DISQUS

Broadband Politics: Court calls FCC “arbitrary and capricious”

  • Brett Glass · 1 year ago
    Come to think of it, the "independent contractor" point also applies to Comcast. Comcast used an appliance manufactured by Sandvine. Is Comcast liable if the FCC does not like the way the appliances were programmed by Sandvine?
  • Richard Bennett · 1 year ago
    Presumably, Comcast knew what Sandvine was going to do.
  • Brett Glass · 1 year ago
    CBS knew that Timberlake and Jackson were going to perform a suggestive dance. They just didn't know the details.
  • Brett Glass · 1 year ago
    ...Oh, and they certainly didn't know that there would be an "astroturf uproar" about a half-second glimpse of a breast (covered by the equivalent of a pastie).
  • Richard Bennett · 1 year ago
    Sorry, but I don't think your analogy works. Sandvine works to spec, the nipple malfunction team didn't.
  • Brett Glass · 1 year ago
    Sandvine might have the capability to work to spec for a very large order, but as I understand it this was their stock product.
  • Richard Bennett · 1 year ago
    I mean it works as advertised, not in some mysterious way.
  • Brett Glass · 1 year ago
    In that case, we're in violent agreement. ;-)

    By the way, you are absolutely right that Free Press "flooded the FCC with junk comments." The spam makes it extremely difficult to find the entries in the record which are not carbon copies created by Free Press' "astroturf" page.

    What's more, I caught the names of a couple of local folks in the record and asked them why they'd signed on. They all said things like, "We can't let Comcast shut down the Internet!" and "Comcast is censoring the Internet!" Of course, Comcast is doing neither, and when I explained what was really happening -- and that the regulation Free Press is advocating would put me and other rural ISPs out of business -- they were sorry they'd signed on.
  • Brett Glass · 1 year ago
    P.S. -- Did the "wardrobe malfunction team" specify that they would NOT rip off their clothes? Yes, I know that for many viewers this was a bug, but for most of us -- who have seen human bodies before and are not shocked by them -- it was just mildly amusing to see them act out the lyrics.
  • Richard Bennett · 1 year ago
    It made the babies hungry, most likely. But it's reasonably clear that CBS didn't know the old lady was going to flash the audience, they're not idiots.