http://www.savetheinternet.com/=map

Have you guys been keeping up on this? So far, the indications from the voting map doesn't look so good....

Here's a summary of the new COPE Act: http://www.commoncause.org/site/pp.asp?c=dkLNK1MQIwG&b=1539607

By your lack of responses, I guess you either don't understand the issue at hand, or don't care about it. Here's another post from someone else which explains the situation pretty well:


THIS IS SET TO HAPPEN THIS WEDNESDAY


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9jHOn0EW8U&feature=Views&page=1&t=t&f=b
a video describing net neutrality and the current situation


LINKS:
http://www.tpmcafe.com/node/29086
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/042306G.shtml
http://www.techweb.com/wire/networking/186500824
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4700430.stm

Pretty much the summary of this whole situation is that for the longest time the US government worked to keep the internet neutral - no US company held control over what content could be loaded through their services. However, there has apperantly been a long compaign by the likes of AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, and several other companies to make it so THEY decided what happens on their services.

Though valiant efforts have been made by many good natured people (including STRONG efforts by google) right now the majority is leading towards giving up internet neutrality - allowing internet service providers the ability to control how, what, where, and when you access content. Including how fast you can access it.

Heres a breakdown of the likely things to happen, judging by these companies services:

VERY LIKELY:
Differant lines on the internet. You buy a broadband connection, but only certain websites will load at broadband speeds (ie, associates of said provider company). Everything else will load at 28k speed. You can, however, not only pay for a broadband service BUT you can add an additional fee for expanded high speed access, and then pay even MORE for unhindered broadband speed.

VERY LIKELY:
Service providers will intentionally block out certain web stores. For instance lets imagine comcast has a deal with Amazon.com. Comcast will block EVERYONE from ever getting at a barnes and nobles website - but amazon.com for some reason loads at breakneck speed! This has ALREADY OCCURED before - AT&T and AOL both have done things similar to this.

VERY LIKELY:
Many free services bite the dust. You attempt to log into gmail.com but get auto-redirected to your ISP's webpage saying that you can buy, for 9.99, an email. You can even send 100 emails in a month! Wow! For 19.99 you can get 300 emails!

VERY LIKELY:
Bittorrent, warez, crackz, illegal MP3's - all gone. Instead you can easily purchase your songs (etc) via an itunes like service offered by your ISP!!!!!!111!1

VERY LIKELY:
The ability to share media (audio, visual, even textual) becomes far more expensive/complicated. Things like blogs wont be accesable unless you pay for it through your ISP. This is a very BIG deal - free speech is no longer free on the web. Its more like purchased speech. E-journalism becomes very difficult and alot of news/opinion sources become narrowed down to the ones your ISP feel comfortable with showing.

VERY VERY LIKELY:
Anything one ISP does business with will not be accesable by another. One example of this is that you have AOL, theres no way in heck you are accessable comcast.com, verizon.com, etc... heres whats very bad. Say Pizza hut signs a deal with verizon so that every verizon user can access pizzahut.com with full broadband speed - every other pizza service will be super slow. AOL will not have access to pizzahut.com. Instead it will only allow its users to access dominos.com because they have an exclusive deal. Goods and services you use via the internet are now decided by your ISP because your ISP has signed deals with big business in order to boost their sales. Its already done to a degree as we speak via phone services.

I won't even go into how google.com will be obliterated because someone like yahoo.com signs a deal, and google (not signing a deal with anyone) loads on every isp at 28k speed.

I wont even go into how this screws over small business because they can't afford to sign deals at the price big business can (exclusive web store contracts anyone? no one else can load their webstores at full broadband speed...)

I wont even go into how this effects charitable organizations on the web.

I wont even go into how this could easily lead into world media being put further in control of the corporations.


Its bad news - contact your local congressman. Protect the intraweb.

That is insane. At the rate they'd end up charging for things, I'd end up broke if that ever happened.

And making the sites that don't sign a deal load slower? The internet would almost become more trouble than it's worth.

It than throws a whole new factor into what isp provider you want. What if the differant sites you use signed with completely differant isps?

This whole issue would made the internet more of a pain than anything else.

I really, really hope this doesn't pass.

Net neutrality is the principle that you should be able to access whatever web content or services you choose, without any interference from your Internet service provider.

Keep it that way.

Why would any representative vote against net neutrality?

Because they are Americans and they are often scared of terrorists, porn and basically everything that's modern?

things like porn gave birth to the net. high quality movie streaming wasnt developed so we could watch aunt whatserface's new son take his first few steps.

I cant see this happen. what gives americans the right to do this. I think they do control one of the mains base parts(on the news ages ago correct me if im wrong). The UN are surpossidly trying to take this power away from them, saying no one should have the rights over a globabl system

They not in tune with their most cherished keyword?

Freedom, yo.

Still, lots of non voters yet. They can't seriously be against net neutrality. Imagine how bad that'd look for the country.

America and freedom don't go together anymore you know? If you've read George Orwell's 1984, then I'd say after countries like China and North Korea (and other dictatorships) America's very high on the list of being like the country described in that book. The American government is monitoring more and more, and if they think you're a terrorists (read: if you're against the government) you risk being locked up on Cuba without a trial.

i'll try and find my condensed copy of th US patriot act, basicly says what you cant do and how they can monitor you acording to the bill

Have fun america, if you care go get off your one metric tonne asses and do something. I'll be glad to take advantage of lower traffic~

Any chance the rest of the world will follow order?

Edit:- You know, I really can't see this happening. There really is no advantage to rejecting net neutrality from the customers point of view. Wouldn't they be put off and such ISPs go down the drain in favour of more classic service ISPs?

The House has approved the bill, but it's more of a preliminary battle. The vote in the Senate will be more of a deciding factor.

Why would any representative vote against net neutrality?


Because they are Americans and they are often scared of terrorists, porn and basically everything that's modern?

That, and the fact that the ISPs will make huge amounts of $$$; some of which will end up in those so-called "representative"'s pockets and campaign war-chests. Political corruption: It's the American Way!

gosh, all this just when i though the internet was going to start becoming free....

I feel so sorry for Americans with a brain... :mellow:

It's not brained Americans that you need to feel sorry for. It's Americans with DSL (or better) who are subscribing to the "wrong" ISP (i.e. the one that won't properly grease the phone company's greedy palm) that you need to feel sorry for.

EDIT: Here's an article on the subject (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/josh-silver/congress-casting-vote-on-_b_19793.html) that I found through Morons.org (http://web.morons.org).

The New World Order hates the internet. The internet has been the best source of information/communication ever created in mans life time. Many people or should I say sheeple are wakeing up and learning things the nwo does not want them to learn. Compared to other brainwashing techniques they use such as the TV,radio the internet is the only source they can't control the flow of propaganda.

You have seen a surge of "child internet pornography" rings being exposed on the net in many news storys.These are planted by the same crooks who work for the nwo they want to use this as a base to try to heavly censor the internet or tax it to the point where the average joe won't be able to afford internet access.

I don't want this topic to go in a political debate but I will just leave it here the globalist final plan is a 1 world new world order where they will control everything you eat and do. They will tag you then bag you chip you and force you to work kind of like george orwells 1984, or the plot for Half life 2. These crooks own most of the world media all of the US news,newspapers,media,education,religious groups,finicial,banking,money,banking,food companys.

I'll try and argue the road less taken

Well I guess I can see why you would not vote for it.

You can't believe in everything your hear. Sure this could very likely happen or it could be happening now, who knows. The fact that it could happen makes the situation even more believable, just like a good horror movie. If congress were to enact every single bill that would prevent a likely event to happen, we would be even higher in dept then we are now (last I checked were are now at $8,350,513,377,392.95) So the people who voted against this must seem that this is a waist of time and money.

There is both an up side and a downside to this. If passed, ISP can't discriminate access but the government will have more control over the use of the Internet. If not passed, no government intervention, more choice to the people, but the ISP's control your Internet access.

This is very interesting. I think I'll write a letter to my congressmen to ask his opinion on the matter.

Apparently, legislators are against a net neutrality law because (1) the Communications Act of 1996 did not work out at all as planned, and (2) an actual net neutrality law could actually cause rather than prevent many of the abuses listed in that (rather biased) posted article. I think America isn't against net neutrality itself; it would simply prefer de facto net neutrality to state-enforced net neutrality.

And for goodness' sake, stop stereotyping Americans, especially if your views are just as bigoted as ours <_<

if ever the net becomes too controlled by that american government (most of the ppl is really cool, i got many american friends), i vote for a mass anarchy riot. everybody go crazy!!!!!!!!! shoot frozen potatoes from a van at the whitehouse! CARNADGE!!!

Ah, but all the stupid people would mess up the anarchy.

Ah, but all the stupid people would mess up the anarchy.

Stupid people are required for anarchy, else the smart people would get organized and there would be none!

American can't control the internet anyway.

You know, why aren't we talking about China's restrictions on the internet too? Considering that it is already happening and this is just speculation. Or do we not care because it is happening on the other side of the world?

Not really, that's just China =P Then again, if half of the internet was blocked by America that's probably a good thing.

This will never happen. ISPs don't run the internet. Carrier-class, international enterprises do, and there's quite a few tier-1 and many tier-2 providors. So if your ISP does this all you need to do is switch to a different ISP. If an ISP influences a carrier, then you just need to find an ISP that peers with a different carrier.

ISP owners will never want to be the first one to implement this. If they ALL did it then it would be great (for them, not us) but noone is going to take that first step and risk losing millions of customers. Look at all those situations in that first post. Do you think someone would have any customers after those things happened?

PS. The internet (and all telecommunications) in America is not government regulated. This is why 768/128 DSL costs $50/mo whereas many European countries have 10Mb fiber for the same price. It's "regulated" by non-profit organizations like ICANN, ARIN, etc which try to keep the playing field level.