May 7 2008
What Is Right in Oregon: Senator Vigorously Defends Net Neutrality
Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) met with a number of technology executives and argued forcefully that ISPs must stand up for net neutrality or face the removal of legal safe harbors and tax freedom. One of those legal safe harbors is Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act which provides immunity from liability for ISPs for the wrongful acts of others.
No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.
Net neutrality is the concept that allows unfettered access to the internet. Some people have proposed tiered access to the internet. Companies would pay for its content to be put on a faster bandwidth and companies that didn’t pay, like DearAuthor, would be shunted to the end where it would take a long time to load. Other net neutrality issues is the censorship of content which occurs frequently in non democratic countries like China.
Net neutrality is an important issue for anyone who uses the internet.
Via Ars Technica. Thanks RebeccaJ for bringing this article to our attention.
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May 07, 2008 @ 09:26:33
Jane, we must be on the same wave length! This is a topic I’m planning on blogging about tomorrow. As someone who’s already gone up against Comcast in protest of the way they force feed me advertising on my webmail, all while a) charging me for the service, and b) offering me lousy service in terms of the webmail product itself. NN is a HUGE deal that most people don’t realize will affect them until it’s too late.
Costs will go up substantially unless we halt telecommunication companies from charging higher fees for people to access the Inet or to host a site on the Inet. Most importantly, it’s the blocking of access to sites that irritates me the most. It also puts at risk the public’s right to express itself, it would suppress innovative third-party development, etc.
See this video on You Tube about Net Neutrality As a consumer this makes me mad as hell. As a writer the suppression of public expression deeply concerns me.
This issue affects everyone who has Inet access, and the more people cry out about it to our legislators, the better the odds are we can keep our access as open as possible with minimal costs, especially when the pipe these companies have laid was already there to begin with.
Verizon is the only company who might have a leg to stand on when it comes to stating they’ve high costs for laying fiber optic cable, but they’ve been give plenty of tax breaks for years in preparation for the installation of fiber optic and yet I just had fiber optic cable installed in my well-populated area.
Thanks for raising awareness about this issue on your highly-visible blog.
Monica
May 07, 2008 @ 09:28:54
ACK! Clicked too fast. I also meant to point out that some Inet users might have an ISP that would block their access to sites such as Dear Author unless the user either pays a higher fee for more open access or Dear Author makes an agreement with an ISP that has an agreement with one of the big telecommunication companies to open up the blog to anyone.
Monica (Edited) <–who clearly doesn’t understand that I could have edited the original post. Apologies
May 07, 2008 @ 10:12:30
Thank you for bringing this to my attention! The thought that anyone would be able to limit the internet appalls me. Off to tell my friends about this.
May 07, 2008 @ 12:55:52
What are we to do, Jane? Is this something that needs a letter-writing campaign to our Senators and Representatives?
May 07, 2008 @ 12:58:32
Miki – I think I’ll write more about it on Sunday (I always struggle for Sunday topics) and then we can toss around ideas but I think the letter writing campaign may be the thing.
I want to see what bills are to be voted on and who is for what, etc.
May 07, 2008 @ 13:05:38
Jane you can get more info at http://www.savetheinternet.com. They have a link that allows you to do a standard email to your legislators or modify it.
May 07, 2008 @ 13:07:07
Thanks for the information, Monica. One of the great aspects of the internet, isn’t it, the harnessing of the grassroots movements.