Ars Technica

AT&T urged the Federal Communications Commission to avoid reclassifying broadband Internet access as a telecommunications service, which is something network neutrality advocates are asking the FCC to do.

Reclassification would open broadband providers up to common carrier rules under Title II of the Communications Act, similar to regulations that have covered our phone system since 1934. One of the most interesting arguments made by AT&T is that Title II reclassification would force giant changes in the peering and interconnection markets. Reclassification could also bring lots of new requirements for ISPs that don’t directly serve consumers, AT&T argued.

Lots of people are angry about Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler's Internet "fast lane" proposal that would let Internet service providers charge Web services for priority access to consumers.

But one Web hosting service called NeoCities isn't just writing letters to the FCC. Instead, the company found the FCC's internal IP address range and throttled all connections to 28.8Kbps speeds.

"Since the FCC seems to have no problem with this idea, I've (through correspondence) gotten access to the FCC's internal IP block, and throttled all connections from the FCC to 28.8kbps modem speeds on the Neocities.org front site, and I'm not removing it until the FCC pays us for the bandwidth they've been wasting instead of doing their jobs protecting us from the 'keep America's Internet slow and expensive forever' lobby," NeoCities creator Kyle Drake wrote.

As promised, Netflix has raised its streaming subscription fees for new users to $8.99, from the $7.99 price it set three years ago.

The price hike was promised in the company's most recent shareholder letter, where it stated that past subscription plan changes taught the company a lesson about changing too much too quickly.

The outcry was swift and virulent. Netflix recanted on the rebrand, though the prices stuck. This time around, Netflix is being more cautious. The company hinted heavily in its shareholder letter that the price increases were coming as a result of the paid peering arrangements the company has struck with providers like Comcast and Verizon, which were damping the site's traffic on the accusation that it uses too much of their resources.

The price increase applies only to new subscribers.

With a promise of 50-60Mbps speeds, Sprint's new Spark network looks to maximize data performance while bringing HD Voice to tri-band smartphones like the Galaxy S4 and S5 and the HTC One M8.

So far, the Spark switch has been flipped in limited markets like Seattle, San Francisco, and New York.

In tests, Consumer Reports has confirmed that phones connected to Sprint's Spark network cannot access any over-the-air data services when in the middle of a phone call. That differs from many of the company's current 4G LTE smartphones, which come equipped with a separate LTE antenna that lets you send and receive data while using Sprint's CDMA network for voice calls.

[Commentary] The Federal Communications Commission's proposal to let Internet service providers charge Web services for a "fast lane" probably isn't a good thing for the Internet -- even the FCC said so itself in 2010 when it warned that such payments would give ISPs "incentives to allow congestion rather than invest in expanding network capacity."

But it's important not to exaggerate the potential effects of the proposed rule.

We have seen headlines such as "The FCC’s new net neutrality proposal is already ruining the Internet" and "Net neutrality ruling scaring VCs away from investing in certain startups."

Right now, there are no network neutrality rules in place in the US. The rules the FCC issued in 2010 were overturned by a federal appeals court, and now the FCC is writing new ones that will probably be weaker than the original plan.

It may well be true that startups will have a tougher time competing against the Netflixes, YouTubes, and Hulus of the world if and when those companies purchase a faster path from ISP data centers to consumers' homes. But it's hard to believe that venture capitalists will suddenly ignore Internet startups in any great numbers.

There's still a huge opportunity for startups to upend the cable TV business model that consumers hate, venture capitalist Joel Yarmon of Draper Associates told Ars. Draper has invested in Twitch.tv, SocialCam, and other online startups.

"You'd better believe I'm looking for companies that are going to disrupt that [TV market] and you better believe that whether I fund them or not, people are going to start companies that disrupt [it] because that is an opportunity," he said.

Yahoo announced that it will stop complying with Do Not Track signals that Web browsers send on behalf of users who wish to not be monitored for advertising purposes.

When users click the Do Not Track setting in their browser, an HTTP header is sent to websites to state the user’s preference not to be tracked.

"While some third parties have committed to honor Do Not Track, many more have not,” the project website states. “In February 2012, the major online advertising trade groups pledged at the White House to support Do Not Track by the end of 2014; that promise remains unfulfilled. Efforts to standardize Do Not Track in the World Wide Web Consortium have resulted in deadlock, despite frequent urging by American and European policymakers.”

Yahoo also refused to honor Do Not Track signals from Internet Explorer 10 in late 2012 because Microsoft decided to turn it on by default instead of asking users to make the choice.

Here's a fun new trick that Google just patched into Google Now, the company's card-based personal assistant: it can now keep track of where you parked.

While there are plenty of apps out there that can help you remember your parking space, they all require you to open them and save your spot manually. In contrast, Google's parking tracker will save your parking location automatically.

First noticed by Android Police, the new feature is part of Google Search 3.4, which is rolling out to Android devices running 4.1 and above right now. Google Now automatically detects your parking spot through Android's Activity Recognition system.

The State Department unveiled that it is widely employing social media as a method to counter online violent extremism from Al-Qaeda and others.

Buried in an intelligence report, the government said that the Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications (CSCC), established in 2011, produced more than 10,000 online postings globally in 2013, some of which included one of 138 government-produced videos.

"CSCC's programs draw on a full range of intelligence information and analysis for context and feedback. CSCC counters terrorist propaganda in the social media environment on a daily basis, contesting space where AQ and its supporters formerly had free rein. CSCC communications have provoked defensive responses from violent extremists on many of the 249 most popular extremist websites and forums as well as on social media," said the document, Country Reports on Terrorism 2013. The paper also said that in 2013, "violent extremists increased their use of new media platforms and social media with mixed results."

Netflix is looking for an engineer to research using a peer-to-peer architecture for streaming.

When asked whether the company intends to stream video using P2P, a Netflix spokesperson replied only that "the best way to see it is that we look at all kinds of routes."

Peoria (IL) Mayor Jim Ardis, whose complaints led to a police raid to unveil who was behind a Twitter account impersonating him, now says his "freedom of speech" was at issue.

Mayor Ardis, unhappy over the parody @peoriamayor Twitter handle that was falsely portraying him as a drug abuser who lost his "crackpipe," complained to police, who then stormed a local residence to find the tweeting culprit.

"I still maintain my right to protect my identity is my right," said Mayor ahead of a City Council meeting. "Are there no boundaries on what you can say, when you can say it, who you can say it to?" Mayor Ardis asked. "You can't say [those tweets] on behalf of me. That's my problem. This guy took away my freedom of speech."

The raid netted one arrest on unrelated drug charges. The operator of the account, found via warrants to Twitter and Comcast, has not been charged under an Illinois law that carries a maximum one-year jail term and $2,500 fine for impersonating a public official.