Wish I could read minds because I'd love to know what the representatives from Comcast and Verizon were thinking as they listened to lobbyists from the recording and film industries push them to snoop on their customers.
All in the pursuit of upholding the law, of course. (Naturally.)
"We need the help of ISPs. They have the technical ability to manage the flow over their pipes," Shira Perlmutter, a vice president for global legal policy at the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, said earlier Monday at a technology conference sponsored by the Progress and Freedom Foundation. "The good news is that we're beginning to see some of these solutions emerge, in particular in Europe and Asia." (IFPI is the Recording Industry Association of America's international affiliate.)
Clearly, the content industries have legitimate interests to protect, but I doubt that any of that would hold up in court. The idea strikes me as a perverse reading of the U.S. Constitution. You don't need to be a paranoid anchorite holding out in the remote hills of Montana to grasp where this policy prescription inevitably heads. But let's suspend that skepticism and momentarily assume that some ISPs would play along. Would you trust your friendly broadband provider not to monitor other prohibited items beyond pirated songs and movies? There would be no shortage of First Amendment lawyers queuing up to get a piece of this case.
Back to reality, what all this demonstrates for the umpteenth time is that the RIAA and MPAA still show themselves to be in possession of quite the tin ear. I'm not getting too exercised because broadband providers know how to count noses. While the issue got settled in court, this much is clear: we would witness the mother of all mass departures of subscribers to rival providers pledging not to monitor their customers.
The real problem facing the RIAA and MPAA is that they're still flummoxed seven years after (the original) Napster's shutdown on how to thrive in the digital world. First, they decided to unleash a legal jihad. Then it was off to use technology to disrupt high-traffic networks suspected of assisting illegal digital file swapping. Now it's pushing a Orwellian agenda where it's perfectly fine to spy because it's all serving a higher good.
Hi there. We're here from Uncle Sam, and we want to help.
(Credit: Federal Communications Commission)Let me see if I've got this right. Federal regulators determined on Friday that Comcast broke the law by slowing Internet traffic for subscribers using BitTorrent to swap large files with other people. But then the FCC decided it was enough to issue a press release declaring the victory of the rule of law and now it's time to move on.
Not a penny in fines was assessed and not the slightest penalty suggested.
(Credit:
CNET News)
OK. Post-Enron, post-Bear Stearns, post the subprime debacle, I'm long past being surprised by big corporations trying to cover their posteriors for posterity. But what's really amusing here is that Comcast thinks even this rap on the knuckles is undeserved.
"We believe that our network management choices were reasonable, wholly consistent with industry practices," a company spokeswoman said in a statement.
But this is less about Comcast's ham-handed ways and more about the absence of leadership in Washington. The Federal Communications Commission, a notoriously political institution, is being forced to figure out federal Internet policy on its own. Pulled and pushed in different directions, is it any wonder that the FCC decision comes off as inconsistent?
Critics correctly note that Congress still has not given the FCC explicit authority to decide Internet policy. Even as the FCC issued its decision, Chairman Kevin Martin went on record writing that while Comcast had no right to prioritize Internet traffic, it's fine to prioritize voice over IP:
We do not tell providers how to manage their networks. They might choose, for instance, to prioritize voice-over-IP calls. In analyzing whether Comcast violated federal policy when it blocked access to certain applications, we conduct a fact-specific inquiry into whether the management practice they used was reasonable. Based on many reasons, including the arbitrary nature of the blocking, the lack of relation to times of congestion or size of files, and the manner in which they hid their conduct from their subscribers, we conclude it was not.
We do not limit providers' efforts to stop congestion. We do say providers should disclose what they are doing to consumers.
So it's OK to put individual data packets under a magnifying glass? But in its group statement--which Martin presumably signed off on--the FCC approvingly cited MIT professor David Reed, a respected Internet notable, who believes "that "(n)either Deep Packet Inspection nor RST Injection"--Comcast uses both to manage its network--"are acceptable behavior."
This takes Emerson's apercu that a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds to an extreme. Maybe the private sector can figure things out without confusing itself over regulation from bureaucrats. But they first need clear rules of the road to follow. Otherwise, expect more of the same.
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