-------------------------- Messaggio originale ---------------------------
Oggetto: [NetBehaviour] The End of the Internet?
Data: Dom, 5 Febbraio 2006 8:48 pm
A: "NetBehaviour for networked distributed creativity"
<netbehaviour@???>
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
The End of the Internet?
Jeff Chester
The nation's largest telephone and cable companies are crafting an
alarming set of strategies that would transform the free, open and
nondiscriminatory Internet of today to a privately run and branded
service that would charge a fee for virtually everything we do online.
Verizon, Comcast, Bell South and other communications giants are
developing strategies that would track and store information on our
every move in cyberspace in a vast data-collection and marketing system,
the scope of which could rival the National Security Agency. According
to white papers now being circulated in the cable, telephone and
telecommunications industries, those with the deepest
pockets--corporations, special-interest groups and major
advertisers--would get preferred treatment. Content from these providers
would have first priority on our computer and television screens, while
information seen as undesirable, such as peer-to-peer communications,
could be relegated to a slow lane or simply shut out.
Under the plans they are considering, all of us--from content providers
to individual users--would pay more to surf online, stream videos or
even send e-mail. Industry planners are mulling new subscription plans
that would further limit the online experience, establishing "platinum,"
"gold" and "silver" levels of Internet access that would set limits on
the number of downloads, media streams or even e-mail messages that
could be sent or received.
To make this pay-to-play vision a reality, phone and cable lobbyists are
now engaged in a political campaign to further weaken the nation's
communications policy laws. They want the federal government to permit
them to operate Internet and other digital communications services as
private networks, free of policy safeguards or governmental oversight.
Indeed, both the Congress and the Federal Communications Commission
(FCC) are considering proposals that will have far-reaching impact on
the Internet's future. Ten years after passage of the ill-advised
Telecommunications Act of 1996, telephone and cable companies are using
the same political snake oil to convince compromised or clueless
lawmakers to subvert the Internet into a turbo-charged digital retail
machine.
The telephone industry has been somewhat more candid than the cable
industry about its strategy for the Internet's future. Senior phone
executives have publicly discussed plans to begin imposing a new scheme
for the delivery of Internet content, especially from major Internet
content companies. As Ed Whitacre, chairman and CEO of AT&T, told
Business Week in November, "Why should they be allowed to use my pipes?
The Internet can't be free in that sense, because we and the cable
companies have made an investment, and for a Google or Yahoo! or Vonage
or anybody to expect to use these pipes [for] free is nuts!"
The phone industry has marshaled its political allies to help win the
freedom to impose this new broadband business model. At a recent
conference held by the Progress and Freedom Foundation, a think tank
funded by Comcast, Verizon, AT&T and other media companies, there was
much discussion of a plan for phone companies to impose fees on a
sliding scale, charging content providers different levels of service.
"Price discrimination," noted PFF's resident media expert Adam Thierer,
"drives the market-based capitalist economy."
Net Neutrality
To ward off the prospect of virtual toll booths on the information
highway, some new media companies and public-interest groups are calling
for new federal policies requiring "network neutrality" on the Internet.
Common Cause, Amazon, Google, Free Press, Media Access Project and
Consumers Union, among others, have proposed that broadband providers
would be prohibited from discriminating against all forms of digital
content. For example, phone or cable companies would not be allowed to
slow down competing or undesirable content.
Without proactive intervention, the values and issues that we care
about--civil rights, economic justice, the environment and fair
elections--will be further threatened by this push for corporate
control. Imagine how the next presidential election would unfold if
major political advertisers could make strategic payments to Comcast so
that ads from Democratic and Republican candidates were more visible and
user-friendly than ads of third-party candidates with less funds.
Consider what would happen if an online advertisement promoting nuclear
power prominently popped up on a cable broadband page, while a competing
message from an environmental group was relegated to the margins. It is
possible that all forms of civic and noncommercial online programming
would be pushed to the end of a commercial digital queue.
But such "neutrality" safeguards are inadequate to address more
fundamental changes the Bells and cable monopolies are seeking in their
quest to monetize the Internet. If we permit the Internet to become a
medium designed primarily to serve the interests of marketing and
personal consumption, rather than global civic-related communications,
we will face the political consequences for decades to come. Unless we
push back, the "brandwashing" of America will permeate not only our
information infrastructure but global society and culture as well.
Why are the Bells and cable companies aggressively advancing such plans?
With the arrival of the long-awaited "convergence" of communications,
our media system is undergoing a major transformation. Telephone and
cable giants envision a potential lucrative "triple play," as they
impose near-monopoly control over the residential broadband services
that send video, voice and data communications flowing into our
televisions, home computers, cell phones and iPods. All of these many
billions of bits will be delivered over the telephone and cable lines.
more...
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060213/chester
sono di fretta e ve la mando com'e' se volete la traduzia chiedete qua in
lista e ve ne posto una generica.
Non sono prospettive rosee...
jilt
