Up Is Down, Black Is White, Not Discriminating Against Internet Traffic Is Discriminating

from the explain-please? dept

While a bunch of consumer groups have come out in favor of keeping the internet neutral, a bunch of civil rights groups are taking the opposing view. However, the reasoning is hard to follow, as it doesn't make very much sense: "The effective prioritization of P2P traffic would represent an altogether new type of 'back of the bus' second-class status for our speech on broadband networks -- and ought to be resoundingly rejected." Actually, it's the use of traffic management that would create a second-class status for some traffic. Preserving network neutrality does exactly the opposite -- making sure all packets are treated equally. What the groups seem to be saying -- incorrectly -- is that by not using traffic management, P2P traffic is prioritized. That's not true. It's treated equally with any other traffic.

It's completely fair to argue that treating all packets equally doesn't make sense -- as many have. However, to claim that treating all packets equally somehow makes some traffic "second-class" is an outright misrepresentation. No one denies (perhaps other than these civil rights groups) that traffic management is all about officially making certain kinds of traffic second-class. They just argue that this is necessary and reasonable. The filing by these civil rights groups is simply backwards.

Filed Under: civil rights, discrimination, net neutrality

Circuit Court Ditches Ruling Opening Roommates.com Up To Blame For Ads Posted By Users

from the let's-rethink-this-a-moment dept

Earlier this year, plenty of people were quite surprised by a ruling of the 9th Circuit that seemed to go against what almost every other court had said about the safe harbors provided to internet service providers for the actions of their users under section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. The case involved the website Roommates.com, which allows people (not surprisingly) to put up ads looking for roommates. The problem (according to the lawsuit) is that some people posting roommate ads included requests that could potentially violate the Fair Housing Act. Where the ruling got tricky was that it basically said section 230 protections existed only where structured data wasn't collected. However since Roommates.com offered both pulldown boxes and allowed users to search on certain characteristics, it was no longer protected by section 230. But this potentially opened up a ton of problems and had a variety of legal experts scratching their heads. So, it's no surprise that they're happy to see the 9th Circuit now toss that original ruling out, to be reheard by an 11 judge panel. No matter when that happens, the original ruling can no longer be used as a precedent. This is a good thing, as the safe harbors protecting service providers from the actions of their users is certainly a good thing -- and the net result if this ruling did stand is that fewer sites would be willing to accept any kind of structured data, for fear of losing their protection. Also, considering how confused various legal experts were after the original ruling, you have to figure that it's at least a good idea to take a second look and rethink or, at the very least, clarify the original ruling.

Filed Under: cda, discrimination, fair housing, roommates, section 230
Companies: roommates.com