Sure, but aren't heavy users of nearly every service that isn't billed per unit subsidized by lighter users? It's cheaper for both partners to do it this way rather than discount the service. So, while I don't get warm-and-fuzzies from the idea, either, I have a hard time faulting the companies for doing the deal this way.
But aren't the rules in place now explicit about not degrading service?
I don't really love the idea of zero rating, though as others have mentioned, I'd like to see the caps go away and make this moot rather than forbid zero rating. But I don't really understand why you think it's slimy?
How is zero rating really different from, for example, my ISP offering me discounted subscriptions to Hulu+ or HBO's streaming service? In both instances, the ISP is telling me, "If you use our service and the service of our preferred partner, you get a discount".
And of course this gives an advantage to the bigger partners because they're the ones that people want to sign up with. But it's always going to be easier when you're the big, successful company. We aren't trying to take away the advantages of being successful.
I'm not saying to let them do whatever they want, because clearly there is a line where a business partnership becomes collusion. I don't know where that line is, but I think a simple zero rating deal falls well into the business partnership side.
They keep telling us that copyright infringement helps terrorists and now look - sure enough, the laws we made them pass to stop infringement are finally doing it.
I know, and now that I know there won't be cam movies, I am totally going to rush right out and see the latest blockbuster prequel to a reboot of a two year old movie "based" on a comic book. I can almost taste the $17 stale popcorn right now!
Jim Graham is my councilmember and he's already lost the primary, so he's on his way out. This is not the first time he has seemed to be a bit fuzzy on ethical issues, but nothing concrete has ever been found.
And while I have no excuse for Marion Barry - it's a huge embarrassment to many DC residents that he's still holding elected office - I have to mention that a lot of DC politics is at the mercy of the federal government, where we have no meaningful representation.
Finally, the real solution here is not more regulation for Uber and Lyft, but LESS for the incumbent cabs who don't want to compete. The DC Taxi Commission is the real problem. For example, they forced all cabs to take credit cards, which is a benefit for riders, but limited it to a small number of card processors, many of who didn't pay the drivers in a reasonable amount of time (if at all).
Once a patent is ruled invalid, it's not really a patent anymore, so you shouldn't be able to infringe. However, until that point, even if you're really really really sure it's going to be invalidated, you have to take it as valid.
As I was graduating college, I was planning to go into defense contracting after hearing stories of riches heaped on older classmates by Raytheon and Lockheed. My girlfriend at the time was going to work at the NSA. After her first orientation, she freaked out that I could no longer take her out to dinner or anything because it would be a conflict of interest.
We were entry-level new college grads who in no way could influence any sort of contract award or anything like that, and she was told this wasn't appropriate. To think that the former head of the agency employing the current CTO would be "manageable" shows, once again, that the NSA is completely divorced from reality.
In college around 1999 I worked for my friend's dad doing exactly this, primarily at motorcycle races. This was before it was feasible for the average person to it on a computer, but it's been established you can't take something obvious and add "on a computer" and get a patent. I have no idea when he started the business, but he'd been doing it a while before I started.
I was on the phone with Verizon last night talking about FIOS service at a house where I'm one of the property managers and they were similarly clueless, though not that pushy. She didn't even flinch when I told her I was going to cancel service completely after they lied about what my bill would be.
Even where there is competition (I can switch to Comcast there), no one seems to have any incentive to compete.
I've lived in Washington DC for about 7 years and, up until maybe a year ago, Comcast was the only choice for broadband except for Verizon DSL which I wouldn't consider an effective alternative.
Also, if Comcast was messing with the numbers, wouldn't they have messed with them the other way? Showing how great the competition is and how lovely it is that so many people chose Comcast?
I don't disagree with you. When you make assumptions that lead to ridiculous conclusions, it usually means your assumptions are wrong. But it doesn't necessarily mean that your process in getting from assumptions to conclusions was wrong.
The only way that interpretation works is if you look at non-citizens as non-people
Unfortunately that's exactly what we do.
Didn't Mike mention a week or three back that the Constitution is pretty careful to use "citizen" most of the time, but sometimes uses "people"? As in, some parts are deliberately meant to apply just to citizens, and some to all people? This is a reasonable distinction to make, as certainly citizens should have some rights not granted to all people.
But if that's the case, and the 4th Amendment says "people", then it's pretty clear it's meant to apply to everyone.
I'm not a lawyer, though I married one and seem to spend most of my time with them.
If you take it as fact that non-citizens have no 4th Amendment rights, then saying something to a non-citizen is essentially equivalent to putting it in plain sight.
Let's say your neighbor is murdered. They find him chopped up into little pieces. It's horrible. They naturally knock on your door to see if you heard anything. If you answer the door holding an axe, covered in blood from head to toe, you have put out in the open that you are very likely the crazy person who murdered the neighbor. If you answer the door in a clean shirt and politely answer their questions, they will have to find some evidence and get a warrant to go find the bloody axe you shoved in the coat closet.
So telling something to a person who has no 4th Amendment protection is basically the same thing. You have taken something that you could have kept "hidden" where a warrant is needed to access it, and put it out in the open where anyone can discover it.
Since this is a pretty horrible result, I think we ought to go back and look at the assumptions that got us here. But given those assumptions as fact, I don't think this is an unreasonable conclusion.
On the post: Showtime, HBO Working With ISPs To Make Their Streaming Services Cap Exempt
Re: Re: Re: Re: Not sure I oppose zero rating
On the post: Showtime, HBO Working With ISPs To Make Their Streaming Services Cap Exempt
Re: Re: Not sure I oppose zero rating
I don't really love the idea of zero rating, though as others have mentioned, I'd like to see the caps go away and make this moot rather than forbid zero rating. But I don't really understand why you think it's slimy?
On the post: Showtime, HBO Working With ISPs To Make Their Streaming Services Cap Exempt
Not sure I oppose zero rating
And of course this gives an advantage to the bigger partners because they're the ones that people want to sign up with. But it's always going to be easier when you're the big, successful company. We aren't trying to take away the advantages of being successful.
I'm not saying to let them do whatever they want, because clearly there is a line where a business partnership becomes collusion. I don't know where that line is, but I think a simple zero rating deal falls well into the business partnership side.
On the post: Lenovo In Denial: Insists There's No Security Problem With Superfish -- Which Is Very, Very Wrong.
Hooray Websense for a change
On the post: Islamic Extremists Use YouTube's Automated Copyright Dispute Process To Access Critics' Personal Data
Copyright infringement and terrorism
On the post: MPAA And Movie Theaters Issue A Complete Ban On Google Glass, Because They 'Have A Long History Of Welcoming Tech Advances'
Re:
On the post: DC Councilman Leaves Cab Union Rep's Business Card In His Stack Of Anti-Uber Amendments
He's a lame duck
And while I have no excuse for Marion Barry - it's a huge embarrassment to many DC residents that he's still holding elected office - I have to mention that a lot of DC politics is at the mercy of the federal government, where we have no meaningful representation.
Finally, the real solution here is not more regulation for Uber and Lyft, but LESS for the incumbent cabs who don't want to compete. The DC Taxi Commission is the real problem. For example, they forced all cabs to take credit cards, which is a benefit for riders, but limited it to a small number of card processors, many of who didn't pay the drivers in a reasonable amount of time (if at all).
On the post: US Solicitor General, Don Verrilli, Tells Supreme Court That Of Course You Can Infringe On An Invalid Patent
Re: Re:
The real solution is to stop approving patents on garbage, but that seems unlikely to happen.
On the post: US Solicitor General, Don Verrilli, Tells Supreme Court That Of Course You Can Infringe On An Invalid Patent
Re: which is why
Maybe someone being sued over a patent could request some time to review it and then challenge the validity before the actual trial starts?
On the post: US Solicitor General, Don Verrilli, Tells Supreme Court That Of Course You Can Infringe On An Invalid Patent
On the post: Keith Alexander Continues To 'Play To The Edges' Of Propriety; NSA Now Checking Out His Partnership With Agency CTO
This is insane
We were entry-level new college grads who in no way could influence any sort of contract award or anything like that, and she was told this wasn't appropriate. To think that the former head of the agency employing the current CTO would be "manageable" shows, once again, that the NSA is completely divorced from reality.
On the post: Guy Claims Patent On Photographing People In Races And Then Selling Them Their Photos; Sues Photography Company
Re: Re: Prior art
On the post: Guy Claims Patent On Photographing People In Races And Then Selling Them Their Photos; Sues Photography Company
Prior art
On the post: Report: All But Four Of The High-Profile Domestic Terrorism Plots In The Last Decade Were Crafted From The Ground Up By The FBI
Re:
On the post: Report: All But Four Of The High-Profile Domestic Terrorism Plots In The Last Decade Were Crafted From The Ground Up By The FBI
On the post: More Than Half Of All People Want To Ditch Their Cable Provider, If Only They Could
Re: Re: Re: sounds like a Comcast-sponsored study
I was on the phone with Verizon last night talking about FIOS service at a house where I'm one of the property managers and they were similarly clueless, though not that pushy. She didn't even flinch when I told her I was going to cancel service completely after they lied about what my bill would be.
Even where there is competition (I can switch to Comcast there), no one seems to have any incentive to compete.
On the post: More Than Half Of All People Want To Ditch Their Cable Provider, If Only They Could
Re: sounds like a Comcast-sponsored study
Also, if Comcast was messing with the numbers, wouldn't they have messed with them the other way? Showing how great the competition is and how lovely it is that so many people chose Comcast?
On the post: DOJ Says Americans Have No 4th Amendment Protections At All When They Communicate With Foreigners
Re: Re: Maybe reasonable
On the post: DOJ Says Americans Have No 4th Amendment Protections At All When They Communicate With Foreigners
Re: Re: Maybe reasonable
Unfortunately that's exactly what we do.
Didn't Mike mention a week or three back that the Constitution is pretty careful to use "citizen" most of the time, but sometimes uses "people"? As in, some parts are deliberately meant to apply just to citizens, and some to all people? This is a reasonable distinction to make, as certainly citizens should have some rights not granted to all people.
But if that's the case, and the 4th Amendment says "people", then it's pretty clear it's meant to apply to everyone.
On the post: DOJ Says Americans Have No 4th Amendment Protections At All When They Communicate With Foreigners
Maybe reasonable
If you take it as fact that non-citizens have no 4th Amendment rights, then saying something to a non-citizen is essentially equivalent to putting it in plain sight.
Let's say your neighbor is murdered. They find him chopped up into little pieces. It's horrible. They naturally knock on your door to see if you heard anything. If you answer the door holding an axe, covered in blood from head to toe, you have put out in the open that you are very likely the crazy person who murdered the neighbor. If you answer the door in a clean shirt and politely answer their questions, they will have to find some evidence and get a warrant to go find the bloody axe you shoved in the coat closet.
So telling something to a person who has no 4th Amendment protection is basically the same thing. You have taken something that you could have kept "hidden" where a warrant is needed to access it, and put it out in the open where anyone can discover it.
Since this is a pretty horrible result, I think we ought to go back and look at the assumptions that got us here. But given those assumptions as fact, I don't think this is an unreasonable conclusion.
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