1. How Bad Is It?
After last week’s firestorm, we explain in clear terms what’s so wrong with Google and Verizon’s net neutrality vision. Pay attention!
The Internet erupted last week after Google and Verizon proposed a two-page proposal on how to address net neutrality. We'll attempt a cooler-headed approach.
A proposal from Google and Verizon, two strange bedfellows, to reshape net neutrality has drawn tremendous fire from net users who have read quite a bit into the two page document.
One of the problems with this proposal is that it comes from Google, a company that has been so noisy about net neutrality in the past. More on that later.
The suggestions have been lambasted from one end of the Internet to the other. Public Knowledge, a public interest advocacy group, criticized it as, "nothing more than a private agreement between two corporate behemoths, and should not be a template or basis for either Congressional or FCC action. It is unenforceable, and does almost nothing to preserve an open Internet."
Gawker Media's io9 blog went the furthest, declaring that within a few years the Internet would be something akin to the world of "Mad Max" or "The Road."
By 2016, "The public internet is basically overrun with 4Chan-like social networks that run very slowly and are drenched in advertising and spyware. You can watch some TV on the public internet, if you're willing to wait through long 'buffering' times and bad commercials," the site declared.
That's quite a dire vision.
How much of it is true? Let's breathe into a paper bag a few times and take a look.
lol - Jon Praed is a corporate lackey (he fights internet fraud on behalf of primarily corporate customers...one of which was - or still is - Verizon). I do find his spiel in part 2 to be pretty decent...if his law practice starts to decline, he definitely knows how to put out corporate spin. If you read his words carefully...they actually mean nothing more than normal corporate spin (i.e. "The market will take care of it for us, but please don't ask how it would actually happen...just have faith").
I actually am offended by the statement that the consumer expects everything for free. My ISP bill strongly begs to differ with that statement. I actually pay for gated access based on the speed that I want...which has been getting cheaper because of the increased competition in my area...which leads to the *same* internet as any other ISP. What will happen if Verizon creates their own tier of internet? Prices will go up...I'll pay my ISP fee *plus* an access fee to get to the premium tier.
There is *zero* chance that the consumer will end up paying less for a two tier internet. History has taught us this time and time and time again...reduce competition and the consumer always ends up paying more. Jon is either being stupid...or doing his corporate meal ticket a favor by championing their next approach to squeezing more money out existing (or slightly altered) services.
This article by itself is definitely much more extremist then a thorough and preliminary Google / Verizon's proposal.
Cue Google fanboiz in 3...2...1...
*crickets*
I don't find Praed to be impartial or credible, in fact the most credible part of this article was on the final page:
"People will now think of its "don't be evil" motto and laugh."
Fact is companies will do whatever is best for profits. Good and Evil? those are just marketing buzzwords with no real meaning to the shills who spout them.
If I were to tell you that you should send me $100 for my personal use and profit and you get nothing in return would you do it? Of course not. How many written pages of explaining about how this is actually better for you would it take for you to change your mind? This is what Google and Verizon are attempting to do, IMO.
My Open Internet Legislative Proposal:
Section, First: Area of influence.
This legislation would affect all Internet traffic:
1.- having destinations both foreign and domestic.
2.- for which the destination and source of traffic defined in the data packet.
3.- where destination and origins are identified by use of an Internet Protocol address.
5.- of TCP/IP and UDP in nature.
Section, Second: Of the nature of this proposal.
Internet Package Delivery is to be treated as Parcel/Courier mail delivery and is subject to the same liabilities and limitations of rights for both the user and the provider.
Section, Third: The Legislation.
Internet Connection Service is defined herein as being the lease of a TCP/IP address to an end-user and the right to a guaranteed maximum service data-rate with prices agreed upon in the contract between provider and customer. The contract is mutually binding. The provider can reserve the right to change the price models used only when the contract term agreed upon has come to an end. Failure to comply with this shall result in the provider paying the customer a sum equal to the cost the number of days remaining under the breached contract times the local immediate cost of twentyfour (24) hours of connection using dial-up at the maximum baud rates previousy served to the customer by the provider. Failure of the customer to pay the provider as agreed in the contract of service is to be observed as a petition for termination of contract wherein the customer must pay any outstanding dues for the service plus zero (0) cents. No fees can be levied if the provider decides to terminate the contract. No fees can incurr if the provider declines the request for termination of service. The provider is hereby given the right to suspend the service until payment is recieved.
The delivery of this service must be made with no discrimination towards the source or destination of the data.
The opening, analysis and redistribution of data from address not specified by the package will be unlawful trespassing for all private, and public parties without legal warrant.
The service provider and its partners are expected to deliver packets with the highest possible success rate at any given time, with the exception of Acts of God, Natural Disaster or National Emergency.
The provider will be awarded the right to limit TCP/IP baud rates for multi-tiered pricing schemes. Additional services provided such as, but not limited to, IPTV and VoIP, can be priced as desired with consideration taken for fair market practices. These additional paid services shall be of their own nature and have no influence on baud rate limits or the quality of the service provided.
--------------or something like that
OK, so lets think about it...say it gets as bad as everyone thinks it going to get...what is keeping us from just starting a new "internet"? Im sure its not as simple as I'm making it out to be but surly we have measures we can take.
This proposal is requiring transparency is a typical ploy by big business. We are willing to pay the cost of transgression if we are: caught and successfully tried in a court of law. (Big business will expect the profit of non-transparency to pay these costs) Even more despicable is that the cost and onus of monitoring and ensuring compliance by big business rests on the public and the government not big business themselves. It will always be better for the publis interest not to go there in the first place.