For years, Internet advocates have warned of the doomsday scenario that will play out on Monday: Google and Verizon will announce a deal that the New York Times reports "could allow Verizon to speed some online content to Internet users more quickly if the content's creators are willing to pay for the privilege."
The deal marks the beginning of the end of the Internet as you know it. Since its beginnings, the Net was a level playing field that allowed all content to move at the same speed, whether it's ABC News or your uncle's video blog. That's all about to change, and the result couldn't be more bleak for the future of the Internet, for television, radio and independent voices.
How did this happen? We have a Federal Communications Commission that has been denied authority by the courts to police the activities of Internet service providers like Verizon and Comcast. All because of a bad decision by the Bush-era FCC. We have a pro-industry FCC Chairman who is terrified of making a decision, conducting back room dealmaking, and willing to sit on his hands rather than reassert his agency's authority. We have a president who promised to "take a back seat to no one on Net Neutrality" yet remains silent. We have a congress that is nearly completely captured by industry. Yes, more than half of the US congress will do pretty much whatever the phone and cable companies ask them to. Add the clout of Google, and you have near-complete control of Capitol Hill.
A non-neutral Internet means that companies like AT&T, Comcast, Verizon and Google can turn the Net into cable TV and pick winners and losers online. A problem just for Internet geeks? You wish. All video, radio, phone and other services will soon be delivered through an Internet connection. Ending Net Neutrality would end the revolutionary potential that any website can act as a television or radio network. It would spell the end of our opportunity to wrest access and distribution of media content away from the handful of massive media corporations that currently control the television and radio dial.
So the Google-Verizon deal can be summed up as this: "FCC, you have no authority over us and you're not going to do anything about it. Congress, we own you, and we'll get whatever legislation we want. And American people, you can't stop us.
This Google-Verizon deal, this industry-captured FCC, and the way this is playing out is akin to the largest banks and the largest hedge funds writing the regulatory policy on derivative trading without any oversight or input from the public, and having it rubber stamped by the SEC. It's like BP and Halliburton ironing out the rules for offshore oil drilling with no public input, and having MMS sign off.
Fortunately, while they are outnumbered, there are several powerful Net Neutrality champions on Capitol Hill, like Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Henry Waxman, Jay Rockefeller, Ed Markey, Jay Inslee and many others. But they will not be able to turn this tide unless they have massive, visible support from every American who uses the Internet --- whether it's for news, email, shopping, Facebook, Twitter --- whatever. So stop what you're doing and tell them you're not letting the Internet go the way of Big Oil and Big Banks. The future of the Internet, and your access to information depends on it.
Author's note: Notice how a company can change their tune in the name of profitmaking. From Google in 2006: "Today the Internet is an information highway where anybody - no matter how large or small, how traditional or unconventional - has equal access. But the phone and cable monopolies, who control almost all Internet access, want the power to choose who gets access to high-speed lanes and whose content gets seen first and fastest. They want to build a two-tiered system and block the on-ramps for those who can't pay."
Follow Josh Silver on Twitter: www.twitter.com/freepress
Lowell Peterson: Verizon and Google: The Deal of the Titans
The world's biggest media companies want to define how people will get content over the Internet. While money talks, independent content creators will take a walk.
Google, Verizon Said to Strike Deal on Web Traffic Rules - Bloomberg
Source: Google, Verizon near net neutrality plan - Yahoo! News
Reports: Verizon, Google agree to pay tiers for Web use ...
Post Tech - Verizon, Google make net neutrality pact, sources say
Groundbreaking Agreement Between Verizon Wireless and Google to ...
Google and Verizon Team Up for Android Phones - PCWorld
Google & Verizon Announce The Android Deal, Team Up Against 'Apple ...
Google-Verizon deal will put a nail in Net neutrality's coffin
Google-Verizon Deal: The End of the Internet As We Know It
Are alarms over a Google-Verizon Net Neutrality deal overblown?
Network neutrality - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Save the Internet | Join the fight for Internet Freedom
Google denies talks with Verizon to end Net neutrality
Goodbye, Google Wave: a hard software sell (and placeholder risk)
Google Android to Pass IPhone Worldwide by 2012, ISuppli Says
Report: Google Buys Social App Designer, Slide
Google CEO Dishes on Google Wave, Verizon & Social Strategy
Motorola and Verizon working on TV tablet
Google and Verizon Near Deal on Pay Tiers for Web - NYTimes.com
see tahoeblue.wordpress.com
Passive resistance: Everyone stop using the corporate websites and get your fix from independent servers instead. (Yes, that means giving up facebook, twitter, and etcetera.)
Active resistance: Infiltrate the physical location of every major corporate server and take them offline, then delete all of the major websites' files. If you remove all the big boys, the only things left will be the independents. Which was the entire point of the internet anyway.
Now lets see whether or not this post reaches the public.
After the Internet was created it was handed over to private industry for further development. Companies like MCI, UUNet, Sprint and others comprised the backbone of the internet with very little intervention of the parasites in D.C.
Now they are crying that the same parasites beholden to huge banks and corporations be given more authority over private business? I'm not buying it. Google ESPECIALLY want to give as much access to the Internet to as many people as possible. That's how their business model works. Verizon is a different story but we should note they have competitors as big as they are. If they begin restricting access the crowd will shift over to a provider that doesn't "tier" or cap bandwidth. That's the mechanics of the situation.
I also have a problem with some writer calling Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi "champions" in any capacity. These two are war criminals that should be impeached and tried from treason and dealt with accordingly. They both have sold you all out to the big insurance lobby through the Obama-care scam. They all voted for the bailouts of Wall St. criminals and continue the "War of terror" against the people of the middle east.
Could you kindly recommend me a high speed ISP other than Comcast? That can't be answered, because in my area, there isn't one. If they started doing such things, I'd be out of luck. As would many people. Besides, do you REALLY believe that they ALL won't start doing the same thing in a joint effort to gain money? I don't. At least if the government enforces net neutrality you have SOME chance of reversing any idiotic things that they try to do, whereas with these greedy corporations, you're pretty much out of luck (boycotting the internet just isn't feasible, as it's a valuable source of information, as well as the fact that many people depend on it).
If you involve gov't prices will rise.
I dumped Comca$t 2 years ago. I went from an alleged 8meg download speed to a 3meg. It sucked really hard at first, but the snail spam from Comca$t has tripled so I know they're hurting.
Do you have something to add or are you just hear to bash the youth?
@bsegovia. We are paying for ISP's so we can use their cables to reach the internet freely. It's not the other way around. And I believe, we have evolved way beyond to be fooled to think the otherwise.
The only solution consumers have is to use a different system. If one doesnt exist then our demand will create a viable and profitable market and we will see alternatives.
As a disclaimer I do not work for any of these companies nor hold any of their stock.
Ummm, last I looked, we're talking about Verizon partnering with Google to carve out exclusive services on wireless spectrum: the use of the public airwaves. Although governments may license those radio waves to individuals or firms, the rights and responsibilities are recognized around the world as the government's.
You can't find an intro econ textbook that doesn't mention how limited competition (Verizon & AT&T now control most of the cellular service airwaves and 70%+ of the profits) causes higher prices and inferior service. (Sound familiar? Ever heard of cable TV?) Whereas in 2006 Google put on a white hat and proposed rules for parcelling out the airwaves in ways that small firms could compete on quality or price, now they're proposing rules that'd let, for example, Verizon agree with MLB that all over-the-cellular system baseball shows could ONLY be on Verizon. Verizon could strike a deal with MLB and baseball fans would have exactly ONE choice to see their teams.
American businesses like “product differentiation” that allows them to lock in customers, and supposedly “free market” competition keeps everybody honest, prices fair and incentives for new services. Big entrenched monopolies offer none of the above.
Let your Congresscritter know this matters.
Oh sh*t, didn't this already happen?
Perhaps as in the "Great Depression" in the current "Great Recession" we need to start Internet Cooperatives to circumvent the large Corporate influences which will attempt to use Internet accessibility and media to divert our interests to theirs. We need to set these up large cooperatives which have equal status to the Internet involved corporations, not dissimilar to such cooperatives as the Tennessee Valley Authority (http://www.tva.gov/abouttva/history.htm). Persons can join the Internet Cooperatives and have equal access to all websites. Cooperatives work for the people, they are not for profit and break even or put money back into their technology for the benefit of their members. The commercials banks have tried to break credit unions which work under the same principals, and see what happened to the commercial banks? Let's see how creatively tenacious we can be in creating this new Internet Cooperative World, which doesn't include ( as much as possible) commercial interests. It's time we took back our world, its information and our rights.