Internet Neutrality may quite possibly be doomed

[ThirdMarioBro]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...060702108.html

Net-Nutrality is being votedo on in congress. If it falls, the internet we know will eventually go with it and become more like Cable TV in the way it works. Here is a sample of the article

Originally Posted by Washington Post

Without net neutrality, the Internet would start to look like cable TV. A handful of massive companies would control access and distribution of content, deciding what you get to see and how much it costs. Major industries such as health care, finance, retailing and gambling would face huge tariffs for fast, secure Internet use -- all subject to discriminatory and exclusive dealmaking with telephone and cable giants.

We would lose the opportunity to vastly expand access and distribution of independent news and community information through broadband television. More than 60 percent of Web content is created by regular people, not corporations. How will this innovation and production thrive if creators must seek permission from a cartel of network owners?

Congress is deciding on the fate of the Internet. The question before it is simple: Should the Internet be handed over to the handful of cable and telephone companies that control online access for 98 percent of the broadband market? Only a Congress besieged by high-priced telecom lobbyists and stuffed with campaign contributions could possibly even consider such an absurd act.

We may all quite possibly be fu*ked. Money is all that matters to those old bastards. This came out of no where and scares me to death.

*edit*

http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9588_22-6081882.html

Too late. It's been killed. Internet providers now have the ability in America to dictate what sites you are, and are not allowed to see on the internet. Believe me, they will leverage this when their buisness partners pay them off. If you don't pay up, you're put on the ISP's black list. Now I want the world to take the internet from America. We're handing it to big buisness to convert into another "big boyz only" cooperate marketing hell hole such as Television. Its all downhill from here. Also, the cable companies now get to dictate alongside the govenment (ka-ching) what internet speeds American homes are allowed to have. Say goodbye to the possibilies of 1Gig per second power line internet that Japanese colleges are now enjoying. Cox and Comcast have saved themselves, and once again placed us in the technological dark age. Your ISP now gets to dictate what you can and cannot see. Welcome to the world of "liberal and conservitive internet access". Companies like AT&T, Verizon and Comcast now get to decide which Web sites work best for you -- based on what site pays them the most. Hell, IGN could pay providers to make sure all competing websites are blocked. Then CNET could get IGN blocked, and so forth and so forth. Here are more reasons why we are all condemned to a future commercialist interent society.

http://www.savetheinternet.com/=threat

The free internet is dead.

[iris]

Legislative freebies to the telcoms is nothing new. But we are not doomed (yet). And we haven't given up.

If you have an opinion about this...

Use your citizen power. Write to Congress and tell them how you feel about their decision. You have two Senators and at least one Rep in the House. Your representatives are required to read and respond to your mail. Paper letters are more effective, but thoughtful emails also help. (And you can write to the president too.)

Enter your US Zip Code on this page to get to your info (top of the left-hand column).
http://www.congress.org/congressorg/home/ (This is not congress' official site, it's an activist site, but it makes it easy to find your info.)

You can get more info on the bill here (query "internet neutrality"):
http://thomas.loc.gov/bss/d109query.html

[Ecto Jedi]

Oh my sweet s**tballs...

[iris]

There is an old cliche that the score of a game can be deceiving. In the case of the House vote on Net Neutrality Thursday night, that cliche doesn't work. The 269-152 vote is as bad as it looks.

But another cliche says it ain't over until it's over. And it ain't over.

Of course, if 'net neutrality IS doomed, then say hello to new telcoms run by the big 'net players. Google, for example, uses so much bandwidth that it has been considering setting up its own system anyway.

[Mecha Cow]

What the hell? Ugh.

[Cure]

Why would they do this? How could this be good for people?

[Jo Dawn]

It's not what's good for people...


... it's what's good for them.

[ThirdMarioBro]

At this rate, Bolivia will have better internet service than America within five years, and we'll still be patting ourselves on the back saying "we're number one".

I hate this country. Its getting more corrupt by the day. The house spent twenty minutes debating this. Twenty Minutes. They can sure spend days getting us into wars, but they don't do sh*t when helping the american people is concerned. Let's pray this dosen't get past the Senete because Bush would sure as hell sign it.

[iris]

The telcos say it's not fair they have to carry their competition's content on their lines. Bull****.

Their competition pays for the bandwidth just like everyone else.

The telcos already charge at both ends of the pipe. In fact, they already overcharge.

They charge everyone for more bandwidth than is normally used. But that's not the problem.

The problem is they want to charge more based on content to maximize their profit margins.

The problem is they want to shut down the competition to preserve their semi-monopolies.

Of course, they do a fine job of making themselves SOUND like they want something that's good for the world... that's how they get away with it. That's how they call their campaign "Hands Off The Internet." Nicely ironic for people who want the government's hands off so that they can choke it to death themselves.

[Space Lieutenant Josh]

Y'see, this is why there've been so many myspace internet predator and child pornography stories lately-- they really would like us to agree that we should be censored. Nobody agrees, though. This is the one thing they've really screwed up with in their quest to control us, and it doesn't look like it's gonna be ending well for any party involved.

[Spitfire]

This has to be in some way unconstitutional.

[Ra]

Great. Since Australia pretty much does what America does, we're going to do it too! Then we're going to have affect on Japan or something since we have all of the cute animals and THEY are going to start doing it too.

Screw this planet - I'm going to Mars.

[ThirdMarioBro]

Guess what. The senete just killed Net Nutrality. Congradulations, you will soon have to pay extra to use web features that your ISP will now block you from unless you pony up.

I hope to God the European Union takes the internet from us at this point. The internet as we know it will be dead within three years, and we'll all be restricted to the "trusted/sponsored" sites unless we pay even more. Also, the Christian activist groups can now legally legislate and bribe the ISP's to block access to certain sites in certain "sections" *coughbiblebeltcough* of the country.


God bless America huh. To hell with the 4th.

[Spitfire]

Wait wtf? So what kind of sites are blocked and why?

Edit: Oh I re-read it, that is so lame ass. That would mean a site like this would be blocked as well. The internet is something I enjoy more then cable TV. The first time I go to a site and it's blocked I'm calling up my provider and yelling at them violently. Then they will probly tell me "Well it isn't our fault it's the legal" Then I would find some way to yell at the US senate for it.

Hmmm I want to start a riot now.

[GK Punk]

This will probably be overturned before long. But on the safe side...

DECEPTICONS TRANSFORM AND PREPARE FOR DOMINATION!

[Spitfire]

After being in Gov class I learned that going through court and sueing the whole country for being unconstitutional gets you places. Not only could I be in the history books for dissing the whole US but I could get this thing snuffed out.

This is BS and if need be could possibly make it to the Supreme Court for review. Cause this is utter crap and is one of the most unconstitutional things I have seen the US do in awhile.

[Dr. Doom]

How come this is the only place I've even seen this business mentioned? You'd figure the complete overhauling of how the internet works would be a bigger news story. I mean, shouldn't I have seen several rants by some of our more outspoken webcomic authors by now?

[GK Punk]

I actually have been hearing about this long before it was ever mentioned here on the drome.

[ThirdMarioBro]

Originally Posted by Spitfire666xXxXx

After being in Gov class I learned that going through court and sueing the whole country for being unconstitutional gets you places. Not only could I be in the history books for dissing the whole US but I could get this thing snuffed out.

This is BS and if need be could possibly make it to the Supreme Court for review. Cause this is utter crap and is one of the most unconstitutional things I have seen the US do in awhile.

Oh yes, our supreme court. Don't even get me started on that. Always we Americans letting our unquestionable judges pass the laws in our country. Democercy my ass.

The only difference between us and Rome is that we haven't elected a horse to office....yet.

Here's looking forward to the year 2015 when there are two ISP's and we have access only to commercial sites that have paid their dues, and are denied access to all the other "foreign" internets that spring up in other regions. It's all doomed to a communistic setup before we're all old enough to have kids.

[iris]

Originally Posted by ThirdMarioBro

Oh yes, our supreme court. Don't even get me started on that. Always we Americans letting our unquestionable judges pass the laws in our country.

I dunno... I think SCOTUS did pretty well on this one. It's their job to interpret the law.

Originally Posted by Kittie february6

This will probably be overturned before long. But on the safe side...

DECEPTICONS TRANSFORM AND PREPARE FOR DOMINATION!

We're definitely not done yet.

I was just down at the Congressional buildings last week, and once again I noticed how they look pretty grand on the outside, and they're fairly nice on the inside, but they're much like many other office buildings. The carpets are worn, and the desks are crammed in all corners and covered in papers. Relatively humble for the 'most powerful nation on Earth.' And once again I heard the staff plead for citizens to get involved so that they can move forward on things that are important. People think their voices aren't heard, but the staffers will tell you different.

The reps are busy people, and you can bet that if most of the public doesn't seem to care about net neutrality, they're not going to think about it much. There are so many other things to think about.

People need to speak up, but it's tougher when they don't even know about it. Plus, "technical" things like "the Internets" still intimidate most of the populace. You who understand the issue, or even just have an opinion about it, need to SPEAK UP.

And someone needs to help Ted Stevens. His staff sent him an Internet... that's not very efficient, is it? No wonder he is so confused that although he is against a tiered system (which is the opposite of a neutral system) he voted against Net Neutrality.