scott wrote:
> Why 
> should you be able to force companies to offer everything, if they don't 
> want to that's their choice.

It's not that they're "offering everything". They have a connection to the 
backbone, and that's what you're buying. Then they want to charge more based 
on what happens on networks they don't own.

If I want to read the ESPN sports network website, and my ISP filters 
packets coming from ESPN's website, and ESPN isn't on the same ISP, that's 
like your local post office refusing to deliver mail for products you bought 
online.

It wouldn't be so bad if there were lots of competition for ISPs, but there 
really isn't. It's not like going to a clothing store in a mall, where if 
they don't carry your size you go next door.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   There's no CD like OCD, there's no CD I knoooow!

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On Tue, 21 Apr 2009 11:04:39 +0100, Invisible wrote:

> And some newspapers seem to definitely only report information that
> makes their favoured political party look good, or the opposition look
> bad. Now I'm curios to know whether this is actually legal.

If they're privately held companies, they can do whatever they like.

For that matter, they can if they're publicly held companies, but if the 
shareholders don't like it, then they'll very likely not stay in business 
very long.

Jim

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scott wrote:
> The ISP business is open 
> and follows market demands, they will provide for whatever the customers 
> want.

Not in the USA.  Aren't most telecom companies state-run in Europe? Am I 
allowed to open a new telephone company in (say) Germany and dig up the road 
and all, running new wires to houses in new developments?

> The point is it *wouldn't* otherwise be available, the ISP is providing 
> you a service which you are paying for, if you don't pay for it you 
> don't get access to the information at all.

You're not paying for them to deliver the information. You're paying for 
them to stop blocking the delivery.

The USA already has regulations against discrimination of various types. I 
don't see enforcing this on common carriers as a bad thing.

If you don't want to be a common carrier, feel free to block various sites. 
However, you then become responsible for what you deliver, and you become 
susceptable to competition.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   There's no CD like OCD, there's no CD I knoooow!

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scott wrote:
> I never said they could, my argument is that an ISP shouldn't be forced 
> by law to provide access to the entire internet or nothing at all.  It 
> should be able to decide what it wants to provide.

Why? What benefit would that provide? Why is it good for anyone other than 
the owners of ISPs to be able to charge extra to let you access movie 
reviews or your hotmail account?

> likely to me that the "active filtering" could also be used to block 
> torrents, BBC iPlayer, YouTube, or other high-bandwidth content (this 
> would make more financial sense for the ISPs).

Blocking for technical reasons is one thing. Blocking because you can then 
charge more money to deliver content someone else has created that's popular 
is something else.

> I suspect the ISPs really want to change their eg $10/month plan into 
> two separate plans.  Where plan A is $5/month without access to (eg) any 
> streaming video or torrents, and then a plan B that is $20/month and has 
> access to everything. 

No. What they're talking about is allowing access to everything except 
things like ESPN sports, then charging extra for that. ESPN pushes this, 
because then they can refuse to deliver to the customers of ISPs where that 
ISP hasn't paid ESPN extra.  It's basically a form of "e-commerce" 
implemented as a heirarchy of groups charging people.

It's nothing to do with bandwidth.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   There's no CD like OCD, there's no CD I knoooow!

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andrel wrote:
> 1) because that is how the internet started and has been run for almost
> it's entire existence. "I'll pass on you packages because I know someone
> else will pass on mine if and only if everybody does that".

	That doesn't make it a human right, nor do I know of a legal precedence
where something was argued with "Because that's how it's always been
done". Especially when we're only talking of a span of less than 50 years.

> We don't sell is valid, but I think Warp was more thinking along the
> lines of not selling and making sure nobody else can sell it. More like
> Coke buying all the countries main distributors, and forcing them not to
> transport Pepsi. Possibly legal in the US but definitely illegal in the EU.

	But from what I understand, that's not what is happening. If a single
entity owns all the ISPs and does this, I can see the problem (and it'd
be a monopoly issue). However, if you have multiple independent ISP's -
as long as they don't collude about what services not to provide, the
analogy doesn't work.

-- 
"The security of the Enterprise is of Paramount importance.


                    /\  /\               /\  /
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                       >>>>>>mue### [at] nawazorg<<<<<<
                                   anl

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Warp wrote:
>   If an ISP started censoring all websites related to a political party,
> should they be allowed to do that? What if all the ISPs started blocking
> all political parties except one? Should they be allowed to do that?

	Is there a generic existing law against that?

	I believe in the US, if I had a bulletin board in my store, I'm legally
allowed to forbid a certain political party from posting notes onto it.

	Besides, now you're invoking slippery slopes. If there's already a law
against what you state, it doesn't nullify the general withholding of
services. It just outlaws a certain kind of withholding.

	It's the same thing about fair business practices. It doesn't sound
like this law would legalize unfair business (as enshrined by the law,
not by our notions). If an ISP violates it, it can be taken to court.
It's not the case that the laws are mutually exclusive.

	Perhaps I misunderstand what the law is stating. If it legalizes some
of these things, I can see your point. However, if it's a more generic
law, then don't assume things previously illegal are now legal.

-- 
"The security of the Enterprise is of Paramount importance.


                    /\  /\               /\  /
                   /  \/  \ u e e n     /  \/  a w a z
                       >>>>>>mue### [at] nawazorg<<<<<<
                                   anl

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scott wrote:
>>  Just because an ISP is providing a service for money does not mean they
>> can break the law.
> 
> I never said they could, my argument is that an ISP shouldn't be forced
> by law to provide access to the entire internet or nothing at all.  It
> should be able to decide what it wants to provide.

	In point of fact, some major ISP's here in the US have stopped
providing newsgroup access. While not blocking nntp, you now by default
suddenly don't have access unless you get it from some news server,
where you normally have to pay to get access.

	I just can't imagine that being illegal, or even wrong.


-- 
"The security of the Enterprise is of Paramount importance.


                    /\  /\               /\  /
                   /  \/  \ u e e n     /  \/  a w a z
                       >>>>>>mue### [at] nawazorg<<<<<<
                                   anl

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andrel wrote:
> internet will adept to that. What happens if you add a connection to
> your neighbour that has another ISP? Will that be illegal because you
> now have access to sites your ISP does not want you to see?

	Actually, under typical TOS in the US, that _would_ be violating your
TOS. I'm sure somewhere in the TOS of my ISP, it says that I will not
share the Internet with other apartments. People do it all the time, but
in a legal sense, you're violating the contract.

	To answer your question: Other than the TOS issue, it won't be illegal
- apparently even with what I understand from the proposed law. If you
circumvent the filters set in place by _your_ ISP to get access to a
higher tier while paying for a lower one - that would definitely be bad.



-- 
"The security of the Enterprise is of Paramount importance.


                    /\  /\               /\  /
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                       >>>>>>mue### [at] nawazorg<<<<<<
                                   anl

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Invisible wrote:
> Right now, I'm wondering about newspapers. I mean, they very selectively 
> report only certain news stories. And some newspapers seem to definitely 
> only report information that makes their favoured political party look 
> good, or the opposition look bad. Now I'm curios to know whether this is 
> actually legal.

In the USA, yes, of course. Except newspapers aren't a monopoly. Nothing 
prevents you from buying all the newspapers you want. Not so with high-speed 
ISPs.

It's more akin to the government-run post office saying "If you subscribe to 
the New York Times, we'll charge you extra on all your stamps."

> (Of course, it's not the same thing as ISP censorship at all. Somebody 
> has to *write* the news, after all. And it can be very difficult indeed 
> to write in a way which is truly objective and unbaised. But some 
> publishers don't even attempt to be objective. Is that legal?)

Explicitly so, in the USA. But then, newspapers don't get to have laws that 
say they're the only ones allowed to provide the news.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   There's no CD like OCD, there's no CD I knoooow!

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Warp wrote:
>   Maybe I didn't express myself clearly enough. Is there something in the
> word "to block" that I'm missing and could cause different interpretations?
> Because I can't believe you are saying that your ISP is blocking access
> to your competitors' websites from its clients.

	I feel you're invoking a false dichotomy. If the law _explicitly_
states that you can do that, it's problematic. If the law just says you
can filter by content, I'm sure the ISP's are still required to follow
fair competition laws. However, if the ISP were to say "No access to
sites selling clothing", that's not unfair competition.

	Likewise, if I own a mall, I can simply declare that no clothing stores
are allowed.

	BTW, newspapers do it even more blatantly. They have the right to
reject any "letter to the editor". On numerous occasions, they've
refused to publish political ads by certain parties. It is, AFAIK,
completely legal for them to do so - if they're run by private entities.

>   Have you ever heard of the concept of fair commerce? Fair competition?
> Monopoly laws? Ring a bell?

	And so does the proposed law _explicitly_ state that monopolies will be
allowed? If not, then likely the ISP's still won't be allowed to do what
you're describing.

>   So you are saying that active censorship is perfectly fine from the
> point of view of basic human rights?

	The only time it is wrong is when you actively censor a means that is
considered a public good. So if there's a state park, I can't stop
anyone from saying whatever they want there. If I own a business,
though, I can put quite a lot of limits to free speech in it. Active
censorship over there _is_ allowed.

	The real issue is that online forums, etc, are not yet considered a
"public good". The laws quite reflect that: If I run a site, and someone
plots a murder via some messageboard on my site, I am usually legally
liable _unless_ I explicitly state that I don't monitor it and that all
comments are the responsibility of whoever posted them.

>>>  No, it's not like that. It's like your local newagent using technical
>>> measures to stop you from accessing competitor publications.
> 
>> "Sorry, we don't sell that publication" is a perfectly valid and legal 
>> phrase.
> 
>   You really like nitpicking, don't you? You do understand what I'm
> writing, but you are deliberately nitpicking, just for the sake of
> argument.

	Not at all. The assumption is that you're free to choose the ISP.

	Now in reality, there are few choices. To make your case (which as I
indicated, they may do in the years ahead), you have to establish that
it is either almost impossible to have enough ISP's for healthy
competition of services allowed, or you have to establish that because
of circumstances in the modern world, not having unfettered access to
the Internet will result in either a great deal of public harm (e.g.
getting way behind other nations) or a violation of an _existing_ right.
Currently, there are few legally defined rights that are related to the
Internet.


-- 
"The security of the Enterprise is of Paramount importance.


                    /\  /\               /\  /
                   /  \/  \ u e e n     /  \/  a w a z
                       >>>>>>mue### [at] nawazorg<<<<<<
                                   anl

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