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World Domination
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 Posted: Thu Aug 31, 2006 2:14 pm Post subject: Could This Be True? |
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| www.savetheinternet.com wrote: |
Congress is pushing a law that would abandon the Internet's First Amendment -- a principle called Network Neutrality that prevents companies like AT&T, Verizon and Comcast from deciding which Web sites work best for you -- based on what site pays them the most. If the public doesn't speak up now, our elected officials will cave to a multi-million dollar lobbying campaign.
How does this threat to Internet freedom 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. These companies, even, have said as much about their plans to discriminate online. According to the Washington Post:
William L. Smith, chief technology officer for Atlanta-based BellSouth Corp., told reporters and analysts that an Internet service provider such as his firm should be able, for example, to charge Yahoo Inc. for the opportunity to have its search site load faster than that of Google Inc.
He's not alone. Ed Whitacre of AT&T told Business Week last fall:
Now what they would like to do is use my pipes free, but I ain't going to let them do that because we have spent this capital and we have to have a return on it. So there's going to have to be some mechanism for these people who use these pipes to pay for the portion they're using. Why should they be allowed to use my pipes?
By far the most significant evidence regarding the network owners' plans to discriminate is their stated intent to do so. As Verizon's Ivan Seidenberg told the Wall Street Journal:
We have to make sure they don't sit on our network and chew up our capacity. We need to pay for the pipe.
Network Neutrality advocates are not imagining a doomsday scenario. We are taking the telecom execs at their word.
Such 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. |
Discuss.
Last edited by World Domination on Thu Aug 31, 2006 2:24 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Holymonkey
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| Posted: Thu Aug 31, 2006 2:22 pm Post subject: |
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| Yes its true. Been going on for a while. Needless to say millions of people are unhappy about it. They're trying to monopolize the market which last time checked was illegal and can result in unlimited fines and even prison for those involved but Congress may put this through? Its a dark day when money is worth more than freedom. |
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World Domination
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| Posted: Thu Aug 31, 2006 2:27 pm Post subject: |
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That's gay.
Just a thought, probably not true but, could that be why my school has blocked, Yahoo!, Google, Msn, and like 500 other sites, that have to unapropriate content? |
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Holymonkey
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| Posted: Thu Aug 31, 2006 2:41 pm Post subject: |
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| I don't know as officially the bill hasn't gone through but you never know with dodgy dealings. Another point. These guys only control access to the internet like providing the ISP and such. They have no control over the internet itself but they act like they do. |
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danizduhman
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| Posted: Thu Aug 31, 2006 2:43 pm Post subject: |
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Probably. I don't understand American schooling anymore.
Making the internet like that would be horrible. |
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FFfanaticx
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| Posted: Fri Sep 01, 2006 6:55 am Post subject: |
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| the day money takes ober has come looks like people are becoming more materialistic then we thought |
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World Domination
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| Posted: Sat Sep 02, 2006 6:48 am Post subject: |
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Save The Internets! lol.
Yeah, if this effects my internet abilities in any way, I'm gona kill some people. |
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Fine_Rabid_Dog
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| Posted: Sat Sep 02, 2006 8:37 am Post subject: |
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Moby was going on about this sometime ago.
Where've you been WD? Under a rock?  |
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World Domination
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| Posted: Sat Sep 02, 2006 9:29 am Post subject: |
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Yup. Rocks are my life.
R0ck$ 4 lyph3! |
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FFfanaticx
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| Posted: Sat Sep 02, 2006 10:05 am Post subject: |
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| i must have been to i dont remember this |
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