Net Neutrality

[Michael]

I'm curious if anyone is following this complicated issue.

Here's a brief primer on the topic (from a pro-neutrality perspective).

One of the blogosphere's pet topics, net neutrality, is back in the limelight. When we last heard from our heroes at the FCC, they had adopted a set of four "principles" that basically said service providers should allow their customers access to any content and any application on the internet, should allow connection of any device, and should have to compete with other service providers.

That was all well and good, but a principle is a pretty thin reed to rely on and most liberals (as well as most content providers) thought that actual regulations would be a little more comforting. We further thought that although guaranteeing access to any content was fine, we'd also like some assurance that quality of access to content was guaranteed too. After all, access to YouTube isn't very useful if, say, Verizon decides to slow all YouTube connections to a crawl in order to lure people to its own video site instead.

Net Neutrality is Back (http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2009/09/net-neutrality-back)

And that's what the whole issue boils down to. Should network service providers be permitted to determine traffic speeds based on what content is being transmitted (with network providers favoring their own content offerings and penalizing competitor's content or politically uncorrect content).

So do you support the principle of net neutrality or a fully private market?

[Non Sequitur]

If i am going to be honest I must "I don't know" because i don't really understand the topic, but my gut instinct is to say the less government interferes in information networks the better.

[Daktoria]

What's the difference between neutrality and independence? Is the internet supposed to be a public good? If it is, how is neutrality supposed to be enforced when the internet is an international asset? This isn't the '90s and the U.S. doesn't have a monopoly on bandwidth any longer.

[Americano]

Without neutrality the net will through acquisitions become dominated by a few AOL types of monopolies with content limited to favor their advertisers.

[Daktoria]

Without neutrality the net will through acquisitions become dominated by a few AOL types of monopolies with content limited to favor their advertisers.

Why's that a bad thing? If anything, it should crackdown on violations of intellectual property rights and force consumers to appreciate information flow more instead of relishing in abundance and cultivating cultures that are addicted to information overload.

[Americano]

Why's that a bad thing? If anything, it should crackdown on violations of intellectual property rights and force consumers to appreciate information flow more instead of relishing in abundance and cultivating cultures that are addicted to information overload.

Since I consider intellectual property rights a government approved and enforced monopoly for no good purpose, I prefer abundance, making my own choices and new cultures.

[Daktoria]

Why are your own choices and cultures important though when they're going to be subverted under the tide of the mob, a mob that celebrates and panics over gluttony?

[Michael]

Why's that a bad thing? If anything, it should crackdown on violations of intellectual property rights and force consumers to appreciate information flow more instead of relishing in abundance and cultivating cultures that are addicted to information overload.

I hold that the greatest threat to intellectual property rights are large multinational corporations with big fat budgets to bribe governments with to permit their "claims" of perpetual intellectual property - particularly when this includes stealing from the public domain (see Disney).

Intellectual property rights exist to inspire/reward creativity. They ought not to be considered as tools to maintain corporate monopolies (as they they so often are explicitly used for).

[Michael]

Without neutrality the net will through acquisitions become dominated by a few AOL types of monopolies with content limited to favor their advertisers.

Yes - just like television. That model worked for the corporations and their advertisers and they are pissed that same model is now failing in the face of independent competition from the internet.

The corporate solution is to make the internet work just like television - exclusive government mandated monopolies by large private corporations.

I respectfully submit that if the television model was the best one, then the present form of the internet wouldn't be putting television networks out of business (as they are on track to do).

Since they are losing in the markets, the largest corporations are going to try to use their power to buy a monopoly from the government to eliminate the pesky independent media of the internet. I can't imagine anyone is surprised by that. That's what corporations do - they seek to eliminate competition so that profits can be maximized.

[Americano]

Yes - just like television. That model worked for the corporations and their advertisers and they are pissed that same model is now failing in the face of independent competition from the internet.

The corporate solution is to make the internet work just like television - exclusive government mandated monopolies by large private corporations.

I respectfully submit that if the television model was the best one, then the present form of the internet wouldn't be putting television networks out of business (as they are on track to do).

Since they are losing in the markets, the largest corporations are going to try to use their power to buy a monopoly from the government to eliminate the pesky independent media of the internet. I can't imagine anyone is surprised by that. That's what corporations do - they seek to eliminate competition so that profits can be maximized.

Government regulation has always been instigated by the private sector to eliminate competition.

[Daktoria]

I hold that the greatest threat to intellectual property rights are large multinational corporations with big fat budgets to bribe governments with to permit their "claims" of perpetual intellectual property - particularly when this includes stealing from the public domain (see Disney).

Intellectual property rights exist to inspire/reward creativity. They ought not to be considered as tools to maintain corporate monopolies (as they they so often are explicitly used for).

I don't see where the foundation for this positive right of inspiring creativity comes from (nor do I see how government intervention can inspire creativity beyond the restrictions it previously shackled upon it). Sure, monopolies can hinder property right enforcement through manipulation of the legal system, but entrepreneurs innovate because they want their worlds to be structured a certain way, not so they can be enslaved to the masses (which is why charity is important, yada yada yada for the umpteenth time).

[Americano]

Why are your own choices and cultures important though when they're going to be subverted under the tide of the mob, a mob that celebrates and panics over gluttony?

My choices and preferences of culture have been known to change.

[Daktoria]

That's... not really what I'm asking about. Maybe choices and preferences change, maybe they don't, but why do they matter when their supposed value comes from society's appreciation despite how society is an impulsive beast that reacts to unpredictable trends?

[Donkey]

I believe that the internet should remain neutral.

Suppose some multi-faceted organization that is a service provider, but also has its hands in other stuff. Suppose that corporation is engaged in perpetrating human rights abuses.

I don't want to suddenly have access to news articles about that shut off.

I know it's a tenuous hypothetical, but I think it's a relevant point.

[Greendruid]

The transmission of information is the legacy of being human. While this transmission has traditionally been done in the form of oral histories, the written word, be it as typeset and lithographs on paper or pixels on a screen, is a relatively newer thing (c. 6000 y.a.) but no less important surely. Images and symbols in the form of art go back about 30,000 years. The tricky thing here is that the very knowledge of writing was hoarded as an exclusive right of royalty and their charges. The very instruments used to produce text (clay tablets and a writing wedge) were reserved for certain classes of people. Even today paper and pencils are not objects of everyday use for large parts of the world. I see the internet as an extension of the written word AND as an extension of artforms that have long been part of human history.

This is a thin edge but I believe that access to the written word and images and symbols is part of being human. If they occur in the form of internet images then the argument is no different.

[Michael]

The transmission of information is the legacy of being human. While this transmission has traditionally been done in the form of oral histories, the written word, be it as typeset and lithographs on paper or pixels on a screen, is a relatively newer thing (c. 6000 y.a.) but no less important surely. Images and symbols in the form of art go back about 30,000 years. The tricky thing here is that the very knowledge of writing was hoarded as an exclusive right of royalty and their charges. The very instruments used to produce text (clay tablets and a writing wedge) were reserved for certain classes of people. Even today paper and pencils are not objects of everyday use for large parts of the world. I see the internet as an extension of the written word AND as an extension of artforms that have long been part of human history.

This is a thin edge but I believe that access to the written word and images and symbols is part of being human. If they occur in the form of internet images then the argument is no different.

The existence of the English language itself is a testament to the failure of the attempt to keep latin as the official language of the law (as a way of keeping elite control).

Humans can be crafty and resourceful - we don't always do what our elites order us to do. :D

[Lily]

I remember when CATV became widely available in the early 80s. I just couldn't wrap my head around paying for television. Moreover, I didn't understand why the FCC would be so strict with broadcast television yet CATV could provide broadcasting that was seemed totally outside the censors of the FCC. I had a hunch money was somehow involved somewhere. Of course, CATV still enjoys much less censorship than broadcast television, but advertising is all over CATV.

And now we have large corporations with oodles of cash wanting to muscle in to the internet marketplace. Every fiber of my being screams "NO!" I do not want the internet to go the same route as CATV with corporations and advertisers dictating what I can and cannot view, or me having to pay a hefty fee to see what I do want to see at a speed worth watching.

Sadly, and as always, I think money will win out in the end.

[The Drunk Guy]

Sadly, and as always, I think money will win out in the end.
I think you're right. I think the way these bastards will angle it will weaken the vitality of the internet, too. Some providers have been testing "volume-based billing," charging by the MB. Once they get this system up and running, they'll each set up they're own YouTube that is free to watch and filled to the brim with advertisements and we'll see the death sentence of the neutral net.

[Daktoria]

To be blunt, I'm really disappointed with the lack of confidence portrayed regarding consumer sovereignty in this thread so far, and the idea of using government to defend laziness is an extreme abuse of legal authority under liberal precepts.

I mean frankly, if the people are willing to go to these lengths, then I don't see any reason why businesses shouldn't preemptively flood the internet with every kind of crap imaginable since the people are effectively declaring war on firms under the threat of expropriation....

...either that or just not pay taxes and endorse every sort of criminal sabotage of the internet possible so consumers get stuck in one security dilemma after the next. Sure the people could engage in some sort of mob justice to retaliate, but that spoils all of the information demanded to be made available anyway which, in the process, makes net neutrality a worthless cause since the only way to retain self-control is to conform to popular interests.

There's nothing liberal about that at all.

[Michael]

To be blunt, I'm really disappointed with the lack of confidence portrayed regarding consumer sovereignty in this thread so far, and the idea of using government to defend laziness is an extreme abuse of legal authority under liberal precepts.

I mean frankly, if the people are willing to go to these lengths, then I don't see any reason why businesses shouldn't preemptively flood the internet with every kind of crap imaginable since the people are effectively declaring war on firms under the threat of expropriation....

...either that or just not pay taxes and endorse every sort of criminal sabotage of the internet possible so consumers get stuck in one security dilemma after the next. Sure the people could engage in some sort of mob justice to retaliate, but that spoils all of the information demanded to be made available anyway which, in the process, makes net neutrality a worthless cause since the only way to retain self-control is to conform to popular interests.

There's nothing liberal about that at all.

You do realize that the internet was created by government money right? That it was entirely built as a public utility (originally as a private playpen for the US military, then for international university research).

The private web-market players are the late arrivals to the internet (beginning in 1994).

Sounds to me like you are assuming the internet is some vast private resource owned by private companies. Private companies only control the individual point of access.

Thus, the issue of net neutrality is whether or not multinational private corporations are going to be able to takeover this public resource and align its operation to fit their profit models. Nothing new here - US has a long history of giving public resources over to private profit (radio and tv spectrum for example).

[Daktoria]

You do realize that the internet was created by government money right? That it was entirely built as a public utility (originally as a private playpen for the US military, then for international university research).

The private web-market players are the late arrivals to the internet (beginning in 1994).

Sounds to me like you are assuming the internet is some vast private resource owned by private companies. Private companies only control the individual point of access.

Thus, the issue of net neutrality is whether or not multinational private corporations are going to be able to takeover this public resource and align its operation to fit their profit models. Nothing new here - US has a long history of giving public resources over to private profit (radio and tv spectrum for example).

Yes, I understand that the internet is a public good where rights are licensed out, but like you said, it was originally intended for defense purposes, and the idea of transitioning a mechanism designed for defense towards commerce and personal usage isn't particularly responsible. Heck, even transitioning it towards research and development isn't responsible if the R+D goes beyond the realm of defense, and when defense wavers between justice and strategy for the sake of maximizing utility, you know for certain that someone behind the scenes is already pulling the strings for special interests....

...hence why I'm in favor of private anonymous surfing utilities like freenet and private networks such as usenet. A culture built upon technologies and infrastructure predicated for security purposes cannot possibly prevent corruption, and (for all practical purposes) deserves to be exploited by those who figure out how to game the system (preferably by "legal" means, but "illegal" means might be tolerable if they show regular consumers and citizens the hypocrisy of their ways especially under jury bound common law where common sense defines conscionability).

Really, the bottom line is that we can't criticize the military industrial complex one way and turn a blind eye to the other. If security is going to be predicated upon economic interests, then we've already admitted that liberal politics don't exist. Can it be supported by business? Sure. Can it be insured by business? Sure, but when economic and political integration are interdependent, we have a big problem.

[wphelan]

Here's an article from Wired that opposes net neutrality.

http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/09/fcc-neutrality-mistake/

I don't know enough about the subject yet to have a strong opinion on it, but my initial reaction is against any regulation by the FCC. The article makes some good points about the limits of bandwidth and the effects net neutrality could have, especially for wireless networks.

I don't share the outlook of many in this thread that ISPs will begin slowing down access to everything but the sites they have an interest in. Isn't there enough competition out there to prevent that? It's ironic that "AOL type monopolies" are mentioned because AOL, with what was essentially a closed network, proved to be a huge failure. All the closed networks of the early internet faded away as competition increased. I don't see why that trend would reverse.

[Daktoria]

That's a great point because what was the fundamental "why" for closed network collapses?

Consumer sovereignty!

On top of that, if we let government manipulate the terms for bandwidth allocation, how doesn't that open up the floodgates for political brainwashing in the name of equality? Balance is not something that is guaranteed to coexist with moderation, and if moderation is enforced such that the citizens are not allowed to totally criticize and eliminate certain preferences over others, how is evolution supposed to occur?

[Donkey]

That's a great point because what was the fundamental "why" for closed network collapses?

Consumer sovereignty!

On top of that, if we let government manipulate the terms for bandwidth allocation, how doesn't that open up the floodgates for political brainwashing in the name of equality? Balance is not something that is guaranteed to coexist with moderation, and if moderation is enforced such that the citizens are not allowed to totally criticize and eliminate certain preferences over others, how is evolution supposed to occur?
I don't think that forbidding preference is the same thing as enforcing equality.

[Daktoria]

How so and why is forbidding preference permissible?

[Donkey]

How so and why is forbidding preference permissible?
I guess it depends on whether or not you believe that the internet belongs to the public or to corporations.

[Daktoria]

What it depends on is licensing and sunk costs. Businesses wouldn't sink investment into the internet in the first place if they knew in advance that their licenses would be expropriated, expropriation which is a form of coercion and is inherently unjustified. Furthermore, government is supposed to remain transparent while avoiding corruption, and neither of these goals are respected through the deceit required for such expropriation to occur.

[Michael]

What it depends on is licensing and sunk costs. Businesses wouldn't sink investment into the internet in the first place if they knew in advance that their licenses would be expropriated, expropriation which is a form of coercion and is inherently unjustified. Furthermore, government is supposed to remain transparent while avoiding corruption, and neither of these goals are respected through the deceit required for such expropriation to occur.
This doesn't match up with the way the internet is constructed.

Businesses who invest in the internet, create infrastructure that "attaches" to the net.

Private companies only own the parts of the internet that interest themselves or serve their profit interests. One could shut down all such privately owned infrastructure and the internet would still be there and would still function (the core of the backbone is a bunch of universities all hooked up around the globe).

Net neutrality doesn't involve any expropriation of anything by anyone. Indeed, quite the opposite - what net neutrality does is prevent private interests from expropriating the public asset of the internet for their own private purposes (which is what they are seeking to do which is why opposition has arisen around the principle of "net neutrality").

No one is forcing Comcast to share their resources with the internet. Comast can take their ball and go home if they like. But if they want to plug into the net for their own profit-seeking motives, that's fine, but they ought not to be given the legal right to expropriate net assets for their own profit. That's what the principle of net neutrality seeks to prevent. The goal is to maintain an open market.

[The Drunk Guy]

I've heard that the main point of reference for this recent attention to the debate is that search engines are making it difficult for the public to access certain types of information, such as legal documentation. This makes sense as government sites don't pay to advertise nearly as much as, say, lawyer groups. This is already happening, so what's to stop service providers from making similarly distasteful moves?

[Michael]

I've heard that the main point of reference for this recent attention to the debate is that search engines are making it difficult for the public to access certain types of information, such as legal documentation. This makes sense as government sites don't pay to advertise nearly as much as, say, lawyer groups. This is already happening, so what's to stop service providers from making similarly distasteful moves?

This kind of thing can never be stopped or eliminated.

The issue would be if your ISP (which owns CNN for example) makes it very difficult for you to access MSNBC or Fox's site or to seeks to slow that traffic to a crawl - but give you above average speeds to CNN's site (because they own it).

Obviously search engines will favor those who advertise with them. That's part of their business model and has been all along. Besides, search engines are just a 'feature' on the internet that one can do without. ISP's control access points - that is of critical imporance and cannot be avoided except by avoiding the net itself.

[The Drunk Guy]

This kind of thing can never be stopped or eliminated.

The issue would be if your ISP (which owns CNN for example) makes it very difficult for you to access MSNBC or Fox's site or to seeks to slow that traffic to a crawl - but give you above average speeds to CNN's site (because they own it).

Obviously search engines will favor those who advertise with them. That's part of their business model and has been all along. Besides, search engines are just a 'feature' on the internet that one can do without. ISP's control access points - that is of critical imporance and cannot be avoided except by avoiding the net itself.
I understand that. I'm simply referring to how internet-related industries are already showing signs of information distortion. Portals to information will eventually skew the view because it is more cost-efficient to do so.

[Daktoria]

This doesn't match up with the way the internet is constructed.

Businesses who invest in the internet, create infrastructure that "attaches" to the net.

Private companies only own the parts of the internet that interest themselves or serve their profit interests. One could shut down all such privately owned infrastructure and the internet would still be there and would still function (the core of the backbone is a bunch of universities all hooked up around the globe).

Net neutrality doesn't involve any expropriation of anything by anyone. Indeed, quite the opposite - what net neutrality does is prevent private interests from expropriating the public asset of the internet for their own private purposes (which is what they are seeking to do which is why opposition has arisen around the principle of "net neutrality").

No one is forcing Comcast to share their resources with the internet. Comast can take their ball and go home if they like. But if they want to plug into the net for their own profit-seeking motives, that's fine, but they ought not to be given the legal right to expropriate net assets for their own profit. That's what the principle of net neutrality seeks to prevent. The goal is to maintain an open market.

This was about licensing, not ownership, licenses which are guaranteed rights, and if those rights are revoked or modified over time, then the license holders are being coerced through deception similarly to if a driver on the streets had to deal with different laws whenever he went on the road - he wouldn't have a reliable basis for scheduling his itinerary, so the roads usage would become useless such that all spending, endogenous and exogenous alike, would be vain.

[Daktoria]

^
Same goes for anyone who builds say a bridge or a gas station or any other service that supports or gives incentive for drivers' access to the road (since that's what an ISP or database owner really does, provide access or give incentive for access).

[Daktoria]

Or zoning laws, w/e. The point is if the rules change since the time people made initial investments without their approval, then there's theft. Even if excessive compensation is made under the guise of imminent domain, it's still theft if the investor is forced to sell because a sovereign (democratic or not) wants to do so (especially in order to feel good and swing its power around).

What's really funny about this though (both here and in general when I talk about it IRL) is that the people who want network neutrality are advocates for pragmatism whereas the practitioners of traffic discrimination do so to optimize competitiveness and information flow, both of which are practical goals in themselves.

However it's possible to believe anyone supporting net neutrality as being honest, I don't know, but until it's shown that they're standing up for something beyond letting the mob feel good, I won't give them the benefit of the doubt (especially as advocates of liberalism when power pursuit for the sake of feeling good is quintessential realpolitik). There is the argument that ISPs offer contracts to consumers, contracts which consumers expect to be upheld, but those contracts have periodic time limits, and once the time limits are over, it's not coercive to change the contract terms. Heck, obligating the contract offerers to uphold the same terms beyond time limits would qualify as coercion instead since the offerers' autonomies are being disrespected.

I guess net neutrality is just yet another example of how populism is more conservative than anything due to its demands for stability which coincide with a demand for predictable order, particularly under the guise of a national interest such that culture's direction under popular sovereignty defines morality. How unfortunate it is then that this is a fake version of conservatism (as well as liberalism) since even more fundamental than the rule of order is the rule of law, rule of law which, if nothing else, is anything different from the rule of man (IOW a transcendental [set of] principle[s]).

[Michael]

I understand that. I'm simply referring to how internet-related industries are already showing signs of information distortion. Portals to information will eventually skew the view because it is more cost-efficient to do so.
I think it is very important to draw this distinction here.

Sure private corporations are going to try to make profits by distorting information. That's the nature of a private marketplace. While I might not like that, I think any possible cure is worse than the disease.

The same cannot be said about access to the network. This is where the issue is highly relevant. The ISP's have the potential power to directly control your access to the entire net. They can potentially use this gate-keeper position to further their net-content businesses and/or to censor information they don't like (such as their content-competition).

This is very similar to the old telecom dispute from the 1980s when the monopoly telephone companies would use massive profits from long distance calls to cross-subsidize local service in order to keep out any competition for the local service (which needed to be protected because it was the source of massively profitable long distance calling).

In order for actual market competition to occur in either the long distance telephone service market or the local telephone service market, limits had to be placed upon the monopoly telephone companies.

In that case, government intervention into the telephone marketplace was necessary to create the conditions for market competition. Without government regulation, there would be no competition in the telephone marketplace.

ISP's must be prevented from playing a similar game here with the internet. Their position as gatekeepers to the system for consumers is critical - and thus represents a public interest.

[Michael]

This was about licensing, not ownership, licenses which are guaranteed rights, and if those rights are revoked or modified over time, then the license holders are being coerced through deception similarly to if a driver on the streets had to deal with different laws whenever he went on the road - he wouldn't have a reliable basis for scheduling his itinerary, so the roads usage would become useless such that all spending, endogenous and exogenous alike, would be vain.

Wow. Methinks you are letting your libertarian-capitalist ideology get ahead of the facts here. ;)

Net neutrality is a principle of the net and has been since day one (it is a feature of the net due the design the military used with ARPNET to serve the military goal - packet routing requires 'net neutrality' to function properly).

As such, net neutrality was built into the original architecture of the net. It wasn't just invented, or some new regulation to be imposed upon the internet. All private interests who may have made investments in the internet have been aware of this all along so there is no new 'regulation' here at all.

Indeed, it is these private interests that are NOW asserting that the ought to have the right to engage in preferential traffic routing. It is they who seek to re-define or modify their agreements.

It is in response to these private interests seeking to usurp the internet for their own private commercial interests that a movement has risen with the goal of enshrining the net neutrality principle as a formal legal requirement (it is at present only an existing principle that defines the net architecture).

[Daktoria]

Like you're saying though, there's no legal regulation for it. Operational efficiency is different from legal (or moral) permissibility, and it isn't something that's discovered all at once nor is it something that should be automatically considered if there isn't a law in place prohibiting a market. Comes down to a positive versus negative perspective on implied purpose really. The government could demand that all ISPs manage traffic in a certain manner if the ISPs themselves want to have access to the internet as a whole, but that's intervention in an area that the government isn't necessarily knowledgable about despite how the internet's original architectural intentions have been explicitly outlined. We could still claim that intentions are more valuable than efficiency. However, this undermines those very intentions in the first place since they're predicated on providing optimal efficiency, and it ignores the value of ISP intentions for providing internet service.

[Evangeline]

In case you don't know what net neutrality is, here is the FAQ from Google.

A Guide to Net Neutrality for Google Users
"Net neutrality" is an issue that will shape the future of the Internet. Google has created this guide to net neutrality, which includes a brief overview of the subject, an update on where things stand in the U.S. policy debate, a set of actions you can take to protect the Internet, and the text of an open letter from our CEO, Eric Schmidt.

What is Net Neutrality?
Network neutrality is the principle that Internet users should be in control of what content they view and what applications they use on the Internet. The Internet has operated according to this neutrality principle since its earliest days. Indeed, it is this neutrality that has allowed many companies, including Google, to launch, grow, and innovate. Fundamentally, net neutrality is about equal access to the Internet. In our view, the broadband carriers should not be permitted to use their market power to discriminate against competing applications or content. Just as telephone companies are not permitted to tell consumers who they can call or what they can say, broadband carriers should not be allowed to use their market power to control activity online. Today, the neutrality of the Internet is at stake as the broadband carriers want Congress's permission to determine what content gets to you first and fastest. Put simply, this would fundamentally alter the openness of the Internet.

What is the Current Status of Net Neutrality?
Net neutrality is a major issue as the U.S. considers new telecommunications laws. The U.S. House of Representatives passed its telecommunications bill, H.R. 5252, in May, without adequate net neutrality protections. Now the fight has moved to U.S. Senate. On June 28, the Senate Commerce Committee passed its own telecom bill, S. 2686. While an amendment to the bill that would have added meaningful net neutrality safeguards failed 11-11, this tie vote marks a significant political victory and gives the effort new momentum. The debate now shifts to the full Senate, where advocates will be working to get strong net neutrality language is any bill that the Senate considers.

http://www.google.com/help/netneutrality.html

Without net neutrality, the bigger websites with money to spend will be faster and our little websites which don't make a profit will be slower.

It will affect this website, my website, your websites and all other websites not owned by big corporations.

Maybe youtube can afford to pay for their website to be faster for you, but if there's another video website you like, perhaps they won't pay the extra fee and their site will slow done.

This will cause the smaller websites to go under while we get less diversity and less startups and just a few big companies that run everything, just like it has happened with our media and our banks and just about everything else in America due to the deregulations Reagan started and Clinton and Bush finished. It's destroying the middle class.

[Evangeline]

And there's good news. Obama is for net neutrality.


One key to strengthening education, entrepreneurship, and innovation in communities like Troy is to harness the full power of the internet. That means faster and more widely available broadband– as well as rules to ensure that we preserve the fairness and openness that led to the flourishing of the internet in the first place. Today, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski is announcing a set of principles to preserve an open internet in which all Americans can participate and benefit. I am pleased that he is taking this step. It is an important reminder that the role of government is to provide investment that spurs innovation and common-sense ground rules to ensure that there is a level playing field for all comers who seek to contribute their innovations.


http://www.savetheinternet.com/blog/09/09/21/obama-agrees-fcc-net-neutrality

[Michael]

In case you don't know what net neutrality is, here is the FAQ from Google.
I was all set to flag this post for "Best Post of the Week" honors until I realized that Google was the author, not Evangeline! :lol:

[Daktoria]

What is Net Neutrality?
Network neutrality is the principle that Internet users should be in control of what content they view and what applications they use on the Internet. The Internet has operated according to this neutrality principle since its earliest days. Indeed, it is this neutrality that has allowed many companies, including Google, to launch, grow, and innovate. Fundamentally, net neutrality is about equal access to the Internet. In our view, the broadband carriers should not be permitted to use their market power to discriminate against competing applications or content. Just as telephone companies are not permitted to tell consumers who they can call or what they can say, broadband carriers should not be allowed to use their market power to control activity online. Today, the neutrality of the Internet is at stake as the broadband carriers want Congress's permission to determine what content gets to you first and fastest. Put simply, this would fundamentally alter the openness of the Internet.


This is a poor analogy since the proper comparison would be about who you're allowed to connect to, not what you can say. Furthermore, all traffic across the internet isn't universally the same similar to local versus long distance versus roaming voice traffic.

[Donkey]

This is a poor analogy since the proper comparison would be about who you're allowed to connect to, not what you can say. Furthermore, all traffic across the internet isn't universally the same similar to local versus long distance versus roaming voice traffic.
Uh...

Just as telephone companies are not permitted to tell consumers who they can call or what they can say, broadband carriers should not be allowed to use their market power to control activity online.

Albeit it should be "whom."

[Daktoria]

Yea, I saw that, but the wording comes across in a manner of defending freedom of speech rather than attacking freedom from slavery. Why ISPs should be forced to provide service to anyone and everyone, I don't see. Perhaps the internet's architecture was designed with the predicated intention of universal access, but I already addressed that point.