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Skriven 2006-05-09 14:37:12 av Alan Hess
Ärende: net neutrality in danger?
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http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bal-op.internet09may09,0,4559120
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From the Baltimore Sun
Proposed rule changes would tangle the Web


By Michael Socolow

May 9, 2006

Congress wants to change the Internet.

This is news to most people because the major news media have not actively
pursued the story. Yet both the House and Senate commerce committees are
promoting new rules governing the manner by which most Americans receive the
Web. Congressional passage of new rules is widely anticipated, as is President
Bush's signature. Once this happens, the Internet will change before your eyes.

The proposed House legislation, the Communications Opportunity, Promotion and
Enhancement Act (COPE), offers no protections for "network neutrality."

Currently, your Internet provider does not voluntarily censor the Web as it
enters your home. This levels the playing field between the tiniest blog and
the most popular Web site.

Yet the big telecom companies want to alter this dynamic. AT&T and Verizon have
publicly discussed their plans to divide the information superhighway into
separate fast and slow lanes. Web sites and services willing to pay a toll will
be channeled through the fast lane, while all others will be bottled up in the
slower lanes. COPE, and similar telecom legislation offered in the Senate, does
nothing to protect the consumer from this transformation of the Internet.

The telecoms are frustrated that commercial Web sites reap unlimited profits
while those providing entry to your home for these companies are prevented from
fully cashing in. If the new telecom regulations pass without safeguarding net
neutrality, the big telecom companies will be able to prioritize the Web for
you. They will be free to decide which Web sites get to your computer faster
and which ones may take longer - or may not even show up at all.

By giving the telecoms the ability to harness your Web surfing, the government
will empower them to shake down the most profitable Web companies. These
companies will sell access to you, to Amazon.com, Travelocity.com and even
BaltimoreSun.com, etc. What if these companies elect not to pay? Then, when you
type in "amazon.com," you might be redirected to barnesandnoble.com, or your
lightning-quick DSL Internet service might suddenly move at horse-and-buggy
speed.

It might appear that the direct ramifications of this bill are somewhat
obscure. Why should you care, if your Internet fee isn't altered? Or if your
Web surfing will (possibly) be only minimally disrupted? (The telecoms
understand that completely barring access to certain sites - especially the
most popular ones - would be counterproductive.)

You should care because any corporate restriction on information gathering
directly counters the original purpose of the World Wide Web.

"Universality is essential to the Web," says its inventor, Tim Berners-Lee. "It
loses its power if there are certain types of things to which you can't link."

If calling up the Web site of your favorite political commentator takes far
longer than surfing to a commercial site, the new laws will have a direct
impact on the Web's democratic utility. The proposed laws also facilitate
future steps toward corporate censorship. Do you think that the telecoms, under
the proposed regulations, would make it easy to visit the Web sites of their
disgruntled - or possibly striking - employees?

The proposed new rules have received surprisingly sparse media coverage. The
new laws have economic, political and social ramifications. There are several
explanations for the silence.

The most probable is simply that because the laws have strong bipartisan
support in both houses of Congress, they do not appear particularly newsworthy.
COPE has been promoted vigorously in the House by both Texas Republican Joe L.
Barton and Illinois Democrat Bobby L. Rush. While a few legislators are
attempting to preserve net neutrality - most notably Democratic Rep. Edward J.
Markey of Massachusetts and Republican Sen. Olympia J. Snowe of Maine - they
are clearly outnumbered.

The history of American telecommunications regulation does not offer a
promising model for the future of net neutrality. In the late 1800s, Congress
approved of Western Union, America's telegraph monopoly, censoring the
Associated Press. The 1934 Communications Act resulted in political discussion
over the national airwaves being tightly moderated by CBS and NBC.

Most telecom laws are sold to the public as the "natural evolution" of
communications technology. Yet there is no truly natural evolution to our
telecommunications laws. Only very rarely is regulation completely ordained by
physics or technological limits. More commonly, it emerges from the political
process. This is news to many Americans unaware of their own media history.

Many people believe the Internet's decentralized structure guarantees that no
company or oligopoly could control it. Internet censorship - whether by
corporate or state interests - simply sounds impossible. Yet not only is it
theoretically possible, but the history of telecommunications regulation tells
us it is probable. By the time the telecoms start changing what you see on your
screen, it will be too late to complain.

Michael Socolow is an assistant professor of communication and journalism at
the University of Maine. His e-mail is michael.socolow@umit.maine.edu.

Copyright + 2006, The Baltimore Sun | Get Sun home delivery
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