Net nutrality - have you heard of it?

Forum: water cooler
Topic: Net nutrality - have you heard of it?
started by: TotalImmortal

Posted by TotalImmortal on May 08 2006,21:53

Intristing and very important thing in danger of happening at the moment - Everyone who cares about freedom should be very concerned. Those of you in the US, please wright to your representatives!

For anyone who dosn't know what i'm on about type net nutrality in to google. It's similar to the europien software patents issue and increasing use of DRM...

On another note, i'm fed up with my ISP, they are blocking my servers. Does anyone know a good ISP in the UK that will give me a good end to end service with no filtering or NAT applied by them?
Are there any ISPs out there that are acutaly supporting 'net neutrality'?

Posted by AwPhuch on May 10 2006,06:41

The point is if/when any government gets its laws on any particular piece of your life it goes to crap...the next step will be to start taxing the internet and who knows after that

If the government sinks its claws into it...its over!

Brian
AwPhuch

Posted by WDef on May 12 2006,10:37

I'll break with my usual webboard policy of no politics here because it's too important.

In a nutshell, the major carriers will be able to provide faster access to their buddies' sites that pay $ for preferential bandwidth. There's a lot about this on Slashdot.

It will be interesting to see what sites effectively get choked down. It does seem to all be part of a pattern of rapidly-increasing technological social control, whether by government or large corporations or both.

And you're considering mandatory data retention laws. Just as bad as Europe. Americans, it seems your current politicians just can't help their corporate contributors enough. And they just can't stand the thought of not being able to have *everything* controllable. The internet threatens their sense of omnipotence and that of the sometimes-naive public and sensationalist media. When the 'terrorist' bogeyman is not enough (it usually is), they trot out 'child ography', and visa-versa. To argue against the so-called logic or effectiveness of recent draconian measures, however sensibly, is to risk being labelled an enemy (the 'middleman' attack, the true mark of any witchhunt). Obviously there are other agendas going on here behind the superficial justifications. As in the Joe McArthy era, issues like these are just great material for bureaucrats to build their spans of control. Welcome to the 1950s.

Believe me when I say that Western governments are looking with envious eyes at China's internet censorship, too. They want to emulate it to some degree if they can. China's censorship apparatus was set up for them by Western companies like Cisco.

Support the < EFF >

Posted by John on May 12 2006,18:27

AwPhuch, if I am reading you correctly I have to respectfully disagree. The bill right now is to deregulate, allow for non net neutrality. This is an instance where I am glad that the government has up until now required a level playing field on the net.

The COPE Act is pure and simple a power grab by the giant ISPs. They are framing it as a freedom argument, to confuse the issue.

Check out:
< http://www.savetheinternet.com/ >

It is also worth noting that the net and the WWW were developed by government funded institutions. Private business has benefited from our tax dollars funding all the R&D.

I remember you were very upset when your favorite radio station switched formats. That happened because 90% of the radio industry is controlled by three companies here in the US. Now the barriers to entry are too steep, so we have an effective oligopoly -- the laws that were passed regarding signal strength and such pushed out the small competition, that was no accident. New we have the same type pattern being repeated on the net.

If you want to see the big business propaganda site check out:
< http://www.handsofftheinternet.com/ >
It is very convincing, but if you smell hard you you will register the agenda.

I urge folks to write their congress person and speak up for net neutrality. You also should go to < Save the Net > and sign the petition.

Posted by AwPhuch on May 12 2006,22:14

Thanks John...I replied before I really researched it!!!

Quote

How would the gutting of Network Neutrality affect you?

* Google users—Another search engine could pay dominant Internet providers like AT&T to guarantee the competing search engine opens faster than Google on your computer.
* Innovators with the "next big idea"—Startups and entrepreneurs will be muscled out of the marketplace by big corporations that pay Internet providers for dominant placing on the Web. The little guy will be left in the "slow lane" with inferior Internet service, unable to compete.
* Ipod listeners—A company like Comcast could slow access to iTunes, steering you to a higher-priced music service that it owned.
* Political groups—Political organizing could be slowed by a handful of dominant Internet providers who ask advocacy groups to pay "protection money" for their websites and online features to work correctly.
* Nonprofits—A charity's website could open at snail-speed, and online contributions could grind to a halt, if nonprofits can't pay dominant Internet providers for access to "the fast lane" of Internet service.
* Online purchasers—Companies could pay Internet providers to guarantee their online sales process faster than competitors with lower prices—distorting your choice as a consumer.
* Small businesses and tele-commuters—When Internet companies like AT&T favor their own services, you won't be able to choose more affordable providers for online video, teleconferencing, Internet phone calls, and software that connects your home computer to your office.
* Parents and retirees—Your choices as a consumer could be controlled by your Internet provider, steering you to their preferred services for online banking, health care information, sending photos, planning vacations, etc.
* Bloggers—Costs will skyrocket to post and share video and audio clips—silencing citizen journalists and putting more power in the hands of a few corporate-owned media outlets.

Blocking Innovation

The threat to an open internet isn't just speculation -- we've seen what happens when the Internet's gatekeepers get too much control.

Corporate control of the Web would reduce your choices and stifle the spread of innovative and independent ideas that we've come to expect online. It would throw the digital revolution into reverse. Internet gatekeepers are already discriminating against Web sites and services they don't like:

* In 2004, North Carolina ISP Madison River blocked their DSL customers from using any rival Web-based phone service.

* In 2005, Canada's telephone giant Telus blocked customers from visiting a Web site sympathetic to the Telecommunications Workers Union during a contentious labor dispute.

* Shaw, a major Canadian cable, internet, and telephone service company, intentionally downgrades the "quality and reliability" of competing Internet-phone services that their customers might choose -- driving customers to their own phone services not through better services, but by rigging the marketplace.

* In April, Time Warner's AOL blocked all emails that mentioned www.dearaol.com -- an advocacy campaign opposing the company's pay-to-send e-mail scheme.

This is just the beginning. Cable and telco giants want to eliminate the Internet's open road in favor of a tollway that protects their status quo while stifling new ideas and innovation. If they get their way, they'll shut down the free flow of information and dictate how you use the Internet.

Not NO but HELL NO!!!!

Now Big daddy Government is allowing the large bloated bigwig businesses to pull thier strings and allow them to monopolize and pretty much tell you HOW THE INTERNET IS GOING TO BE!!!!!!

Screw that! Just like in the movie "The Aviator" where the big airline tried to squish the small one by getting a senator to introduce a "we own it all" bill

Screw that...I am definitely against this!

But once again it shows that when the Govt gets thier big fat fingers in control of something they usually end up screwing it up!

Brian
AwPhuch

Posted by gatherer on May 14 2006,14:38

I always thought as a user on the internet that I was paying my ISP to provide me with a certian amount of bandwidth to look at what ever I felt like on the internet.

now they are going to charge the content providers as well.. hmm thats along the lines of charging a farmer for the seed to plant and then charging him a fee to harest the seeds he sowed....

Posted by mikshaw on May 21 2006,22:23

< userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=today >

Posted by AwPhuch on May 23 2006,00:52

Yep pretty much like that!

Brian
AwPhuch

Posted by WDef on May 24 2006,21:48

At its core, this is yet another threat to the internet's capacity to facilitate freedom of speech. Just like some of the other legislative trends that get right up my nose. That's what I was trying to say in my earlier somewhat-ranty rant

Posted by humpty on June 09 2006,13:02

hmm, i wish i could sign it like i did with EFF. but apart from not living in the US, i don't think signing anything these days gets us anything but lot's of un-related email. what this needs is a tv documentary like 60 mins.

Posted by doobit on June 09 2006,19:23

http://www.digitalanimators.com/articles/viewarticle.jsp?id=45471

I don't mind doing a documentary, but I gots ta pay da bills. Sponsorship anyone?