Suprise Suprise

The recent vote from the U.S. House of Representatives is bad news for the future of the Internet. The proposed revision to the currently debated Act would have helped to ensure the neutrality of the Internet, but alas it was voted down. Even large companies such as Google, Amazon, and Ebay are very concerned about the impact the Act will have. The old communication giants and other entities fighting against Internet neutrality don't necessarily like these new upstart companies (such as Google), and there is no doubt that in the future anti-competitive measures could be used against Google and other companies such as Ebay or Amazon.

The creator of the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee warned that this could be the beginning of a "dark age" for the Internet.

Internet Neutrality - Free Market Issues

Some people argue that the U.S. government should pass the bills which the big telecommunication firms are pushing. They actually propose this on the basis of a "free market".

This absurd. These companies are clearly not satisfied with putting their product out on the "free market". The free market, as it is now, has allowed grass-roots companies to form and take away their marketshare.

The fact that these big companies are lobbying government to pass repressive laws in order to try to get the upper hand shows that these big corporations are actually afraid of a free market. Because a free market would challenge their unquestioned dominance.

The concept of "free market" is inseperable from the libertarian principle of freedom from government meddling. And yet these big telecommunications corporations are proposing to use government force to "ensure" that we have a "free market".

A free market is about competition and companies out-manouevering their competition by offering a better product and better service. Allowing the market to be rigged through the use of repressive laws is not what a "free market" is about.

I wish people would stop using the term "free market" when they are unwilling to deal with the realities of what "free" really means (in terms of having a playing field free of artificially imposed obstructions).

Can monopolies form in a free market? Yes, technically. Are they likely to survive long? No. A long standing monopoly is a sign that the market may not really be as free as once thought. Monopolies usually survive on circumventing the freedom of the market, unless of course all competition falls on its own nose (which is rarer than you may think). The neutrality of the Internet is being threatened right now because companies are posturing in order to try to make U.S. law play into their schemes to monopolize the Internet.

Internet Neutrality

One of the foremost aspects of the Internet as we know it is that it is neutral. By this I mean that it is free in the sense of being independant from any particular governing agency. It exists as a free medium that can be used in many different ways by many different groups.

Tim Berners-Lee (who invented the technology of the World Wide Web) has said that the neutrality of the Internet is "essential to our society". He goes on to state that "It is the basis of a fair competitive market economy. It is the basis of democracy, by which a community should decide what to do."

Unfortunately, though, this neutrality of the Internet is highly endangered. Two votes are going to happen in the near future. One is in the U.S. House of Representatives, and the other is in the Senate. They could have major ramifications on the control that phone and cable companies can exert on the Internet. One such particular company is AT&T. These monopolies are essentailly lobbying to get control to say who gets access to high-speed pipes on the Internet, and also which particular content gets priority. This has obvious ramifications, but the worst ones are possibly the subtle but dangerous changes it would make to the culture of the Internet. It would change the very environment of the Internet, and could quickly polarize things and cause a very unfair and manipulative playing field.

The First Amendment principle which has always so strongly applied to the Internet could potentially be squashed out due to commercial interests. If you are an American citizen and feel you would like to find out more about this, or if you would like to take action, please go here.

This is an important reminder that the freedom we have traditionally enjoyed in the Western Hemispehre will not be maintained by status quo. There are too many forces working against it. It needs to be asserted and defended.