Companies Join Together to Maintain Open Internet

idontneedanickname writes "SiliconValley.com is carrying an article from The Mercury News about the lobbying efforts of companies such as Amazon.com, Microsoft and Walt Disney (yes, you read that right) to stop the FCC from "fundamentally altering the Internet. If that happens, they say, the Internet could evolve into a cable-TV-like system, where providers of high-speed Internet access could steer subscribers toward affiliated Internet sites. The network owners could also limit the types of devices that could be connected to their network, potentially stifling innovation." Printer friendly version of the article is online as well."

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[Burz]

The mentioned companies will acquire broadband infrastructure, and two years from now will be lobbying for the opposite goal.

Interesting fact

[m00nun1t]

Many people might ridicule this - how much control can an ISP really have over their users? Sure, they might provide their own content, but users are smart enough to go their own way, right?

I used to work for a large ISP and we found that a majority of our users thought their ISP connection would stop working if they changed their homepage to something other than us. That's how much power we had over our users - scary.

Kinda makes Microsoft look like the good guys - I feel a divide by zero error coming on! ;)

Re:Interesting fact

[rf0]

In a similar vain. In a previous life I worked as a helpdesk monkey and one day customer rang up and said they wanted to cancel. After doing the normal why thay said they wanted to leave as "They had surfed our internet and wanted to find another one".

It turns out that they had just been browsing of the ISP homepage and not realising they could just type in a URL into the address bar. Once show yahoo (which was the best search engine at the time) they went off happy.

Rus

It makes sense...

[evilviper]

It's quite simple... While these companies may be trying to kill their competiton, by killing off the "open" internet, they certainly are going to fight tooth-and-nail when it looks like someone else might beat them too it.

Think of the way Windows hadn't had any significant changes, until Apple went on full attack. Suddenly, Windows XP got a movie studio, and a new interface.

So, they may want the internet "closed" for their own purposes, but dammed if they'll let someone else do it!

Disney's slap at AOLTW

[DaveOf9thKey]

I get the sense that Disney wants to keep the Internet open because AOL Time Warner controls the pipes to a lot of homes, especially on the broadband market with both Road Runner and AOL Broadband. If the Internet evolves into another cable outlet (deities forbid) and the AOL channel steers people to Time Warner properties, what will happen to the Mickey Mouse stuff?

Disney also happens to own ESPN, and competition among sports web sites is huge.

Re:Internet as Infrastructure

[TopShelf]

In this case, it looks like innovation is starting in the smaller towns and villages. There have been a number of stories lately about small towns building broadband out to each resident. This is a classic example of government providing a public good - it'll be interesting to see how this trend plays out...