Referencing TechCrunch's story on AOL's data giveaway, EFF's Derek Slater declares in AOL's Data Valdez Violates Users' Privacy:

Regardless, Congress should take note of this latest Data Valdez by creating stronger, crystal clear legal protections for user information and by limiting data retention.

Call me crazy, but I'm not holding my breath. It's certainly more likely for Congress to pass strict laws on others (see FCRA, Graham-Leach-Bliley, HIPAA) than it is for them to pass laws controlling government retention (or sharing) of data (see Real ID). However, many in Congress seem to think that the Internet is comprised of pornography-obsessed terrorists. It seems unlikely they're going to make a move that affords more privacy online.

It doesn't help when a Senator tries to explain the issues in non-technical terms and gets blasted left-and-right. (Whether one's for or against net neutrality, that mocking of Sen. Stevens struck me as wholly unfair.)

What's unfair is that the senator didn't even seem to take the time to ask the CRS (Congressional Research Service) to get him a 'down to earth' briefing on what the 'Internet' is, or how it works. His comparison of 'my email was slow' to 'video files clogged my tubes' was completely off the mark. He'd have had better luck explaining the 'my email was slow' as 'martians invaded'.

I think, and I understand I work in the industry so I have a slightly biased opinion, he'd have been better served by asking for some research material and a briefing and then crafting an argument that was atleast cogent prior to standing up in front of the rest of the Senate to discuss Network Neutrality.

Blasting him though was a little harsh, I suppose your arguement is it's never good to make fun of mentally handicapped people?

His comparison of 'my email was slow' to 'video files clogged my tubes' was completely off the mark. He'd have had better luck explaining the 'my email was slow' as 'martians invaded'.

Yes, of course, that was a poor diagnosis of the problem. However, most of what he was mocked for was the "tubes" analogy, and, to a lesser extent, calling an email "an internet."

The tubes analogy simply isn't that far off, and it was hardly worth the derision. That it blindly assigns the usage of bandwidth, rather than considering that customers of the ISPs are the ones doing the requesting is an issue. But then, that largely goes to the heart of the issue.

What has struck me most about much of this discussion is that there seems to be an underlying assumption that there's long been network neutrality, and that suddenly that is being stripped away. Whether bandwidth access came from peering arrangements, advertised network length restrictions, or internal QoS measures, non-neutrality has long been the effective norm. I don't trust the government to properly regulate, but it also galls me to hear some telecom CEO talking about how Google is using his bandwidth for free (rather than recognizing that his customers are using his bandwidth to Google for their service fees.)

But that all goes way beyond tubes and sending internets.

bq. I don't trust the government to properly regulate, but it also galls me to hear some telecom CEO talking about how Google is using his bandwidth for free (rather than recognizing that his customers are using his bandwidth to Google for their service fees.)

I too fear that the gov't is missing the mark and will end up legislating something that isn't feasible. The Telecom Exec's in question are attempting to do two things: preserve their current rate structure (perhaps, this is where the conspiracy nuts go), preserve their rights to run 'preferred' services on their portions of the network.

So, the first I regard as just conspiracy nut stuff. The second though is where the meat of the problem/arguement probably is, which is no where near 'google' or other folks like them. The meat of the problem for Telcom folks is, or could be easily interpretted as, 'how do I make my service seem more attractive than "other provider"'s service?'

So, for instance, how does Verizon make their VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) service seem to be more attractive to consumers of their IP (Internet Protocol) services, home users that is, than Vonage? One method would be to provide a guaranteed path or level of service for the Verizon VoIP service and not treat Vonage any different from 'normal' IP traffic. Of course, another option would be to not have a dedicated VoIP service offering with your own infrastructure, but instead partner with Vonage and provide their traffic a quality-of-service boost above other normal IP traffic.

The same can be said for the, and this is where Yahoo/Google/MSN/Apple come into the picture, video services coming to the fore as well. Verizon can/could provide a quality-of-service boost/advantage to the Verizon Video service, or they could offer a dedicated connection to the Verizon portion of the Internet to Google/MSN/Yahoo and provide that quality-of-service guarantee to the traffic generated across that link (and to the downstream Verizon customers of course).

I'd certainly like to believe that the push is to ALLOW Telecom folks, or really any network service provider, to provide these advantages to their services as it seems as though that will lead to atleast one good choice for consumers. I'd hate to see some of the legislation that's been proposed be ratified though as it has much broader implications for the operators of the networks. For instance, some versions have been unclear and overbroad enough to imply that operators could not assist customers under Denial of Service attacks (they can't interfere with the traffic so they can't block 'bad' traffic to the end customer), this might also apply to blocking spam at the service provider (which is likely a larger impact for the masses than random DoS attacks are).

Anyway, it's an interesting debate despite the sidelines about which senator is in desperate need of a briefing by the CRS.

-Chris