Okay, Congress has sunk to a new low on this one. Who would have thought an episode of DR WHO from a couple of weeks back contained so much foreshadowing. I didn’t realize there are companies that want to own the Internet.
The COPE (Communications Opportunity, Promotion and Enhancement) bill is making its way through Congress with voting to be as early as Wednesday. This bill violates Net Neutrality. Net Neutrality allows an Internet surfer to pretty much look at whatever he or she wants to without interference from the ISP. In smaller towns and areas, this kind of freedom of speech has frequently been violated as the owners of the ISP (internet service provider) want to decide what content is appropriate for adults in the effort to protect children. At least that is what they say.
This kind of policing has been done on a much smaller scale on an area by area basis. All of that is about to change. Large companies like AT&T and Verizon are pushing this bill hard not because they are concerned about the content on the Web but because they aren’t making as much money as the beancounters think they should be making off the Web.
I’m all for capitalism but you can’t put the genii back in the bottle. We’ve had net freedom and now the companies expect not only us to pay more for the privilege (as we pay for Internet access now) but also they want to be paid by the Web sites in order to have them included in the viewable list. This means that if Google doesn’t want to pay an exorbitant fee to a telecommunications provider and you, the end user, can’t afford an expensive high tiered account, the two of you will never see each other. Which means that you could be forced into using a bogus or biased search engine that feeds you misinformation or a series of places to buy stuff.
So now the old caveat “Let the buyer beware” wrings even truer now. So go to Save The Internet and sign the petition if you don’t want your local ISP to decide what is best for you to view based on their latest profit margins or the personal preferences of the owner. If you have a web-based business in any way, this affects you. If you hold certain political or religious beliefs, this affects you. If you value freedom of speech, this affects you.