Mach
DP Veteran
- Joined
- Oct 13, 2006
- Messages
- 27,745
- Reaction score
- 24,087
- Gender
- Male
- Political Leaning
- Slightly Liberal
noOk, can some one answer some questions regarding this for me?
1) Is this decision likely to be appealed?
lol, depends on who you ask. Liberals on this forum believe the power of congress is near-infinite. But seriously, sure, if congress can get it passed, it can be made law. They could give YOU personally the power to oversee it I suppose, but it seems unlikely.2) If the FCC lacks the authority, does Congress?
Basically FCC has big plans for using taxpayer money to spread broadband to rural areas and so forth. A keystone to that, and regulating it for "consumer protection", was their own spin on existing laws that aren't really specifically focused on the internet.3) What is the basis for the decision? I see no actual details on the logic.
The court rejected their spin. They can:
1. appeal
2. ask congress to give them what they want (legally)
3. reinterpret some other existing laws to grant themselves debatable power, again, and try to proceed anew. This seems likely, and may or may not also pursue #2. At some point or another congress will definitely do more on this, just not sure when. Probably take a crisis
4) How soon does Comcast start blocking BitTorrent, and is this really bad?
They already reached an agreement with BitTorrent outside of the legal fiasco that makes everyone more or less happy (not blocking it). Don't let that fool you though, from what I have read they would never have worked that deal in the first place had they not been called out on this in the first place. As to really bad? Probably not. Maybe it will slow down broadband to rural areas, and delay some forms of what they believe is consumer protection, but in general, not a huge deal for you, today.