The Push to Deregulate the Internet
Feb 14, 2006 06:29 Filed in: Internet
Congress is now considering changes to the
Telecommunications Act that would allow ISPs and
other large Internet providers to provide
preferential service to some customers instead of
serving as a common carrier, neutral to the contents
going through it. This is a vastly different model of
the network than we have today. The pressure being
put on Congress to make these changes is also a good
example of the corporate tendency to seek profits at
the expense of public good. It also is a good example
of the corporate tendency to kill golden geese, the
geese in this case being Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and
other providers of either free or inexpensive
services that make the Internet worth what it is
today.
In the early '90s, shortly after the Worldwide Web came into existence and the demand for dial-up service went through the roof, the telcos started demanding the right to charge a premium on phone lines used for data, reasoning that data lines were being used more hours of the day than voice lines, which cost them more to service. Fortunately, they got nowhere.
Now, the politicking is far more sophisticated and much of it is being done outside the glare of public scrutiny. The importance of what is being contemplated, however, cannot be over-stressed. The providers are willing to concede current technology in return for being allowed to lock up future technology. As Bill Thompson of the BBC puts it, it's like a transportation company conceding the dirt roads in return for owning and controlling the traffic on all paved roads and highways. If you don't play their game, you take the dirt roads. What's even worse, they will control the connections from the dirt roads into the paved roads, so if for some reason they find your existence inconvenient, they can simply build their system around you, much like the interstate system can destroy a small town by not providing an interchange.
It will only be a short jump from preferential treatment of some information providers to completely blocking access to any web site your ISP wishes. This, of course, would be done in the name of property rights. We own the net and therefore we get to control who uses the net. In the '60s the U. S. Supreme Court held that shopping mall owners could ban political activity in the common areas of their malls, not realizing that the traditional public areas--the downtown retail business districts--would soon be deserted except for office workers. Pamphleteering, one of the most effective methods of political organizing, has virtually disappeared. Had the justices foreseen these changes, it is conceivable that the decision would have been different.
The contemporary equivalent of the political pamphlet is the political web site, like this one. Blogs and podcasting are the equivalent of political rallies of the past minus the barbecued chicken (at least in the American South). What has made the Internet a positive force for political change has been its open structure, where anyone with a few bucks per month can stand up on his or her electronic soapbox and preach to the world. Blogs are like the town crier, spreading news to all who are willing to listen. That would change radically in the proposed regime.
What the providers want is the prerogative of medieval robber barons: they want complete control of the great river of communications, including its contents, and they want to fill it with their exclusive traffic.
Why the net should stay neutral (BBC)
Lawrence Lessig Blog
Lessig's Testimony Before the Senate committee on Science, Commerce and Transportation, February 7, 2006 Because of his audience, I assume that Lessig stressed technological innovation and economic gain as the principal benefit of a free Internet, whereas I believe that the greatest benefit will ultimately turn out to be the open political space made possible by inexpensive access.
In the early '90s, shortly after the Worldwide Web came into existence and the demand for dial-up service went through the roof, the telcos started demanding the right to charge a premium on phone lines used for data, reasoning that data lines were being used more hours of the day than voice lines, which cost them more to service. Fortunately, they got nowhere.
Now, the politicking is far more sophisticated and much of it is being done outside the glare of public scrutiny. The importance of what is being contemplated, however, cannot be over-stressed. The providers are willing to concede current technology in return for being allowed to lock up future technology. As Bill Thompson of the BBC puts it, it's like a transportation company conceding the dirt roads in return for owning and controlling the traffic on all paved roads and highways. If you don't play their game, you take the dirt roads. What's even worse, they will control the connections from the dirt roads into the paved roads, so if for some reason they find your existence inconvenient, they can simply build their system around you, much like the interstate system can destroy a small town by not providing an interchange.
It will only be a short jump from preferential treatment of some information providers to completely blocking access to any web site your ISP wishes. This, of course, would be done in the name of property rights. We own the net and therefore we get to control who uses the net. In the '60s the U. S. Supreme Court held that shopping mall owners could ban political activity in the common areas of their malls, not realizing that the traditional public areas--the downtown retail business districts--would soon be deserted except for office workers. Pamphleteering, one of the most effective methods of political organizing, has virtually disappeared. Had the justices foreseen these changes, it is conceivable that the decision would have been different.
The contemporary equivalent of the political pamphlet is the political web site, like this one. Blogs and podcasting are the equivalent of political rallies of the past minus the barbecued chicken (at least in the American South). What has made the Internet a positive force for political change has been its open structure, where anyone with a few bucks per month can stand up on his or her electronic soapbox and preach to the world. Blogs are like the town crier, spreading news to all who are willing to listen. That would change radically in the proposed regime.
What the providers want is the prerogative of medieval robber barons: they want complete control of the great river of communications, including its contents, and they want to fill it with their exclusive traffic.
Why the net should stay neutral (BBC)
Lawrence Lessig Blog
Lessig's Testimony Before the Senate committee on Science, Commerce and Transportation, February 7, 2006 Because of his audience, I assume that Lessig stressed technological innovation and economic gain as the principal benefit of a free Internet, whereas I believe that the greatest benefit will ultimately turn out to be the open political space made possible by inexpensive access.
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