American net neutrality policy, a decade-old dumpster fire, flared up again this week with the FCC’s party-line vote approving chairman Ajit Pai’s Restoring Internet Freedom order. It scraps the FCC’s own 2015 regulations prohibiting internet service providers from blocking or throttling (slowing down) access to certain web sites and services or charging them extra money for “fast lanes” with better access. The vote was no surprise to the many activists, businesses, and state governments who have already been planning legal counterattacks. With 2018 being an election year, they will argue the case not only to judges but also to voters—pressuring both courts and Congress to take action. Continue reading The Political Dumpster Fire Of Net Neutrality Is Just Heating Up→
New America’s Open Technology Institute (OTI), supported by many consumer advocacy and privacy organizations, have published model legislation to aid states in improving privacy protections for broadband customers. The model is designed to provide Americans real choices over how broadband providers like AT&T and Verizon can use, disclose, and provide access to customer information. States must consider their own broadband privacy legislation to fill the gap left by Congress when it repealed the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC’s) broadband privacy rules.Continue reading Model State Broadband Privacy Law Introduced→
On September 12, Internet rights activists gathered in Downtown San Francisco to welcome FCC Chair Ajit Pai to the Bay Area and tell him to stop handing the Internet over to corporations and preserve net neutrality.
For years, we’ve told you why network neutrality is the key principle underlying an Open Internet and protecting the web’s capacity to connect. Finally it seemed as if the future of the Internet was no longer in question when the FCC moved to Title 2 classification.
But as with so many things, the Trump administration is leaving no stone unturned in trying to dismantle social progress and the open Internet is now on the chopping block.
On June 19, CA Assembly Privacy Committee chair Ed Chau introduced CalBIPA – AB375 – to restore the consumer protections stripped by Trump’s congress.
The bill will allow Internet users to consent to the sale or disclosure of their Internet activities by their Internet service providers. Media Alliance is a bill sponsor.
An American Community survey using 2015 data provided a list of the 185 cities in the United States with the worst household broadband connectivity. The data was released by NDIA.
Leading the list were Detroit, MI, Brownsville, TX and Cleveland, OH. The worst-connected California cities were San Bernardino, Fresno and Sacramento. Continue reading Worst Connected Cities→
