Sunday, January 2, 2011

Net Neutrality sacrificed for wire-less profits

From LA Media Reform:

Everyone who uses the Internet should make this issue a top priority. I can imagine a world where there is no protection against discrimination on the Internet, where the Web is no longer the dynamic and fascinating medium it is now. A world where people can only get the same old, tired crap offered on television and terrestrial radio. A world where dissent is drowned out or blacked out in favor of corporate propaganda and innovation is squashed in favor of ossification. A world where you may no longer get to read this blog. Hopefully, these new rules can be struck down, which is what an Internet law expert, interviewed below, predicts:

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Sen. Al Franken of Minnesota, who has been a tireless advocate for net neutrality, wrote in The Huffington Post this morning that no less than our free speech and right to information is at stake:

For many Americans — particularly those who live in rural areas — the future of the Internet lies in mobile services. But the draft Order would effectively permit Internet providers to block lawful content, applications, and devices on mobile Internet connections.

Mobile networks like AT&T and Verizon Wireless would be able to shut off your access to content or applications for any reason. For instance, Verizon could prevent you from accessing Google Maps on your phone, forcing you to use their own mapping program, Verizon Navigator, even if it costs money to use and isn’t nearly as good. Or a mobile provider with a political agenda could prevent you from downloading an app that connects you with the Obama campaign (or, for that matter, a Tea Party group in your area).

It gets worse. The FCC has never before explicitly allowed discrimination on the Internet — but the draft Order takes a step backwards, merely stating that so-called “paid prioritization” (the creation of a “fast lane” for big corporations who can afford to pay for it) is cause for concern.

It sure is — but that’s exactly why the FCC should ban it. Instead, the draft Order would have the effect of actually relaxing restrictions on this kind of discrimination.

1 comment:

  1. There are two forms of the "Future Changing Force" of prediction . One is the "Self-Fulf illing Prophecy", such as the doomsday religions, and the other is "Crisis Averted Warning" of soothsayer and science-fi ction fame.

    The "Network Neutrality " debate is made by those who understand the danger of informatio n technology and the power and profits to be made in controllin g media. We are not predicting the end of the world, just a lesser world than could be, if corporatio ns are allowed to own the means of communicat ion.

    It always strikes me as paradoxica lly ironic that those 'business people' who want to 'limit government regulation ' are perfectly willing to form corporatio ns, which are of course legal fictions created by government regulation to limit their personal responsibi lity.

    If the debate is between corporate ownership of internet communicat ion and government monopoly of internet communicat ions, then we don't win either way. But that is what the corporate owned media is pushing in its propaganda . The real debate is between private or public ownership of the media.

    Without equal access to informatio n, without fair public access, we have no democracy.

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