How Washington Will Shape the Internet

WebHostingGuy writes "As reported by MSNBC, 'The most potent force shaping the future of the Internet is neither Mountain View's Googleplex nor the Microsoft campus in Redmond. It's rather a small army of Gucci-shod lobbyists on Washington's K Street and the powerful legislators whose favor they curry.' The article examines several pieces of legislation and lobbying initiatives which are poised to affect you and your rights online. Topics covered include Net Neutrality, fiber to the home, the Universal Service Fund, codecs, and WiFi bandwidth usage." From the article: "After years of benign neglect, the Federal government is finally involved in the Internet — big time. And the decisions being made over the next few months will impact not just the future of the Web, but that of mass media and consumer electronics as well. Yet it's safe to say that far more Americans have heard about flag burning than the laws that may soon reshape cyberspace."

Comments

Let me hazard a wild wild guess...

[botzi]

.....we won't see ONE permissive regulation. We'll see MANY restrictive regulations. If lawmaking comes to the internet, I for one am looking forward to the next big thing.

Hate to break it to you...

[Nos.]

but the US implying laws on internet usage will not completely change the internet. The rest of the world won't just follow along, and you'll find hi-tech companies moving to companies that are more forgiving to their line of business.

Shallow

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

This article was broad, but shallow. It buys into and repeats a whole lot of common misconceptions. For example, it phrases the net neutrality debate as wanting to charge different prices for "complex" and "simple" data, using VoIP and e-mail as examples. This is completely wrong. This is about charging money to people who are not your network peers for not intentionally slowing down traffic from particular, wealthy, people, groups, or organizations despite the fact that that traffic is otherwise identical to other traffic. Networks 5 peers away want to extort money from google for not intentionally crippling traffic to them and not to MSN search or Yahoo.

They also parrot the whole DRM as an anti-piracy measure. Everyone knows it fails miserably in that area. It is a content access control, so they can use differential pricing using regions and so they can charge you for the same content for different locations and devices. Anyone can point a camcorder at a TV screen and then upload it to the Web or make DVDs. Then, the masses can download it or buy it. What they can't do is easily move music they paid for from their Creative player to their iPod, car stereo, and CD player.

It is pretty sad that marketing dollars can speak loudly enough that even supposed technically competent reporters just spew out the same crap that they have heard over and over again. What ever happened to critical thinking and investigation?

Un huh

[finkployd]

Yet it's safe to say that far more Americans have heard about flag burning than the laws that may soon reshape cyberspace.

Congratulations, this is the single most useless comment in a /. writup this week. It is truly shocking that more Americans have heard about an issue that has existed many times longer longer than the word "cyberspace" than the recent goings on in congress related to the latter.

Yes, more people should be aware of and care about this, but this is a ridiculous way to word it. Also in the news, more people have opinions on school choice than IPv6 adoption. Shocking!

Back to the issue at hand. Let's not delude ourselves into thinking that our elected representatives will have a say in this any more than any other issue. The reshaping of the internet will be done SOLELY by Microsoft, AT&T/SBC, Verizon, Google, Cisco, Amazon, Hollywood, and the usual suspects. They will be writing the laws and casting the votes. There is no reason to even pretend otherwise anymore. Sure they will be be doing this via proxy with the elected representatives, but those reps (almost without exception) have no clue what they are talking about and just repeat the talking points given to them by their corporate masters. These issues will be determined exclusively by how money and favors are allocated.

I know as Americans it feels better to pretend that corruption and corporate ownership are the exceptions in government, but to do so hurts as a nation. EVERY person currently in congress has been bought and sold to a special interest or company (no expections, don't even try to parade your favorite one out and claim them to be virtuous and pure, you are wrong). When it comes down to it, they will ALL vote they way they are told and the opinion of the voters matters not one bit.

Finkployd

Here comes the internet license.

[elucido]

Soon, the internet will be rendered a privilage in which you need a license to access. We've seen it happen with roads, its only a matter of time before it happens to the net. Also prepare for internet taxes.

Honestly, I don't understand how a conservative government can increase the size of government this much, and ask for internet regulations, I mean it does not follow the philosophy at all. Am I the only libertarian here?

When law making comes to the internet, another internet will be invented, just not anytime soon. My advice is, start the planning stages for the next internet, and then when there is the will to bring it forward, bring it forward. Let's just admit once and for all that it must have been Al Gore who gave us the internet, he did not invent it, but he handed it so us. Before that, the masses didnt know what the internet is, and the masses won't know what the next internet us when us geeks invent or find it, hey we mmight already have it.

Re:Here comes the internet license.

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, in this case _some_ legislation is needed: the telcos have a government created monopoly on telecommunications, and they need to be held to Net Neutrality. Anything less leaves us at the mercy of telcos and with no power to fix things.

However, with respect to other things like unenforcable legislation utterly contrary to international law over internet gambling, etc., they need to get a damn clue, or they will screw things up.

I know that I personally have left the Republican party over the idiotic crap they've been pulling for the last eight years or so. They've made it abundantly clear that the law doesn't apply to them, that they're more than willing to rush blindly ahead when sensible people have doubts, and that they're willing to help screw up things like the internet that they have absolutely no understanding of.

Smell this coming for years now

[zogger]

Really...the anything goes wild wild west anarchy internet is a *complete total threat to governments all over the planet and large corporations*. Everything about the current and past model is a threat to them. It's a threat to their rule, (they call it governing but it really is rule-technofuedalism) a threat to their money(your money is their money by default), the way they want power over you politically or economically, etc. All of it. So..apply occam's razor and some extrapolation-what do you think will happen? What this article says-and more.

  It is about inevitable they will slice it up into something that looks like a combo of your cellphone bill and cable TV bill. You'll be seeing a large number of "nets" and be forced into "subscribing" to one or another-think a lot of different closed up walled garden type AOL experiences. And be paying through the nose to go outside that area-or be denied totally. And they'll be completely happy if 95% get herded into their control more, they'll pick off the other 5% at their leisure and when it suits their purposes. No one is completely leet enough to avoid it if they get a notion to mess up your day. No one.