FCC BitchSlapped Over Net Neutrality

I have said frequently that an ISP has every right to manage its network and that the brouhaha over so-called “net neutrality” is way overblown. At issue here is Comcast, who limited the number of Peer to Peer applications that customers could run. They blocked bitorrent because it is a bandwidth hog and impeded the performance of other users on the network. The FCC stood up and declared that ISP’s like Comcast and Verizon had to treat all traffic the same, because god forbid you “discriminate” and call some traffic bad and other traffic good.

But the argument that all traffic should be treated the same is a completely false premise. Should I be allowed to port scan all of the customers on my ISP? Should I be allowed to try to hack into systems online? Should I be allowed to let my system become infected by a botnet and then have it send unsolicited spam to the world? Of course not. The reason is that some behavior on a network is harmful. If not directly, it takes away from the available bandwidth of other customers. P2P has the same impact on other customers because it is a connectionless protocol that takes up loads of bandwidth.

And now the courts have ruled that the FCC has no legal authority to tell anyone what they can or can’t do with an Internet Service Provider. They have the authority over the airwaves. The Internet is a hard wired system, with nodes privately owned by companies and individuals, and therefore exempt from the meddling hands of government, and I hope it stays that way.

HotAir thinks this is a huge slap at Obama.

Michelle Malkin thinks the Liberals will try to sneak in new regs to give the FCC the power they crave.