Internet discussion of the Verizon-Google proposal on Net Neutrality has soaked up a lot of bits this week, but I do not feel enlightened. My problem is one that is endemic to the whole NN debate – the debate is conducted at a high level of abstraction, rarely getting down to cases on the question “what are the particular problems that Net Neutrality is designed to solve or the particular practices that it is needed to prevent?”
Being a lawyer, I was trained through the case system, in which one looks …

Saint reports that 4Chan.org’s founder Christopher “moot” Poole was called in as government witness in order to testify to the definition of terminology used on the web forum.

As Blair Levin said upon exiting the FCC, people tend to see what they expect to see. Reaction to the Verizon/Google announcement reinforces his point.

The recent Verizon-Google recommendation to the FCC on net neutrality, and indeed the whole recent round of FCC discussions with various net neutrality players, are, in some circles, regarded as somehow illegitimate.
In fact and au contraire, the idea that parties affected by rules should negotiate with the agency and with each other, and should even reach binding agreements, and that this will improve both the process and the final product, has an extensive and thoughtful history. The concept of RegNeg is even enshrined in the one of the better-kept secrets …

Free Press and other strict Net Neutrality advocates have their facts backwards. The router prioritization that they claim is harmful to others is actually not harmful and the CDN “geographic prioritization” that they claim is harmless is actually the most harmful. Not only does it cause a lot more jitter, but it hogs bandwidth at the expense of other applications.

Edward Wyatt has this sesational headline on the New York Times reading “F.C.C. Chief Opposes Fees for Internet Priority.” and it’s caught massive traction in the blogosphere.   But there’s one huge problem: Chairman Genachowski never actually said that.  The exact quote that Genachowski used was:
“Any outcome, any deal that doesn’t preserve the freedom and openness of the Internet for consumers and entrepreneurs will be unacceptable”
Well OK, that’s just wonderful because how could anyone oppose “freedom and openness”?  But that statement is very generic and it could mean a number …

Edward Wyatt of the New York Times has sounded the alert to a possible deal on Net Neutrality between Google and Verizon and many in the blogosphere including GigaOm is decrying this as a betrayal of Net Neutrality. Aside from the fact that this story is based on many vague and undisclosed sources, the story is wrong on the facts, self contradictory, and incoherent.

Mike Masnick argues that because the broadband networks operate on public right of ways and because the Telcos took lots of subsidies like the Universal Service Fund (USF), these networks aren’t private. But the reality is that the Telcos pay a lot more into the USF than they actually receive.

The media keeps perpetuating the myth that there are “seven key holders to the Internet”. The reality is that those seven people don’t actually hold recovery keys to DNSSEC much less the Internet or the World Wide Web, and those seven people couldn’t just waltz into the secure facilities to grab a copy of the recovery keys.

I’ve stated before that “The real barrier to innovation isn’t the cost of bandwidth” and it looks like Netflix’s 10K filing confirms this.  Despite a huge increase in online content and users, bandwidth costs have barely risen.  However, it would seem that the US Postal Service is a significant and increasing cost to Netflix’s bottom line.