Court strikes down FCC’s net neutrality rules, agency may appeal An appeals court in Washington on Tuesday ruled that the FCC’s “net neutrality” rules, which prevent companies like Verizon from favoring some types of internet traffic over others, are invalid. The 81-page ruling, which was decided by a 2-1 vote with one judge dissenting in part, has big implications for content providers, consumers and the future of the internet. (Here is year-by-year timeline of the legal battles). That said, even though the Commission has general authority to regulate in this arena, it may not impose requirements that contravene express statutory mandates. Given that the Commission has chosen to classify broadband providers in a manner that exempts them from treatment as common carriers, the Communications Act expressly prohibits the Commission from nonetheless regulating them as such. The court’s ruling is a game-changer because it upsets the FCC’s current practice of requiring broadband internet providers to act akin to “common carriers.” DC Net Neutrality ruling
Chase Bank Slams the Door on More Porn Stars By Lila Gray Tuesday, Apr 22, 2014Text size: LOS ANGELES — Chase Bank has reportedly sent out letters to hundreds of porn stars notifying them that their accounts would be closed on May 11. Teagan Presley confirmed to XBIZ that her personal account was one of the ones shut down. “I got a letter and it was like please cancel all transactions, please fix your automatic pay account and make sure everything’s taken care of by May 11,” Presley told XBIZ. One of the letters, posted here by Perez Hilton, succinctly informs the recipient of the impending closure without citing specific reasons. “We recently reviwed your account and determined that we will be closing it on May 11, 2014,” the letter reads. Then, continuing in a more "compassionate" vein, "We want you to have enough time to complete pending transactions and open an account at another bank." And yet, when Presley went to Bank of America to open up a new account, she was summarily turned away.
Who Killed Net Neutrality? Since 1970 or so, carriers like A.T. & T. and Verizon have been barred from blocking or degrading whatever is transported over their lines. Although, at the time, the rule primarily concerned long-distance voice calls, that principle, applied to the Internet, has become known more recently as net neutrality. It offers a basic guarantee: that content providers on a network—whether it be YouTube, Wikipedia, or bloggers—can reach their users without worrying about being blocked, harassed, or forced to pay a toll by the carrier. Policing that rule in its various guises has been a core mission of the Federal Communications Commission for the past four decades—and keeping carriers away from Internet content has been among the F.C.C.’s most successful policy initiatives since its creation, in 1934. Yesterday, because of a faulty legal strategy used by the F.C.C., the U.S. Such obvious outrages are unlikely; the firms will surely promise to behave themselves. That’s not all.
At Walgreen, Renouncing Corporate Citizenship Photo A little less than two years ago, Gregory D. Wasson, the chief executive of Walgreen, sought a series of tax breaks from Illinois, where his company is based. “We are proud of our Illinois heritage,” he said at the time. “Just as our stores and pharmacies are health and daily living anchors for the communities we serve, we as a company are now recommitted to serving as an economic anchor for northeastern Illinois.” The state gave Walgreen $46 million in corporate income tax credits over 10 years in exchange for a pledge to create 500 jobs and invest in upgrading its offices. Mr. Why? Alarmingly, dozens of large United States companies are contemplating the increasingly popular tax-skirting tactic known as an inversion. In Walgreen’s case, an inversion would be an affront to United States taxpayers. According to Americans for Tax Fairness, a move by Walgreen to Switzerland would most likely cost United States taxpayers about $4 billion over five years. Mr. Senator Richard J. Mr.
In Developing Countries, Google and Facebook Already Defy Net Neutrality Net neutrality—the idea that all Internet traffic should generally be treated equally—suffered a setback last week when a federal court struck down the U.S. Federal Communications Commission’s latest regulatory effort (see “Net Neutrality Quashed: New Pricing Schemes, Throttling, and Business Models to Follow”). Pro-neutrality types have worried that a few giant companies will end up controlling, or at least mediating, the Internet experience for much of the population because of special deals they’ve struck with Internet providers for prioritized or subsidized data delivery. But in the emerging economies of the world, that’s pretty much how things already work, thanks to a growing number of deals Google and Facebook have struck with mobile phone carriers from the Philippines to Kenya. In essence, these deals give people free access to text-only version of things like Facebook news feeds, Gmail, and the first page of search results under plans like Facebook Zero or Google Free Zone.
Thank You for Your Service: How One Company Sues Soldiers Worldwide This article was co-published with The Washington Post. Army Spc. Angel Aguirre needed a washer and dryer. Money was tight, and neither Aguirre, 21, nor his wife had much credit history as they settled into life at Fort Carson in Colorado in 2010. That's when he saw an ad for USA Discounters, guaranteeing loan approval for service members. "We ended up getting a computer, a TV, a ring, and a washer and dryer," Aguirre said. Aguirre later learned that USA Discounters' easy lending has a flip side. From there, USA Discounters files lawsuits against service members based anywhere in the world, no matter how much inconvenience or expense they would incur to attend a Virginia court date. "They're basically ruthless," said Army Staff Sgt. Timothy Dorsey, vice president of USA Discounters, said the company provides credit to service members who would not otherwise qualify and sues only after other attempts to resolve debts have failed. Before he could, he was deployed to Germany and Afghanistan.
Content Providers Must Pay, Says France Telecom AFP/Getty Images Louette: time had come to revisit two of the principles of the internet France Telecom wants to charge heavy content producers for carrying their traffic on its network and is exploring the idea of “data termination rates”, similar to the call termination rates that operators charge each other for carrying calls on their networks, according to a senior executive. Pierre Louette, Senior Executive Vice President, Group General Secretary of France Telecom, speaking to Tech Europe, said the time had come to revisit two of the principles of the internet. “There are two principles on which the Internet developed: zero-price rule, and non-discrimination rule. Europe’s biggest Internet provider, trading internationally as Orange, was considering its commercial peering arrangements. “Last year at Barcelona, Eric Schmidt, who was then CEO of Google, made a speech. Europe receives 10x the traffic it sends Mr.
Insta-Loophole: In Florida, High-Cost Lender Skirts the Law This story was co-published with The Tampa Bay Times. When Florida lawmakers banned high-interest car title loans in 2000, then-Gov. Jeb Bush proclaimed that the new law would protect Floridians from lenders "who prey on the desperate." But in the past three years, the largest title lender in the country has swept into the state, offering a new version of the loans that effectively allow it to charge the sort of sky-high rates the law was supposed to stop. TMX Finance, which has opened 26 InstaLoan stores across Florida, skirts the ban on triple-digit interest rates by offering loans larded with costly and nearly useless insurance products. TMX is clearly violating "the spirit of the law," said Alice Vickers of the Florida Consumer Action Network, a Tampa-based nonprofit advocacy group. TMX's refashioned loans are yet another example of how the nation's high-cost lenders have modified their offerings to circumvent city, state and federal laws designed to limit them.
Paranoid Android: the worst way to complain about net neutrality After this week's passage of an open Internet rule at the Federal Communication Commission, some of the Web's pundits had a tough time deciding whether the agency is more stupid than it is corrupt, or more corrupt than it is stupid. Sadly, all the episode really shows is that bloggers often get a bad rap for good reasons. The accusations started after Engadget read the FCC press release issued yesterday after the net neutrality vote. The complete text of the new rules is not yet available, the FCC tells Ars, because the new Order was opposed by two commissioners and thus has to address their objections before being released. Instead, the press office yesterday sent out snippets from the most crucial bits of the Order. And at the end of this section come the line: "Further, we recognize that there have been meaningful recent moves toward openness, including the introduction of open operating systems like Android." Slightly more paranoid Engadget was incredulous. Constructive criticism
Settlement Expected With Banks Over Home Loans Under the settlement, a significant amount of the money, $3.75 billion, would go to people who have already lost their homes, making it potentially more generous to former homeowners than a broad-reaching pact in February between state attorneys general and five large banks. That set aside $1.5 billion in cash relief for Americans. Most of the relief in both agreements is meant for people who are struggling to stay in their homes and need the banks to reduce their payments or lower the amount of principal they owe. The $10 billion pact would be the latest in a series of settlements that regulators and law enforcement officials have reached with banks to hold them accountable for their role in the 2008 financial crisis that sent the housing market into the deepest slump since . As of early 2012, four million Americans had been foreclosed upon since the beginning of 2007, and a huge amount of abandoned homes swamped many states, including California, Florida and Arizona.
Reddit Political Action Committee The FCC passed net neutrality regulation Tuesday. To many Internet users, this law's implication is vague. How will this improve our user experience and why should we care one way or another about what the government has to say about the net? To one group of users, this law, its implication and why they needed to speak out was clear. Reddit PAC was the brain child of Eddie Geller, a Los Angeles comedian who was upset about the possible defeat of net neutrality. "I got sick of being told what we can't have, because the political climate is about to be ‘inopportune.’ I spoke with Geller about the impact of the net neutrality vote and his group's actions to understand more about neutrality from a grassroots perspective. What does your membership look like? For legal reasons, I should start off by saying we are now the Open Source Democracy Foundation. That being said, much of our membership is young, educated, tech-savy and passionate about politics — particularly net neutrality. 1. 2. 3.
Sarah Silverman and John Oliver hammer payday loan industry ‘motherf*ckers’ By Tom BoggioniMonday, August 11, 2014 7:34 EDT On this week’s edition of HBO’s Last Week Tonight, host John Oliver was joined by Sarah Silverman to take on America’s predatory payday loan industry “motherf*ckers.” Calling attention to the virtually unregulated industry capable of charging up to 1700 percent interest on short term loans which fall disproportionately on the poor, Silverman advised doing anything else rather than “dealing with these payday loan motherf*ckers.” Pointing out that the payday loan businesses — which grants short term loans at exorbitant interest rates– is a $9 billion industry, Oliver noted that there are more payday loan stores in America than Starbucks and McDonalds. “McDonalds!” With more the three quarters of borrowers having take out an additional loan before they are able to pay off the original loan, Oliver explained, “Basically, payday loans are the Lay’s potato chips of finance: you can’t have just one, and they’re terrible for you.” Tom Boggioni
What the FCC ruling means Dan Gillmor’s not impressed by the FCC’s pusillanimity. Neither am I. The neutering of the Internet is now the unofficial policy of the Federal Communications Commission. Contrary to the happy talk from FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski at a rule-making announcement today in Washington, the move is well underway to turn the Internet into a regulated playground for corporate giants. Dan writes that:Tuesday’s FCC vote on rules purportedly designed to ensure open and free networks was a 3-2 partisan charade, with Genachowski and the other two Democratic commissioners in favor and the two Republicans against. It did nothing of the sort. As I understand it (from the Wired report), the Commission has approved ‘compromise’ net neutrality rules that would forbid the nation’s largest cable and DSL internet service providers from blocking or slowing online services, while leaving wireless companies with much more latitude. Tim’s new book — The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires
Cheat Sheet: BofA Supplied Default Answers for ‘Independent’ Foreclosure Claims Reviewers The Independent Foreclosure Review, the government’s main effort to compensate homeowners for harm by banks, is supposed to be independent from the banks. But in Bank of America’s case, it wasn’t. The Independent Foreclosure Review, the government's main effort to compensate homeowners for harm by banks, is supposed to be independent from the banks. The Independent Foreclosure Review is the government's main effort to compensate homeowners for harm they suffered at the hands of banks — and, as its name indicates, it's supposed to be independent. But until recently, that was hardly the case with Bank of America. No evidence has emerged that Bank of America pressured reviewers to accept its answers, and the bank did not supply answers for the final questions: whether the bank should pay compensation and, if so, how much. This practice only ended a month after ProPublica published a story showing that Bank of America was doing much of the work itself [1]. Potential Conflict of Interest