Net Neutrality

UPDATE: Thursday, June 22 – “When I invented the Web, I didn’t have to ask anyone’s permission. Now, hundreds of millions of people are using it freely. I am worried that that is going end in the USA.” Read the rest of Tim Berners Lee’s post from yesterday, Net Neutrality: This is serious, and you’ll understand why this is a critical issue.

UPDATE: Monday, June 12 – “THE SENATE will hold hearings tomorrow on “net neutrality,” the idea that the pipes and wires that form the Internet should treat all content equally.” Read the story at the Washington Post and then the counter-argument at SavetheInternet.org

On Thursday, the US House of Representatives rejected an amendment that would have kept large telecommunications broadband providers from being able to treat Internet sites differently.

To learn more, CNET has continuing coverage at their Net Neutrality showdown section.

The future Sergey Brins, the future Marc Andreessens, of Netscape and Google…are going to have to pay taxes” to broadband providers, said Rep. Ed Markey, the Massachusetts Democrat behind the Net neutrality amendment. This vote will change “the Internet for the rest of eternity,” he warned.

Tristan Louis has a post, Life after Net Neutrality, that’s also worth reading.

Today’s news that the Net Neutrality bill was defeated may create future problems for American internet businesses but will not kill the Internet, as some have claimed. Instead, it will probably dictate, in the long run, the death of the very proponents of a ban on net neutrality: phone and cable companies which have been trying to overreach in their attempt to fatten up their bottom line.

…If Net Neutrality goes, US competitiveness will be affected negatively and will result in more new wealth being generated outside of the US than in the US. Furthermore, in the long run, an overreach could result in people abandoning the telcos altogether, if Mesh networks take off.