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Commercialization Of The Internet
Anonymous Coward writes "For those anti-corporate tech-heads out there, Excite is running an article about how companies are taking over the net through the use of the courts, trademarks and deep pockets.
From the article, 'Big corporations have a significant and growing presence on the Internet. In March, just 14 companies controlled 60 percent of users' online time, down from 110 companies two years earlier, Jupiter Media Metrix found.'
A final thought from the article,
'This is the last remaining communications medium that allows the small person to participate,' said Barbara Simons, past president of the Association for Computing Machinery. 'To lose that would be a great tragedy.'"
What's very interesting is many of these companies own the means to connect to the Internet
and obtained that exclusive ownership through rather nefarious means. A former Southworstern Bell friend used to brag about how the entire provisioning platform for CLEC/DSL providers to issue orders thru SWBell was a single fax machine (set on the slowest receive speed, and frequently out of paper for days).
No phone orders. No electronic order system. No email requests. One crummy fax machine that was usually down. "Golly Mrs. Jones, I can't understand why your CLEC DSL provider can't get you service. Southworstern Bell would gladly get it for you in a few days if you'd switch your order!"
On my home turf, USWorst beat the colocation orders by stuffing hundreds of desk job folks into recently relocated quarters inside the central office. Imagine freezing your butt off next to a 5ESS switch just so some higher up exec can keep the CLECs out of town. "Sorry, no space left in the central office... wish we could help ya!"
Top that off with their hit squad that serviced cities like Minneapolis, Des Moines, Omaha, etc. that "oopsed" on ISP dedicated lines. "Gosh, did you say that T1 you've been runnin was supposed to be ESF/B8ZS? Golly... looks like it's AMI/D4 now. Guess you'll have to reorder your uplink connection... should be about 35 days by the time we get to fixin it. I could flip the little switch on the CSU/DSU, but hey, I'd be breakin the rules!" (Apparently payola is expected or else it's 'company policy' for you)
I had everything from lost orders (more than 50%), competitive poaching (request a quote to a customer location and discover USWorst sales people getting the lead passed on), intentional interference with hunt groups (killing hunt #2 out of 200+ lines), fraudulant billing putting companies from other states onto my bill (and being told if I didn't pay it by 5 PM, I'd be shut down), etc.
Only the city's top law firm, vicious attorneys and nonstop publicity about their illegal aggression kept us above water. Our competitors who couldn't afford $50K/month for legal fees to combat the LEC? They didn't last long at all.
Combine that with oversight from our elected officials like Louisiana's Tauzin (an EFF watchlist critter and highly effective open Internet killer), and there should be no surprise. We've demanded a spam-favoring Baby Bell monopoly Internet through our votes.
Don't like it? Don't elect this funny speakin' Bell lacky crap.
*scoove*