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FCC Commissioner Warns of Destructive FCC Policies
bugsy writes "Discrimination, Closed Networks and the Future of Cyberspace... Just over a month ago, Karl Auerbach asked, Is the Internet Dying?. Today, Commissioner Michael J. Copps, of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in a speech at the New America Foundation, is asking the very same question, 'Is The Internet As We Know It Dying?' and warning about FCC policies that damaged media now threatening the Internet. Coincidence?! Here is CircleID's report on these Remarks by Michael J. Copps, Federal Communications Commissioner: The Beginning of The End of the Internet? Discrimination, Closed Networks, and the Future of Cyberspace."
The article makes repeated, general forecasts of "doom and gloom", but does not mention any specific pending decisions that might threaten the Internet. What are these threats?
"They redundantly repeated themselves over and over again incessantly without end ad infinitum" -- ibid.
I think the net reflects, to a great degree, the expectations of its users. I can remember back when there was no spam, Usenet was truly useful, and worms and viruses were exceedingly rare. The barrier to entry for the net was *very* high. Because of this, users tended to be participants more than observers.
As useful as the web is, it ushered in wave after wave of people whose prior experience with visual media was television. They bypassed the usual education of net.culture that one previously received by participating, as well as the ethical and practical lessons given by one's school or organization (and enforced by one's local surly sysadmin).
Now that people *expect* the net to be "television that you can click on", I think they are more likely to accept without complaint the commercialization and concentration of power that occurs with traditional broadcast media. Those of us who try to take a stand against this trend now seem outdated at best, radical kooks at worst.
.... news at 11!
If you do a Google Search for "death of the internet predicted", it returns over 533000 results. Now we add some more.
-ez
It may not be dying, but there seems to be a good number of powerful entrenched interests working to kill it.
Threats I see are things like the parasite and adware companies that are trying to install software on machines to either control or influence purchases.
Ad blocking and porn blocking software also poses a threat. The deal here is that the ad blockers have the choice of which ads to block. Already you are seeing situations where an advertiser reaches "terms" with an ad blocking company to let their ads through.
The number of paid listings on search engines in relation to free listings is growing.
When things like parasiteware and adblockers move from the desktop (where the user has some control) to routers where businesses control access, things get very scary.
Big media doesn't like all of these blogs stealing their thunder. Academic circles are incensed at all the commercial sites popping up everywhere and want to create little circles of their own.
Personally, I think most of the interests balance each other, but technologies like parasites and net partitioning need to be monitored closely and are likely to require regulation.