advertising. I'm of the opinion that we should go back to the old stance (80s or so?) that drugs shouldn't be able to be advertised on TV. I think that would help quite a bit with healthcare costs. But I'd also like them to investigate the ads we have now. I remember reading something in the last week or so that someone was pushing them to do that over the Lipitor ads with Dr. Robert Jarvik, the inventor of the artificial heart, testifying about how good Lipitor is.
The problem is that he has never had a license to practice medicine in the US. He dropped out of a US medical school because of his grades and got his degree from a school outside this country. It's really questionable that he is qualified to talk about the drug.
I wish they'd work on advertising. So much of it is so blatantly wrong. Just deal with a few of the worst offenders, and the rest will self-correct before they get investigated.
Wait a minute... (Score:5, Insightful)
1) Regulating the Cable industry (ok, that's a bad one if it falls under censorship. But they do have the power to force a la carte services, which would be a good thing for most people).
2) Putting conditions on the 700Mhz auction (which is a good thing overall)
3) Net neutrality (The FCC is actually for net neutrality, to the detriment of internet providers).
So 2/3 are clearly meant to help consumers, and the other one could help consumers (although it is just as likely to harm us).
So once again it looks like the industry paid off the right Congressmen to shake down a government commission just before it actually did something right.
But first... (Score:5, Informative)
The FCC's power has grown far beyond it's original intention (regulating airwaves frequencies in the U.S.). Apparently they only do things in response to complaints. Or at least that's how it once was. But the really fucked up thing is 99% of complaints come from one organization [arstechnica.com].
So essentially this one single organization is responsible for most of the - detrimental in my opinion - changes to what is allowed to be broadcast or not.
It's not the popular decision. People just think it is because this one fucked up organization has such broad powers and people just assume that it's the popular opinion. It is not.
The organization responsible for all this? The Parent's Television Council [parentstv.org]. The sick thing is they're proud to be the nation's most influential advocacy organization [parentstv.org] yet have barely a million members [parentstv.org]. That's right one million up tight fucks are responsible for 99.8-99.9% of all FCC regulation that affects 303 million people [census.gov].
And the FCC allows it.