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Net Neutrality 8-13-2006

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Net Neutrality Links

I’m adding this link to the Net Neutrality Page.

It’s Our Net — A New Site Announced by Six Apart

. . . . Scientific American published a pretty fair editorial on the topic, which reaches a clear conclusion:

A system for prioritizing data traffic might well be necessary someday, yet one might hope that it would be based on the needs of the transmissions rather than the deal making and caprices of the cable owners. Moreover, personal blogs and other Web pages are increasingly patchworks of media components from various sources. Tiered service would stultify that trend.

That seems like a reasonable analysis, so the natural next step for any Internet-related cause is to get a good website going to help with advocacy. Enter It’s Our Net, supported by everyone from Adobe to Yahoo, and sponsored by Amazon, eBay, Google, InterActiveCorp, Microsoft, and Yahoo! . It’s a simple, effective site combining the latest news, information about how the proposed change would affect the web, and tools to contact your elected officials. . . .

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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NET NEUTRALITY PAGE

Net Neutrality 8-12-2006

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Net Neutrality Links

I’m adding this link to the Net Neutrality Page.

Common Cause: Stop It With the Astro-Turfing

Common Cause has released a report on the incredible amount of astro-turfing that surrounds telecom reform legislation. Entitled “Wolves in Sheep’s Clothing,” the report is a follow-up to an earlier attack on these phoney “public interest” groups, which are, in reality, industry-financed fronts designed to mess with people’s minds.

The report eviscerates five groups: Hands Off The Internet, TV4US, netcompetition.org, The Future…Faster and Video Access Alliance. Common Cause reserves its worst criticism for Hands Off The Internet and netcompetition.org.

If there were an award for Astroturf lobby campaigns, Hands Off the Internet (HOTI) would win hands down. . . .

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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NET NEUTRALITY PAGE

Net Neutrality 8-11-2006

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Net Neutrality Links

I’m adding this link to the Net Neutrality Page.

Net Neutrality: What Will It Mean to Web Designers, Marketers and SEO’s?

. . . As I read the comments and articles, pro and con, I keep wondering what this means for web design and SEO? Search engines are getting better at delivering results based on where you live and who you are. How would these changes effect how you apply SEO techniques? What does this do to marketing efforts on behalf of web sites? If Google Adsense Ads no longer reach EVERYBODY, what happens then? How does this work on an Internet where the consumer web site viewing choices are based on how much they can afford or what their ISP will provide?

We’ve been used to designing, optimizing and marketing for an International, fairly wide cross section of people. We know many of our efforts don’t get past Chinese censors. What will it be like if the “censors” are phone companies in the USA? If you incorporate video into sites, do consumers have to pay more to view the web site? What does this mean to sites built outside the USA, who are accessed by American users?

Here are some quotes to consider and links. What do you think about this?

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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NET NEUTRALITY PAGE

Net Neutrality 8-10-2006

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Net Neutrality Links

I’m adding this link to the Net Neutrality Page.

Could Lamont’s victory spell doom for Net Neutrality?

. . . The danger – as I see it – will be if the narrative that [Ned] Lamont’s victory occurred largely as a result of Internet activism becomes the conventional wisdom. If this misleading meme is allowed to take root and propagate, it could be used to conjure up the specter of the Net as an uncontrollable, anarchic force undermining the health of our body politic. Obviously, such a story-line could go a long way toward swaying some of the fence-sitters in Congress toward an anti-Net Neutrality position. It’s hardly inconceivable that they could soon develop a fear that with an unregulated Internet, [Joe] Lieberman’s fate may someday be their own. Worse yet, should the “angry blogger” narrative become entrenched in the public consciousness, these feckless “public servants” would be armed with the talking points needed to sell their anti-Net Neutrality stance to their constiuents.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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NET NEUTRALITY PAGE

Net Neutrality 8-9-2006

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Net Neutrality Links

I’m adding this link to the Net Neutrality Page.

Reader Comment on Net Neutrality (and My Rebuttal)

Reader Richard Bennett, whose own blog often articulates the telco point of view on Internet Neutrality more coherently than most telcos, posted a challenging comment to my post announcing that I’m speaking at the Berkman Center tomorrow. . . .

“* Do you believe that all applications have the same requirements from the network?”

. . . The reason we need an Internet which is network agnostic is because only an application-unaware network allows the kind of incredible innovation which has occurred on the Internet. David Isenberg (who Richard [Bennett] mislabels on his blog as a marketing person – David’s background is Bell Labs) explains why this is so brilliantly in The Rise of The Stupid Network).

My simplistic explanation is that a network which is built to be aware of specific applications may work well for those applications that the network designers had in mind but will inhibit if not absolutely prevent applications the network designers didn’t think of as well as the evolution of existing applications. The traditional phone network is a great example of that. Handsets on that network don’t even have the capability of cell phones because the network is optimized for voice and voice alone. I posted more on this here. . . .

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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NET NEUTRALITY PAGE

Net Neutrality 8-8-2006

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Net Neutrality Links

I’m adding this link to the Net Neutrality Page.

Even Giants Like Siemens Worry

Why would Siemens worry about net neutrality’s effects on smaller companies? Its customers aren’t necessarily big. “We sell to small and medium companies that are built on a low-cost structure and are net-dependent,” said [Ralph] Riley {Siemens senior executive] in Ann Arbor, Mich.

While the debate over net neutrality continues, users remain the forgotten stakeholders. Click here to read more.

He already sees potential for danger for his company’s markets and customers. “This would probably restrict much of the drive toward mobility that’s growing in American business,” Riley said. He said that with greater regulation, it could become impossible for users to roam freely from one carrier to another as they do now.

“What it would do is suppress much of the opportunity businesses have in expanding mobility,” he said. “How would you go anywhere without being charged too much or not getting access?”

But Riley said he also worries that too much regulation would be just as bad. . . .

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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NET NEUTRALITY PAGE