CA, I just fundamentally disagree with you on this. The only role ISPs should have is providing me with a connection to a bunch of 1s and 0s, and that should be the end of their knowledge or concern.
Just like the power company can’t cut off power to an address as long as the pay their bill, even if illegal activity is happening because, that is a job for law enforcement. The internet should be treated the same IMO. Provide access and that is it. If I’m doing something illegal then go through the proper legal channels to stop it. Yes, that can be a very difficult task in this day and age but, just because it is difficult doesn’t mean we should allow the ISPs to act as law enforcement.
What would stop them from blocking more than just illegal content? Oh, this may not be illegal but, we morally disagree with it so BLOCKED. We don’t like this political view so all those sites BLOCKED. Those people said some mean things about us so BLOCKED. Netflix is our competitor so BLOCKED. What are you going to do about it, we are the only ISP option in your neighborhood so deal with it!
IMO, access to the internet should be a utility, just like power and landline phones. Charge me for my usage but, what I do with it is none of your business. As long as I’m paying my bill then why should you care. The way ISPs are going in this country is basically the next “Ma Bell” and it’s time for it to be broken down. Through lobbing they have created local monopolies where there is zero competition.
Most ISPs are also content providers which is a conflict of interest IMO. They shouldn’t be allowed to provide content and then turn around and decide what content you are allowed to see. What if Alabama Power also manufactured consumer appliances and said that their appliances would be exempt from your power bill but, GE appliances would now cost double?
Net Neutrality, at its most basic level, required all ISPs to view the internet as nothing more than 1s and 0s. All traffic is just equally created 1s and 0s. Not seen as Netflix, not as CNN, not as Hulu, not as FB, not as Tidefans, not as porn, not as Xfinity. Just seen as another form of electricity.
Also, stop picking on BitTorrent. First, it’s not a website, it’s software. Second torrent is a file type, again, not a website. Torrenting doesn’t use websites, it uses software like BitTorrent to create peer-to-peer networks. So it is not as simple as Comcast blocking X number of websites. They’d have to sniff traffic (because it’s encrypted) to determine if you are torrenting legal or illegal content or block peer-to-peer file sharing. Let’s ignore the fact that there are plenty of legal uses for file sharing, in the end it is pretty easy to circumvent these types of network blocks. Now you have to block the use of proxies but, now you’ve ....ed off millions of people who legally use proxies everyday. Well, just block the download of the initial torrent file. Fine but, I’ll just place it inside an encrypted zip/rar file. Now what, block all zip files?
There just isn’t a great efficient way to block illegal traffic without casting a net so wide that you also take down legal traffic. Just like drm doesn’t punish digital pirates because they crack everything, it just causes headaches for legal consumers. The folks sharing illegal stuff aren’t worried about all this because they will figure out a way to circumvent it all. It will just cause headaches for the rest of us.