Microsoft And Time Warner Resume Talks

An anonymous reader writes: "Seems as though Microsoft and Time Warner have come back together at the negotiating table." From the article: "The two companies are focused on combining AOL's Web content with Microsoft's search-engine technology, although other aspects of the talks are sketchy. It isn't clear whether they are considering merging their Internet dial-up businesses, which generate lots of cash, the paper said. The two companies originally began discussions about some sort of Internet deal earlier this year. But the talks stalled in the late summer over a range of issues including technical obstacles and questions about control."

Comments

What?

[E IS mC(Square)]

>>The two companies are focused on combining AOL's Web content with Microsoft's search-engine technology

Okay, there are two unknowns here. Can somebody tell me what is AOL's web content, and which is Microsoft's search engine technology?

Great news!

[jettoki]

The two companies are focused on combining AOL's Web content with Microsoft's search-engine technology... Anything that makes it harder to find "AOL's Web content" is fine by me.

Both are ISPs, though ... that's what's crucial

[almound]

Together they can filter the DNS addresses of a good share of Internet traffic, like both have done already. Here's slashdotters recognizing that TimeWarner did so against www.inforwars.com and against www.prisonplanet.tv:

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=164421&thresho ld=-1&commentsort=1&tid=95&mode=thread&pid=1372760 2#13727627

Alright, supposing for the sake of argument that the Level 3 filtering is just a rivalry between two ISPs ... the point is, the end-result is at least the danger of DNS address filtering no matter how you slice it. Alternatives to mainstream reporting gets squashed by such moves.

As to regulation, a legitimate purpose of government is to prevent such abuse by corporate entities (which have legal rights as "persons" under the law, yet have far greater freedom at the public's expense to acquire wealth than do either you or I). Of course, the fact that government has not done so in the past and has allowed the increase of such abuse means that government will probably not do so in this case.

As usual, we cannot depend upon government to protect us even though it should. So, it becomes important to get the word out to so people to stop subsidizing such abuse by dropping both Microsoft's and Time Warner. For those left without alternatives, isn't that an argument in and of itself to prevent monopolization by these giants?