Adding to the fallout over the simultaneous rejection of the official Google Voice app and the delisting of third-party alternatives from the App Store this week, the FCC has launched a formal inquiry and investigation into the matter by publicly publishing three letters of inquiry sent to Apple today.
By doing so, the FCC seeks to understand Apple’s reasoning for their actions this past week which have heavily polarized users and developers for different and complimentary reasons, especially after the very public passing of blame between Apple and AT&T regarding the rejection and delisting of the aforementioned applications, which has led many developers and consumers to openly criticize Apple’s approval process for applications.
This is GREAT news!
Yes it is. There is no legal reason why apple nor att should be blocking this. They are just afraid they will loose some money on text messaging packages which come to find out, texting doesn’t cost cell phone companies any money since they run over the regular 1xx. They don’t even use data. I am Glad!!!
Check this page out:
http://www.savetheinternet.com/
“The Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2009 was just introduced in Congress. This important legislation would make Net Neutrality the law once and for all.”
Everyone should visit that page and sign the petition.
I’m concerned the bill lacks teeth. From my brief understanding (and no, I didn’t read the bill), it simply mandates that the FCC tackle the issue, and set up town halls across the country within a year for public comment.
It does give FCC the power, but remember what happens when direct orders aren’t given. You wind up with something terrible like the DMCA.
Well it has to be better than nothing. I’d like a full and clear net neutrality bill too, but this is at least a start. And I should also say that I know absolutely nohting about the bill. I just know that what we have right now is so bad that AT&T and Apple thought they could actually get away with banning legitimate apps (and they very well might get away with it) so this bill has to be better than the status quo.