Comments on: Net Neutrality, Google and Verizon

By: What if online expression is a privilege and not a right? - Sky’s Blog

What if online expression is a privilege and not a right? - Sky’s Blog — Sun, 28 Nov 2010 05:33:05 +0000

[…] Google and Verizon argued essentially that they should be allowed to surpass the current Internet, develop channels of their own, and charge or do whatever they wish with those. ↩ // Tweet This Post […]

By: James

James — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 18:57:03 +0000

I agree that we need to watch what is happening with Net Neutrality very closely. Like you point out, there are so many services that we all use that are related to it.
I fear the average person has no idea what the big deal is and never gives it a thought.
I think citizen action may be the only way to keep it free. Those in government usually have no idea what is going on or what it is (although they frequently like to claim that they had a major part in the development of the internet- aka Al Gore’s invention). It can be quite clear when they talk (as with most things they say) that they are not familiar with the issues other than what some large lobbyist or campaign donor tells them. Even the traditional media look at the online world as something they fear (evidenced by their disdain for bloggers who often beat them to a story).
It’s going to be up to us as bloggers an individuals to keep this freedom we currently have. It may just take those placards and posters.

By: Sky

Sky — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 17:06:06 +0000

Clark, thanks for the very interesting thought. Citizen action might the Internet in the future (though it hasn’t exactly saved net neutrality yet).

So if Verizon threatens to suck our business off into paying media, and if the Internet comes under threat of being killed off, I will give you a ping and expect you to grab your placards and posters and come out onto the streets to protest with me. See you on the front lines! 😉

By: Clark Quinn

Clark Quinn — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 16:42:22 +0000

Jim, I remember, more than a decade ago, a telco put a special high speed network in place in Sydney for business (with it’s own tariff, of course). A walled garden secure. It foundered, as there wasn’t a business model for it; no special value was available. Similarly, I was contacted by a guy wanting to build a high capacity mobile network business for downtowns, and wondered what the killer business app was.

I agree that they’ll want to do it, and it’s a concern, but the vibrancy of new innovations coming from nowhere makes the internet a compelling place to keep playing.

Now, if Google pulled, say, their location services off the net there might be some problem, but the backlash might be phenomenal.

So, it *is* a worry, but this proposal for ‘special services’ isn’t as big a concern to me as dissecting out the internet into separate tiers.