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President Obama supports net neutrality. How about a truly public “public utility”?

What the Internet actually looks like
The news is all over the Internet: President Obama today made a strong statement in support of [[Net neutrality]], urging the FCC to adopt strict rules on net neutrality in order to assure a level Internet playing field and not allow Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to discriminate Internet traffic (news coverage here and here).

Yes, net neutrality is a good thing, and it’s about time Obama came out in support — after all, over 100,000 people signed the White House petition and the FCC Received 3.7 Million comments in support of Net neutrality!

However, we need more drastic (or common sense!) measures than simply assuring that ISPs provide a level Internet playing field. The big ISPs (e.g., Comcast and Verizon) are currently consolidating and are acting like drug cartels — don’t take my word for it, watch John Oliver’s piece on Net Neutrality below. So what we need is NOT a level playing field for the monopolistic ISPs — Obama wants FCC to regulate the Internet under under Title II of the Telecommunications Act would mean reclassifying it as a utility — but a playing field that is truly public and noncommercial.



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