The Death of Net Neutrality
July 4, 2007 by William K. Wolfrum
Read it and weep:
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has decided to abandon net neutrality and allow telecoms companies to charge websites for access.
The FTC said in a report that, despite popular support for net neutrality, it was minded to let the market sort out the issue.This means that the organisation will not stand in the way of companies using differential pricing to make sure that some websites can be viewed more quickly than others. The report also counsels against net neutrality legislation.
“This report recommends that policy makers proceed with caution in the evolving dynamic industry of broadband internet access, which is generally moving towards more, not less, competition,” FTC chairman Deborah Platt Majoras wrote.
“In the absence of significant market failure, or demonstrated consumer harm, policy makers should be particularly hesitant to enact new regulation in this area.”
The report has caused outrage in the online community. Many are worried that any abandonment of net neutrality will harm competition, since it will allow big companies to outspend start-ups.
“Mostly the FTC suggests ways that the telephone and cable companies could have new ways to make money from content and applications providers,” said Art Brodsky, of internet advocacy group Public Knowledge.
“Or lower-income subscribers could be charged lower prices, subsidised by ‘prioritization revenues’ much as supported email services now provide free email accounts. Nowhere is there discussion of what the consumer gets out of the deal.”
Once again, the will of the people be damned.
Read more: FTC’s Net Neutrality Conclusion Predictable, Bye, Bye Net Neutrality, AT&T rigs net neutrality study, AT&T co-sponsors study to determine Net Neutrality is bad
–WKW
Crossposted at Shakesville.
FTC has been gutted over the years. They’re no more than a yesman for industry now-a-days.
This will not be the last we hear of this issue, however. There are some big names that are on the side of Net Neutrality including Microsoft, Google and the like.
There has been much public investment into the infrastructure of the internet, and in the end I am hopeful that the good guys will win this one.
Basically this is a huge pissing contest between cable, telephone, and internet companies with the rest of us caught in the middle.
Don’t just stand there. Do something. Be a patriot and not a whiner.
Go to: http://www.speedmatters.org/
Take the speed test, and send letters to your congresspeople.
Get informed about the $200 Billion dollar fiber-optic rip-off that the phone companies have perpetrated on YOU.
http://www.niemanwatchdog.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=Ask_this.view&askthisid=186
Send this information to everyone you know. Flood congress with calls and letters.
Of all the insidious plots out there, I think this one may well be the worst — Information is Power. If they limit our access to information, they limit our access to power.
DO SOMETHING TODAY!
I think the FTC is looking out for citizens. The results of this report are very thoughtful and given that net neutrality is very complicated, I can understand why they say we should proceed with caution. Working with Hands Off the Internet, I must point out that the report indicated there are a number of consumer protections already in place and it encourages everyone to monitor the issue.