Court rules for Comcast and against net neutrality

[Joanne98]

The federal appeals court in D.C. has just ruled in favor of Comcast in their suit against the FCC regarding net neutrality. Before I get into the actual ruling, it’s worth reminding folks what net neutrality is and what current law is.

Net neutrality refers to the practice of treating all Internet traffic equally regardless of type or source. It means whatever telecom company provides you Internet (cable, phone, etc…) can’t serve you the information you request at faster or slower speeds depending on what you request. News articles from the New York Times have to be served to your computer at the same speed as articles on this blog.

This equality with respect to content is what makes the Internet the amazing communications medium it is today. I can set up a blog and publish on the Internet just like media giants like NewsCorp. And my content and NewsCorp’s has to be served to anyone who wants it at the same speed. They might be a giant multinational company and I might be a blogger working from my basement, but to an Internet service provider, we’re equal. This allows startups like YouTube to exist – they don’t have to pay telecom companies to get preferential treatment, they can just set up shop and pay their bandwidth costs like anyone else.

Obviously, telecom companies see a big source of income in all this. They’d love to be able to charge, say, Google a big fee to keep its searches moving to users at top speed. But that means big companies will have the speed advantage on the Internet, wiping out everyone else

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http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/39262

The decision was written by Judge Tatel, a Clinton appointee, with no dissents.


David S. Tatel (born March 16, 1942) was appointed to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in 1994. He received his undergraduate degree from the University of Michigan and his J.D. from the University of Chicago. Following law school, he served as an instructor at the University of Michigan Law School and then joined Sidley Austin in Chicago. Since then, he served as founding director of the Chicago Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, Director of the National Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, and Director of the Office for Civil Rights of the United States Department of Health, Education, and Welfare during the Jimmy Carter Administration. Returning to private practice in 1979, Judge Tatel joined Hogan & Hartson, where he founded and headed the firm's education practice until his appointment to the D.C. Circuit. While on sabbatical from Hogan and Hartson, Judge Tatel spent a year as a lecturer at Stanford Law School.

Currently, Judge Tatel serves on the boards of The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching (chair 2005-09) and Equal Justice Works. Judge Tatel chaired the Board of The Spencer Foundation from 1990 to 1997. He is a member of the National Academy of Education, and the National Academy of Sciences' Committee of Science, Technology, and Law, the American Philosophical Society, and the National Academy of Education. Judge Tatel and his wife, Edith, have four children and six grandchildren.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_S._Tatel