From
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20625194/ :
Justice Dept. Against ‘Net Neutrality’
Feds say imposing regulation on Internet could hamper development
WASHINGTON - The Justice Department on Thursday said Internet service providers should be allowed to charge a fee for priority Web traffic. The agency told the Federal Communications Commission, which is reviewing high-speed Internet practices, that it is opposed to "Net neutrality," the principle that all Internet sites should be equally accessible to any Web user.
Several phone and cable companies, such as AT&T Inc., Verizon Communications Inc. and Comcast Corp., have previously said they want the option to charge some users more money for loading certain content or Web sites faster than others.
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The agency's stance comes more than two months after Federal Trade Commission Chairwoman Deborah Platt Majoras cautioned policy makers to enact Net neutrality regulation.
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Supporters of Internet regulation have said that phone and cable companies could discriminate against certain Web site and services.
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I'm not sure what stands between AT&T and the internets as we know them, but if it's nothin' but the FCC, we (this means YOU, DU) have a problem.
Here's some more info:
The following is from
http://www.savetheinternet.com/blog/2007/06/05/ed-whitacre-gone-but-not-forgotten/ ; see also
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/06/05/theres-a-problem-its-called-net-neutrality/ for partial text :
AT&T chief Ed Whitacre handed over the keys to his replacement Randall Stephenson yesterday, but not before giving a rousing pep talk to fellow executives in the company’s San Antonio board room. “There’s a problem. It’s called Net Neutrality,” Whitacre told the heirs to AT&T’s telecommunications empire. “Well, frankly, we say to hell with that. We’re gonna put up some toll booths and start charging admission.”
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Despite claims of poverty whenever pressed to offer better services, these AT&T execs are privately gloating over more than $35 billion in gross profits over the last 12 months. Moreover, Whitacre (and now Stephenson) are pressuring Congress to allow them to provide privileged Web access to their customers to companies that pay them a special fee.
The phone and cable companies claim that this sort of discriminatory “double dipping” — charging both consumers and content providers — is necessary to provide the high-speed services that Americans demand. But it’s a fundamental shift in the neutral way the Internet has always worked. In essence, it takes away user choice — the most basic tenet of the Internet — and hands it to AT&T. "Will Congress let us do it?” Whitacre asks his colleagues. “You bet they will — cuz we don’t call it cashin’ in. We call it ‘deregulation.’ ”
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Recent broadband data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) had the U.S. slipping to 15th out of 30 nations in per capita broadband use. . . .
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Whitacre remains intent to defy public opinion, funnel cash into Washington and win over control of the Internet once and for all. "With all of our generous campaign contributions, I’m quite certain that Congress will see it our way,” he said during his farewell speech. “Who else they gonna listen to? The public?!?”
C.f. India, where they’re installing nationwide, free wi-fi --
http://c-cyte.blogspot.com/2007/04/free-nation-wide-wi-fi.htmlSee also:
http://c-cyte.blogspot.com/2007/06/no-end-in-sight-to-efforts-to-end.htmlhttp://www.corporations.org/media/http://www.mediachannel.org/ownership/chart.shtmlhttp://www.stopbigmedia.com/http://www.monthlyreview.org/301rwm.htm — note, this article was first presented in 2000 so presumably summarizes the situation based on statistics from even earlier; I’d bet money that, overall, considerable further consolidation has occurred.
I don’t know a total solution, but the following measures might help:
Protect net neutrality.
Restore restrictions on media ownership consolidation.
Adopt conflict-of-interest regulations to the effect you can’t directly or indirectly own more than a small percentage in any media business or serve in any senior management position in such a business if you are in or seeking a governmental position or if you also own more than a small percentage of any other kind of business or are a member of senior management in such a business.
Adopt the equivalent of anti-trust laws but concerned directly with control over information and the outlets for it, rather than with control over commercial resources.
Enforce existing anti-trust laws.