Under Bill Clinton the internet was defined as a utility (see def. below) which meant it would not be heavily regulated thus the inability of the federal government to elevate itself to one of gatekeeper, possibly censoring and enforcing it's views to the detriment of opposing views.
In 2015, under the Obama Administration, then FCC Chairman, Tom Wheeler changed the definition of the internet from utility to "common carrier, (see def. below) which had an entirely different meaning, thus placing the internet under a "regulatory" body, meaning it would be "regulated" (regulations) by the federal government.
Under the new Trump administration and the FCC Chairman, Ajit Pai (who, by the way was appointed by Obama back in 2013) the vote was 3-2 in favor of abolishing net neutrality and taking the internet out of the hands of Big Brother and putting it back in the hands of the people, thus paving the way for more competition and investment, overall, but in rural communities as well, also enabling new startups and new television channels, etc.
This new ruling also put the tech giants and ISPs on notice--Google, Verizon, Comcast, etc. that transparency is the order of the day. Before you engaged in throttling and censoring but that's a thing of the past. Heads up--It's time to put your house in order. I'm unsure if they're caught if there will be fines or what but this is a good thing because now they're under scrutiny.
It is interesting as I search the various news outlets and web sites that there's much to do about nothing. The Left is screaming that we're all doomed, is quick to accuse a Republican President along with the FCC Chairman that there is no fair internet anymore which is exactly the opposite of what just happened. --Interesting.
Under Bill Clinton we had a free and open internet, free of regulations and everyone (including the Left) seemed not to mind. Now they're screaming bloody murder that we just took the internet out of federal government control (under Obama) and handed it back to the free market.
I guess they don't like an internet that is by the people and for the people.
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I hope this clears some things up. Please feel free to comment, correct or whatever.
Thanks,
1. In economics, utility is a measure of preferences over some set of goods (including services: something that satisfies human wants); it represents satisfaction experienced by the consumer from a good. The concept is an important underpinning of rational choice theory in economics and game theory: since one cannot directly measure benefit, satisfaction or happiness from a good or service, economists instead have devised ways of representing and measuring utility in terms of measurable economic choices. Economists have attempted to perfect highly abstract methods of comparing utilities by observing and calculating economic choices; in the simplest sense, economists consider utility to be revealed in people's willingness to pay different amounts for different goods.Utility is taken to be correlative to Desire or Want. It has been already argued that desires cannot be measured directly, but only indirectly, by the outward phenomena to which they give rise: and that in those cases with which economics is chiefly concerned the measure is found in the price which a person is willing to pay for the fulfillment or satisfaction of his desire.
2. A common carrier in common law countries (corresponding to a public carrier in civil law systems,[1] usually called simply a carrier) is a person or company that transports goods or people for any person or company and that is responsible for any possible loss of the goods during transport.[2] A common carrier offers its services to the general public under license or authority provided by a regulatory body. The regulatory body has usually been granted "ministerial authority" by the legislation that created it. The regulatory body may create, interpret, and enforce its regulations upon the common carrier (subject to judicial review) with independence and finality, as long as it acts within the bounds of the enabling legislation.
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