To: President Donald Trump, The United States House of Representatives, and The United States Senate
Make bandwidth-stealing auto-playing/auto-buffering streaming media website content illegal, just...
Just as it is now illegal for fax spammers to steal recipients' phone line minutes, electricity, paper, toner and/or ink, please make it similarly illegal, as a matter of federal FCC regulation and law, for website owners to auto-start/auto-buffer bandwidth-stealing streaming audio/video media content; and require, instead, that the site visitor must first click on a "Play" button before music or videos begin either playing or even buffering.
Why is this important?
It has long been illegal to send spam to fax machines because the recipient pays for the fax phone line and its minutes, and for the electricity to run the machine, and for the fax paper and ink or toner; and so sending fax spam steals those things from the recipient.
Whenever one lands on a web page which contains streaming audio and/or video media that auto-starts playing (or that auto-buffers in anticipation of starting to play), the precious and limited bandwidth for which the site visitor pays his/her ISP is being similarly stolen.
Only if the site visitor gives permission to use said bandwidth by clicking on a "Play" button to begin the playing of the streaming media content should any bandwidth be used for it; and so it should be illegal, just as it is with fax spam, for a website to steal bandwidth from site visitors by auto-starting/auto-buffering streaming media content.
NOTE: Flash or Java/Javascript or Silverlight or other similar content which simply makes interactive the graphical elements of a website, while annoying, are nevertheless not the subjects of this petition. It is only music (background or otherwise), or either advertising or news videos, which auto-play/auto-buffer, and so use-up precious bandwidth for which the site visitor pays, that are the subjects of this petition.
Whenever one lands on a web page which contains streaming audio and/or video media that auto-starts playing (or that auto-buffers in anticipation of starting to play), the precious and limited bandwidth for which the site visitor pays his/her ISP is being similarly stolen.
Only if the site visitor gives permission to use said bandwidth by clicking on a "Play" button to begin the playing of the streaming media content should any bandwidth be used for it; and so it should be illegal, just as it is with fax spam, for a website to steal bandwidth from site visitors by auto-starting/auto-buffering streaming media content.
NOTE: Flash or Java/Javascript or Silverlight or other similar content which simply makes interactive the graphical elements of a website, while annoying, are nevertheless not the subjects of this petition. It is only music (background or otherwise), or either advertising or news videos, which auto-play/auto-buffer, and so use-up precious bandwidth for which the site visitor pays, that are the subjects of this petition.