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Net Neutrality 6-20-2006

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Net Neutrality Links

I’ve added these links to the Net Neutrality Page today.

I don’t usually comment on this page, but then what’s said here is usually thoughts passed on that are either rants or one sided solutions to a complicated situation. Today, however, Scot Karp has changed that pattern for me. His piece,
Eminent Domain: A Modest Solution to Net Neutrality? jarred me out of my “watch the debate,” position into finally seeing Scot’s radical suggestion as one that would hurt, but would work.

So how do we fix this? Are we stuck in telco hell? Silicon Valley can ignite a political arms race and spend more on lobbyists, but why play an old man’s game? Instead, these webbies should get creative, change the rules. Bam-Bam, not Barney Rubble is the future. Take the telcos and cable companies out at the knees.

Here’s an idea: Start screaming like a madman and using four letter words–like K-E-L-O. And fancier words like “eminent domain.” I know, I know. This sounds wrong. These are privately owned wires hanging on poles. But so what? The government-mandated owners have been neglecting them for years–we are left with slums in need of redevelopment. Horse-drawn trolleys ruled cities, too, but had to be destroyed to make way for progress. How do we rip the telco’s trolley tracks out and enable something modern and real competition?

SPEED BUMPS ON THE INFORMATION HIGHWAY [via deal architect]

Check out this graphic:

How the Internet works. Chronicle graphic by John Blanchard

Ethical fog by Stirling Newberry

Chicago Dyke at corrente joins the long list of people commenting on the question of “should blogs take ads from telecos on net neutrality”. Bopnews.com has turned down these ads in the past, but there is no reason to believe that we will turn them down in the future.

Having used blogads at various times, generally with success, I think the paradigm that Skippy has gotten into – that ads are push that people are overly influenced by – simply isn’t backed by my experience. [Blogads] are essentially very gaudy links. Should we turn down Google ads because we can’t control the content? Several sites – like Brad Delong’s – have been very anti-Bush and his executive, and then had google ads that touted Bush gear.

Trying to draw lines that don’t exist – we should not sequester the blogsphere – doesn’t make any sense to me at all. “If you can’t take their money, drink their liquor, smoke their cigars, fuck their women and still vote against them in the morning, you shouldn’t be in this business.” No one has been farther out front against the telecos in the blogspace than Matt Stoller. Prudery when it comes to money is not reasonable, and this is prudery. . .

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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NET NEUTRALITY PAGE

Net Neutrality 6-18-2006

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Net Neutrality Links

I’ve added these links to the Net Neutrality Page today.

“Save the Net” Contest Winner…

…will be announced on Tuesday, June 20th

Telcos’ Business Model Broken?

Folks, put the pieces together. It ought not be hard. The skill of the Telcos to manipulate Congress? Their business model is broken? A hindrance to their expansion efforts was removed and they then tried an end run but got caught? Now they’re spending millions on the effort to put in place what they believe will set their profit run back on track!

You and I are out here attempting to define it. We have help. It has become more and more clear. It is about competition! The US Telcos don’t have the competition which opens the door for their monopolization attempts.

Placing my money where my mouth is

I’ve been eagerly expecting the next BlogAd to float my way since BlogAds only feeds money into my PayPal account after a certain dollar amount of ads have been sold, and my next ad is the tipping point for a payout. And that ad came in tonight!

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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NET NEUTRALITY PAGE

Net Neutrality 5-17-2006

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Net Neutrality Links

I’ve added these links to the Net Neutrality Page today.

Pro-Internet Democracy Blogs Run Ads for Corporate Takeover of Net: Another Example of Why BuzzFlash Won’t Accept Advertising
[via Truth Dig ]

The ad in question leads to an Orwellian flash that tries to convince the viewers that the government is trying to “interfere” with the Internet and that this will destroy it, which is exactly what the people behind the ads are trying to do. . . . (See http://www.dontregulate.org/)

If you watch the ad, you find it is sponsored by a coalition misleadingly called “Hands Off the Internet”.If you look at the members of “Hands Off the Internet,” they are the very Telecom companies who have given large donations to members of Congress to pass legislation — now having cleared a House Committee — to allow them to squeeze democracy out of the Internet in order to increase their profits. Members of the cynically named “Hands Off the Internet” coalition include AT&T, BellSouth and Cingular, along with some “front” organizations that again employ the Bush tactic of sounding like they are on your side when they are trying to get away with grand larceny (see
http://www.handsoff.org/hoti_docs/aboutus/members.shtml). As many on the Net have noted with contempt, the group is masterminded by former Clinton Press Secretary Mike McCurry.

A BuzzFlash reader pointed out this entire scam to us and how he had tried to get the progressive sites to have the ad removed on their sites, but to no avail.
The ad is part of a package offered by a company known as BlogAds. (See this url if you want to know which liberal blog sites financially benefit from BlogAds: http://www.blogads.com/advertise/liberal_blog_advertising

Proposed Rule Changes Would Tangle the Web

Many people believe the Internet’s decentralized structure guarantees that no company or oligopoly could control it. Internet censorship – whether by corporate or state interests – simply sounds impossible. Yet not only is it theoretically possible, but the history of telecommunications regulation tells us it is probable. By the time the telecoms start changing what you see on your screen, it will be too late to complain.

PDF Panel On Net Neutrality
[via The Original Blog]

Like it or not, the Internet is not a public entity. It is not a company for which others provide service and it is not a public good. It is a nebulous arrangement of interconnections between private networks. If the net neutrality guys would like the government to compensate the private companies that have invested hundreds of billions to make it work, and declare those pipes a public good, that’s fine. The tab will be staggering.

That will do wonders for the deficit and guarantee great service. After all, the government does everything really well, right?

If, instead, you want a competitive environment, then you keep what you have. Existing competition has moved us this far, so why not let it continue? Some suggest the answer is because there are only two competitors – cable and telcos. That ignores the possibility that the DBS guys will ever develop the technology to compete. That ignores the possibility that governments will provide wi-fi as a public good, and it ignores the possibility that Google or someone else will provide wi-max to compete with the cable and telco guys?

It also assumes that two competitors is somehow inadequate for real competition. Honestly, I think a football field would get crowded with four teams.

. . . Cable faces different competition on the programming side. They face competition from satellite and now telcos on video. They face competition for phone service from wireless, VoIP, and the telcos. They face competition for data services from telcos, cities increasingly providing wi-fi, PC by satellite (which admittedly is inferior currently, but that will change shortly), etc.

Competition works. But you have to let it. For Congress to act now, absent an actual threat, would be the height of folly.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related
NET NEUTRALITY PAGE