Preserve Internet Liberty
Juan Cole has a very timely post about the efforts of corporations to monopolize the internet, ending the bubble of net neutrality—or “internet liberty” as Cole dubs it—that we enjoy today.
So how could they Corporatize the internet and exclude our voices? They could set it up so that, for instance, if you couldn’t come up with $100,000 a year, they could arrange for it to take 5 minutes for your web site to load, while Corporate Monopoly web sites loaded immediately. (Studies show that readers are unwilling to wait more than a few seconds for sites to load, after which they move on.) That move would not only destroy the blogosphere, but it would get rid of YouTube and similar video-posting sites, as well.
Or, they might decline to carry the bigger video files by p2p (as with Comcast, which actually lied to its subscribers that the download was unavailable with a spoofed email purporting to come from the poster!). Comcast is the same corporation that shoves Fox Cable News down our throats but won’t let us see the direct BBC feed as part of our basic package, much less Aljazeera English. Not only are there too few companies providing broadcast news, but there are too few cable and satellite corporations. Comcast is even angry at an FCC ruling that limits them to providing cable services to only 1/3 of the US!
Go to Save the Internet, which has a very informative site dedicated to this issue.
Irancove @ December 2, 2007