More evidence that it matters who occupies the Oval Office.
By and large ignored by the mainstream media is the highly important issue of Net neutrality, or the obligation of an Internet service provider to act as a gateway, not a gatekeeper. In a setback for ISP giants such as Comcast, Verizon and the like, the FCC ruled last week in favor of the little guy, in favor of net neutrality, blocking carriers from interfering with your online experience by selectively slowing traffic or blocking sites.
The new chairman of the FCC is Julius Genachowski, an Obama appointee. (That's part of the perks of being the Chief Exec - you can pick the guy you want to effect the change you want. In this case, Genachowski represents a welcome change from Bush-era big-business-friendly consumer-ignoring policy.)
Predictably, at the increasingly partisan-hacktastic Wall Street Journal, the action was dismissed: "In recent days, more than one has referred to the proposed rules as 'a solution in search of a problem,' " writes blogger Andrew LaVallee. (In a story posted four days ago that has drawn exactly one, yes, one comment.)
I reserve my right to differ.
“These regulations will not significantly change the industry landscape given that wireline providers currently do not block any traffic,” an Oppenheimer Funds analyst is quuted as saying in that same WSJ bit.
He might be right. But what's being done here is preventing the carriers from doing so in the future. And that's how you solve problems, with proactive measures such as this, with clear, sensible regulation AHEAD OF TIME so you don't have to take out a trillion-dollar loan from China to bail out an entire out-of-control industry a few years later. But the lessons of (recent) history are SOOOO hard to learn.
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