Conyer's Matter Of Antitrust: House Judiciary Committee Chairman Wants It Applied To Internet

[tpsbmam]

Source: Multichannel News

House Judiciary Committee chairman John Conyers (D-Mich.) has signaled renewed interest in using antitrust law to protect free speech and market competition on the Internet.

In public comments Wednesday, Conyers expressed concern that cable and phone companies would use their dominant positions in the Internet-access market to distort political discourse and commercial activity, especially by charging fees to carry different types of content or traffic.

“If Congress acts, it will not be because we have decided to regulate. It will be because the Internet-service providers have imposed their own new regulation on the Internet, and are interfering with its healthy growth,” Conyers said at a network-neutrality hearing held by the Judiciary Committee’s Antitrust Task Force.

Conyers declared that antitrust law was the appropriate tool to combat anticompetitive actions in the Internet market, rather than prescriptive regulations drafted and supervised by the FCC.

Read more: http://www.multichannel.com/index.asp?layout=articlePrint&articleID=CA6540885

[Ian David]

1. Comcast hired seat-fillers to block critics from attending the FCC meeting in Boston.

See prior thread:

Comcast Packs Hearing on Net Neutrality with "Seat fillers," so public can't get in!
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2932654

[ananda]

5. Comcast is one nasty company.

nt

[pattmarty]

2. That's a start, but how 'bout .............................

.......banks, insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, energy companies, media companies, shit, I'm getting tired of typing, this could go on for hours.

[pleah]

3. K&R

Got to keep all of this out there. So many people seem to be asleep at the wheel right now.

[Sam Ervin jret]

4. Net neutrality is imperative for the future of free discourse on this growing media forum.

The Internet has proven itself to be an important tool for social and political change. Maybe the most important one since the advent of the television. It must be free from corporate and government interference. If the anti trust laws can do for the Internet what has not been done to help the news papers then it must be done.

It would be better if the service providers would police themselves and impose self regulation. But as we have seen all too often in the past 25 years, we the people can not count on them to do so and we must watch them. If they do not act, we must.

[nashville_brook]

6. wow -- i love his reasoning, that the co's are regulating content first. not the other way around.

ever since we ell into this rabbit hole known as Bushworld, i've been waiting for reason to reassert itself. it's as wonderful as i thought it would be.

[FredStembottom]

7. My "ears" perked up at that too, Nash....

I am so sick of having the actions of corporations always being assumed to be "natural".
And I am equally impressed with this never-been-tried-before tactic of having a PLAN ready before the predictable happens.

[nashville_brook]

10. in all the *crashing economy* news, you're going to hear a roaring silence

regarding the actions of corporations leading up to our next Great Depression. it's going to be blamed on "not enough inaction," as Bush said in his radio address this morning.

[crimsonblue]

11. Are our congresspeople idiots?

The Feds can already prevent the telecoms from interfering with communications, which the internet falls under. Telecoms are not allowed to intefere with or censor "normal communications" (mainly telephone). Mainly would rightly claim that the internet is as much a communication device as a telephone, so it should already be illegal for the telecoms to fuck with our internet. To me and my generation, the internet is simply another part of our infrastructure. It is as important to my life as the telephone. Also, it is already illegal to intentionally degrade, disrupt, or filter the transmission of communications so if we had an FCC with balls, this would be a no brainer. It pisses me off when companies like ATT and Comcast think they own the internet... Sorry dude... but that's like working at a water plant and saying the water is yours.

[jwirr]

8. Go, Conyers, use the big stick but to hell with walking softly. nt

[crud76]

9. Go Conyers!

:kick: