MBL and your own website may be on death row

Erik · #1 (**permalink**) 06-09-2006, 07:53 PM

If you haven't heard about the battle going on in Congress right now you might want to read up a bit.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/...icle754416.ece

Quote:

Robert McChesney, founder of the savetheinternet.com coalition, said: "If we lose Net neutrality, we lose the most promising method for regular people to access and provide diverse and independent news, information and entertainment. We will see the internet become like cable TV: a handful of massive companies will decide what you can see and how much it will cost. Gone will be the entrepreneurship and innovation that has made the internet the most important cultural and economic engine of our times."

Legislation called "COPE" passed in the House yesterday siding with the cable companies and network owners. Now it just needs to get passed in the Senate and shortly after that we could very well see some major changes in what we have access to on the internet. Small independent sites like MortgageBrokerLand.com, your business website and millions of other sites could be effectively priced out of viability. The telecoms that own the networks could begin charging through the roof and discriminating against access to sites that didn't pay up. What a major step backwards that would be, in terms of the freedom of information we all enjoy now with widespread access on the net.

Here's some additional information.

Quote:

Vint Cerf, the father of the Internet, told Congress that "allowing broadband carriers to control what people see and do online would fundamentally undermine the principles that have made the Internet such a success."

You can let your Senators know how you feel on this issue by writing, emailing or calling them. If you'd like to see the internet stay the way it is - with freedom of access for large and small alike - you can use a handy feature at savetheinternet.com to send emails to all your representatives.

Secret! · #2 (**permalink**) 06-11-2006, 10:06 AM

Guess all the charlatans better run for the hills, huh?

Erik · #3 (**permalink**) 06-11-2006, 11:31 AM

Unless your company is a lot bigger than I think it is (big enough to pay for it's own cable tv channel/station), SecretUniversity.com is probably also in danger of being forced offline if this legislation passes, Secret. I know you're big on reducing fraud, but there are many, many legitimate businesses that will be affected by this even more than the petty internet scammers.

Secret! · #4 (**permalink**) 06-12-2006, 09:32 AM

Thanks Erik, I 'll learn more on this right away

florida man · #5 (**permalink**) 06-12-2006, 10:08 AM

Gang
I think this 'gag order' cannot possibly pass. Even if it does, I would bet heavily it would be struck down in Supreme Court. Nobody 'owns' the internet, and therefore the goverment cant just commandeer the thing to satisfy big business.

Isnt 'nationalizing' something like this a communist idea?

Erik · #6 (**permalink**) 06-12-2006, 10:51 AM

I hope it can't pass, but it surprisingly already did in the House. Now it's up to the Senate. As far as I know, the internet right now is a public good - developed with a lot of tax-payer money - but the transmission of data goes over private wires.

Right now the wire owners (telecoms and cable companies like Qwest, SBC, Baby Bells, Comcast, etc) get paid by consumers wishing to access the free-flowing data that is moving across their wires, but they can't restrict or discriminate against the data itself.

However, this bill would allow the wire owners to pick and choose which data (i.e. which websites) gets to pass over their wires - if you don't pay them then you cannot pass. In other words, if MortgageBrokerLand.com didn't pony up major $$ to the wire owners, it would either be extremely slow in loading or unavailable altogether to people around the country. Same goes for any other sites that didn't pay up.

This isn't a good example of nationalizing something, it's almost the opposite. The internet is basically a public good right now, with equal access to information providers (websites) and unlimited access to any of those sites by internet users. The bill would change it so that people would no longer be able to access any site they wanted - it would be more like cable tv where the cable provider gets to choose which channels (websites) it carries and cable subscribers (internet users in this case) would have to live with whatever channels (websites) were available through their cable provider.

zsouth · #7 (**permalink**) 06-12-2006, 10:59 AM

Those greedy telecom companies. They will do anything to make more money on their monopoly.

Zach

florida man · #8 (**permalink**) 06-12-2006, 07:12 PM

Erik
I see. Wow, that would definitely CRUSH a lot of enterprise on the internet. I keep thinking of the internet as the entity -not the wiring that actually broadcasts it. This is why we have an 'ISP' in the first place.

So the 'isps' -and in fact the big players who own the wiring, like telephone and cable, would control it like tv channels.

that sucks

brendo927 · #9 (**permalink**) 06-15-2006, 02:58 PM

This will never happen.

Greg · #10 (**permalink**) 06-20-2006, 03:28 PM

The EBay President mailed all EBay users about it warning them..

Something like there will be 2 types of Internet..

Big Money and Fast Connection...

Then the cheap/slower connection...

Much more too it but I could not believe it made it through the first step... That means the big cable and phone companies are pushing money at politicians if you ask me...