Don't Fence in the Web! (by John Nichols for The Nation)

BLOG | Posted 07/17/2007 @ 10:15pm
Don't Fence in the Web!
John Nichols


The genius of the Internet, from the distant moment of its inception to the present day, has been its tendency toward openness, freedom and equality. On the great frontier of digital communications, there have been no fences. Every website has been treated equally. Once an American logs on, he or she has known that it is as easy to get to Wal-Mart Watch's dissident www.walmartwatch.com site as it is to reach the retail giant's corporate site. It is as easy to go to visit George Bush's official White House location on the Web as it is to visit the folks at www.afterdowningstreet.org, who would like very much to remove the president and everyone he rode in with.

In 2005, however, the Federal Communications Commission, began to attack the Net Neutrality rules that for decades have guaranteed a level playing field for every web site. They did so under pressure from "old-media" telecommunications corporations -- mostly in the cable and phone sectors -- that want to "own" the web. If Net Neutrality, the first amendment of the Internet, is completely eliminated in the manner favored by the telecommunications giants, then cable and phone companies can make a fortune by providing high-speed connections to sites that pay for the the service while discriminating against sites that do not pay.

Eliminating Net Neutrality cuts off the potential of the internet, by opening the way for colonization of the World Wide Web by telecommunications corporations that would amplify the voices of the wealthy and powerful while they effectively silence dissent.

The fear of this prospect has led more than 1.6 million Americans and 850 different groups on the political left and right to call for the FCC and Congress to establish rules that reinstate and protect Net Neutrality.

How intense is public support for Net Neutrality?

Tens of thousands of Americans sent comments to the FCC during the latest period of official inquiry by the agency that ended Monday. More than 95 percent of the comments called on the FCC to establish rules to prevent cable and phone companies from favoring paying Web sites or services over those that do not have the resources to buy a place on the right side of the walls erected by media monopolists. .....(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.thenation.com/blogs/notion?bid=15

the access to information we are becoming accustomed to. If you can get it cheaper or find something that works better or even find out you don't even need it for instance. Or if your like a newspaper and your subscription base is being driven down. Or you have a shoddy product with litigation that might turn into a class action suit. There is a ton of reasons people want to limit information just from the consumer aspect. Think about all those religious nuts that want to keep things like contraception and evolution under wraps and away from their flocks. The reasons are endless really :shrug:

a comment in before the deadline. This is a battle that cannot be lost.