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Eric Schmidt on Net Neutrality
GillBates0 writes "Google's CEO Eric Schmidt has written an open letter to the Google user community asking them to speak out on the issue of net neutrality. The official Google Blog has a blurb on this as well. From the letter: 'In the next few days, the House of Representatives is going to vote on a bill that would fundamentally alter the Internet. That bill, and one that may come up for a key vote in the Senate in the next few weeks, would give the big phone and cable companies the power to pick and choose what you will be able to see and do on the Internet ... Creativity, innovation and a free and open marketplace are all at stake in this fight.'"
They lay their cables on public property, with the consent of the government, on the condition that they provide a public service to all people equally... and now they're being ALLOWED to violate that? How can Congress justify that? Obviously they're is getting some cheddar for it, but don't they usually PRETEND they aren't?
Creativity, innovation, a couple billion dollars in Google stock and a free and open marketplace are all at stake in this fight.
If there is a big enough time gap in passing on packets, then it is effectively blocked.
Just a Tuna in the Sea of Life
Now if only they linked this to the front page. Google should leverage its net presence to spread the word to the ignorant masses.
If this signature is witty enough, maybe somebody will like me.
Clearly only China/Google should have the power to dictate what people can and can't see on the internet.
Perhaps I have a misunderstanding of the bill, but I don't believe telecom companies will be able to stop a company's website from being seen
No, they'll just say that the bandwidth expenses "need to be paid" and they'll only be able to give them, with their "limited resources", 1K/sec.
... In Washingtonpost. To quote the first few lines Congress is about to cast a historic vote on the future of the Internet. It will decide whether the Internet remains a free and open technology fostering innovation, economic growth and democratic communication, or instead becomes the property of cable and phone companies that can put toll booths at every on-ramp and exit on the information superhighway.
At the center of the debate is the most important public policy you've probably never heard of: "network neutrality."
Speak out, they'll probably start tracking all my phone calls...
-- www.globaltics.net
Political discussion for a new world
"Net Neutrality" is used to describe the notion that the network should be neutral and unbiased to all all traffic. That is, an ISP should not be partial towards or throttle traffic just because it may not be in their best interests to forward it.
As usual, the Wikipedia entry on Net Neutrality is pretty informative. The opening line reads: "Network neutrality is the ideal that network designs and operators should not discriminate between network applications." which sums up the issue pretty neatly.
Hence "Net Neutrality" is a _good_ thing, but it is confusing when people refer to the "Net Neutrality Bill" because what the bill actually proposes is the opposite, which often seems to be the case nowadays...kinda like Doublespeak.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
I live in a 3rd world African country where 60% of the population has never owned a Telephone and never even heard of the Internet (our Minister of Communications being one of them). Laws are written at the whim of our monopoly telecoms provider and anything and everything that can be done to increase profit and decrease expense IS done. A law like this being passed in the US would almost certainly be copied here, which would be a bad thing for me. So I ask this of all Americans, with tears in my baby blue eyes, please dont let your government screw you over again. Stop them, before they stop me!
Slashdot is a friendly crowd in terms of google's view that NetNeutrality is important.
So lets say your the one of those friendlies reading this posting. You're sitting there thinking to yourself yeah I like this idea of Net Neutrality, and I think congress should support Net Neutrality. Now ask yourself this, did your write your congressman? .
If your answer is yes stop reading this post now.
So why haven't you? Sure it'd be best to write a real letter, and bravo if you decide to do that. But if, like me, you're just too damned lazy, submit and electronic carbon copy one that's linked from the article. It's really not that hard, and these things really do work if enough people submit them. Just ask the Parents Television Council, the nice people who convinced the FCC to fine any broadcaster who doesn't conform to their censorship standards. They did that by setting up a nice simple website to send electronic complaints to the FCC with a few clicks.
Write your damned congressman!
-Mark
HR 5273