Comments on: Net neutrality becomes issue in presidential race

Senator Barack Obama will be asked to answer a question about supporting Net neutrality in an MTV interview on Monday.

[WJeansonne]

Morons.org (a.k.a. Moveon.org) should shut up

Period.

[alflanagan]

Re: MORONS.ORG

Wow!! You just totally changed my whole outlook on Net Neutrality with that incisive, informative post. It's posters like you that raise the dialog on the Internet to a higher level. Thanks!

[bschmidt25]

Net Neutrality

It's pretty obvious that these guys aren't going to police themselves. Anytime I hear one of these guys saying that regulation is not needed, it's pretty safe to say they have some ulterior motives. The move by Comcast last week makes it pretty obvious that these guys shouldn't be trusted. While I'm generally against government regulation of the internet, I really think net neutrality needs to be enforced. Along the same lines, anytime the consumer doesn't have a choice of service, government needs to make sure these providers are on the up and up and promote competition in the marketplace.

[7668]

This IS at least among the top 3 issues we should focus on.

The following is from http://www.savetheinternet.com/blog/
2007/06/05/ed-whitacre-gone-but-not-forgotten/:

Ed Whitacre: Gone But Not Forgotten
AT&T chief Ed Whitacre handed over the keys to his replacement
Randall Stephenson yesterday, but not before giving a rousing
pep talk to fellow executives in the company?s San Antonio
board room.
?There?s a problem. It?s called Net Neutrality,? Whitacre told the
heirs to AT&T?s telecommunications empire. ?Well, frankly, we
say to hell with that. We?re gonna put up some toll booths and
start charging admission.?
* * * * *
Despite claims of poverty whenever pressed to offer better
services, these AT&T execs are privately gloating over more than
$35 billion in gross profits over the last 12 months. Moreover,
Whitacre (and now Stephenson) are pressuring Congress to allow
them to provide privileged Web access to their customers to
companies that pay them a special fee.
* * * * *
?Will Congress let us do it?? Whitacre asks his colleagues. ?You
bet they will ? cuz we don?t call it cashin? in. We call it
?deregulation.??
?Deregulation?: AT&T Code for More Handouts
It?s Whitacre?s brand of ?deregulation? that has left the United
States behind other nations in providing fast, affordable Internet
to more people.
Recent broadband data from the Organization for Economic
Cooperation and Development (OECD) had the U.S. slipping to
15th out of 30 nations in per capita broadband use. Our free-fall
will continue as long as we allow phone and cable companies to
dictate broadband policy in Washington and monopolize
broadband access across the country.
* * * * *
Whitacre remains intent to defy public opinion, funnel cash into
Washington and win over control of the Internet once and for all.
?With all of our generous campaign contributions, I?m quite
certain that Congress will see it our way,? he said during his
farewell speech. ?Who else they gonna listen to? The public?!?"

See also http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/06/05/theres-a-
problem-its-called-net-neutrality/ for partial text. On the same
topic, see http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/27/business/
27cnd-verizon.html?
_r=2&hp=&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1190923320-xJ
+fhyXuhe5GngCtAt7PXA&oref=slogin , via boing boing [from a
post on 9/27/07]:
"Verizon Wireless last week rejected a request last week from the
abortion rights group NARAL (National Abortion Rights Action
League) to send txts over the Verizon network to subscribers
who chose to receive them. . . . saying it had the right to block
?controversial or unsavory? text-messages. . . . . [F]rom NYT
story by Adam Liptak: '[e]ven as dramatic as the adoption of text
messaging for political communication has been in the United
States, we?ve been quite slow compared to the rest of the world,'
said James E. Katz, the director of the Center for Mobile
Communication Studies at Rutgers University. 'It?s important in
political campaigns and political protests, and it has affected the
outcomes of elections.'
Timothy Wu, a law professor at Columbia, said it was possible to
find analogies to Verizon?s decision abroad. 'Another entity that
controls mass text messages is the Chinese government,'
Professor Wu said.
Read the whole article, there's some fascinating history in here
about Western Union blocking 'unsavory' messages back in the
telegraph days."

From http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/
~3/153130837/doj-slams-net-neutra.html : DoJ slams net
neutrality, says all packets not created equal
From http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/agendas/att-may-have-
censored-bands-political-speech-in-the-past-288236.php :
AT&T may have censored bands' political speech more than once
http://www.corporations.org/media
http://www.mediachannel.org/ownership/chart.shtm
http://www.stopbigmedia.com
http://www.monthlyreview.org/301rwm.htm ? note, this article
was first presented in 2000 so presumably summarizes the
situation based on statistics from even earlier; I?d bet money
that, overall, considerable further consolidation has occurred

[wazing]

Will AT&T and Verizon Kill the Internet?

Looks like things might be heating up....
http://www.webwire.com/ViewPressRel.asp?aId=51579