OK, here's my latest cause du jour, "net neutrality." The issue is currently being debated in Congress and the results of this debate--and the bills Congress is voting on--could dramatically change the way the internet functions.
In a nutshell, "net neutrality" refers to the way information travel over the internet. What you got is all these little packets of data traveling from websites to users and back again. Currently, all the packets are treated equally; the internet makes no distinction between who is sending what to whom. This means that data from your LiveJournal is treated the same as the data from the website of some large corporation.
This may change, especially if the large telecoms--AT&T, Comcast, Verizon--get their way. What they want to do is start charging additional fees to make a faster more reliable section of the internet available. It's sort of like an HOV lane, except you don't get into it because you have several people in your car, you get into it because you pay to get into it.
From a strictly business sense, this seems reasonable, to offer a premium service and charge more for it. The thing is, it will likely lead to two internets. One will be fast and reliable, an information Autobahn primarily used by large corporations to sell crap. The other, the one where you go to read blogs and those really cool obscure websites, will be slow and unreliable--after all why waste bandwidth on people who aren't paying those extra fees?--an information dirt road.
So, if Congress decides against "net neutrality," look for access to your favorite websites to get slower and slower as more and more bandwidth is given to websites who are willing and able to pay the telecoms what amounts to
"protection money" to ensure that fast and reliable access.
Why do the telecoms feel they need to charge more money for this premium level of access? Well, in the first quarter of 2006, AT&T had a net profit of
only $1.45 billion. And, the CEO of AT&T, Ed Whitacre, who has said "The internet can't be free," makes
a measly $19 million a year.
Of course, the internet is not free. Come check my cable bill, Ed. I pay for it. The websites I access all pay for it, too. The telecoms simply want to make even more profit by charging more money for people who want their websites to load faster and be more reliable.
And, here's probably the biggest issue of all, taken from the First Amendment of the
U.S. Constitution: "Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech." This is a bit of a stretch to get people to see because the Founding Fathers had no concept of the internet when they wrote the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. But, considering that the internet is now becoming a significant forum--through blogs and message boards--for the exchange of information and ideas on a wide array of topics from college sports, fucking, politics, the environment,
is Britney Spears a bad mom, religion, the war in Iraq, Americans now exercise their free speech via the internet. An end to "net neutrality" would mean some speech is freer than others. You may not be able to read a
blog from Iraq written by a soldier or relief worker who is there because all the bandwidth was paid for by
Fox News and that's whose version of events you're going to get.
So, please--both of you who read this :P--click on the
links, sign the online petition, and spread the word. On 8 June, Congress passed the "Communications Opportunity, Promotion and Enhancement Act of 2006," or COPE Act. This bill offers no protection of "net neutrality" and an amendment to the bill that would have instituted "net neutrality" requirements was voted down. If this bill passes the Senate as is "net neutrality" is over. The "Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2006" has been introduced in the Senate and may become an amendment to the COPE Act and if it passes, this would provide continued protection for the internet. It will likely be voted on later this summer, so--again--please support this and spread the word so that your data and my data is treated the same as some streaming ad for
Pepsi.
And don't just take my word for it, if you're feeling especially nerdy you can read a couple of excellent articles on the issue:
"The corporate toll on the Internet"--salon.com "Phone, Cable May Charge Dot-Coms That Want to Race Along the Internet"--latimes.com