Is This True?

Lil Pun · Jun 11, 2006

I received this letter in an email from eBay:

Net Neutrality and the eBay Community: A Call to Action

Dear,

As you know, I almost never reach out to you personally with a request to get involved in a debate in the U.S. Congress. However, today I feel I must.

Right now, the telephone and cable companies in control of Internet access are trying to use their enormous political muscle to dramatically change the Internet. It might be hard to believe, but lawmakers in Washington are seriously debating whether consumers should be free to use the Internet as they want in the future.

The phone and cable companies now control more than 95% of all Internet access. These large corporations are spending millions of dollars to promote legislation that would divide the Internet into a two-tiered system.

The top tier would be a "Pay-to-Play" high-speed toll-road restricted to only the largest companies that can afford to pay high fees for preferential access to the Net.

The bottom tier -- the slow lane -- would be what is left for everyone else. If the fast lane is the information "super-highway," the slow lane will operate more like a dirt road.

Today's Internet is an incredible open marketplace for goods, services, information and ideas. We can't give that up. A two lane system will restrict innovation because start-ups and small companies -- the companies that can't afford the high fees -- will be unable to succeed, and we'll lose out on the jobs, creativity and inspiration that come with them.

The power belongs with Internet users, not the big phone and cable companies. Let's use that power to send as many messages as possible to our elected officials in Washington. Please join me by clicking here right now to send a message to your representatives in Congress before it is too late. You can make the difference.

Thank you for reading this note. I hope you'll make your voice heard today.

Sincerely,

Meg Whitman
President and CEO
eBay Inc.
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rimrocker · Jun 11, 2006

Can't vouch for the email, but the issue is out there...

http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/06/09/newmark.internet/index.html

Commentary: Keep the Internet neutral, fair and free

By Craig Newmark
Special to CNN

Editor's note: Craig Newmark is the founder and customer service representative of craigslist.org, an online community that helps people find jobs, places to live or other services unique to their city. In 2005, Time magazine named him one of America's most influential people.

Mike McCurry presents an opposing viewpoint in an accompanying commentary.

(CNN) -- Most Americans believe that if you play fair and work hard, you'll get ahead. But this notion is threatened by legislation passed Thursday night by the U.S. House of Representatives that would allow Internet service providers to play favorites among different Web sites.

Here's a real world example that shows how this would work. Let's say you call Joe's Pizza and the first thing you hear is a message saying you'll be connected in a minute or two, but if you want, you can be connected to Pizza Hut right away. That's not fair, right? You called Joe's and want some Joe's pizza. Well, that's how some telecommunications executives want the Internet to operate, with some Web sites easier to access than others. For them, this would be a money-making regime.

Next stop is the Senate. If this becomes law, your Yahoo Inc. e-mail account could operate more slowly, unless Yahoo ponies up big bucks to the major telecommunication companies that bring the Internet into your home. By the same token, your craigslist classifieds (I'm the Craig from craigslist) could grind to a halt, unless my company pays up. This is not fair.

Telecommunication companies already control the pipes that carry the Internet into your home. Now they want control which sites you visit and how you experience them. They would provide privileged access for themselves and their preferred partners while charging other businesses for varying levels of service.

But why change a good thing? Right now, the Internet is a level playing field for everyone. The wonky term for this is "Net neutrality." When the Internet is neutral, everyone can use it, just like everyone can use public roads or airwaves. All businesses on the Internet get an equal shot at success.

Here's how Susan Crawford, a professor of cyberlaw and intellectual property at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York City, puts it:

"Think of the pipes and wires that you use to go online as a sidewalk. The question is whether the sidewalk should get a cut of the value of the conversations that you have as you walk along? The traditional telephone model has been that the telephone company doesn't get paid more if you have a particularly meaningful call -- they're just providing a neutral pipe."

That's the gist of the issue. The telecom executives tell us that they can be trusted to play fair to let all companies, and not just their paying partners, be equally accessible from homes everywhere. But some of these executives have admitted that they intend to cheat.

William L. Smith, the chief technology officer for Atlanta-based BellSouth Corp., recently told the Washington Post that BellSouth should, for example, be able to charge Yahoo Inc. for the opportunity to have its search site load faster than that of Google Inc. or vice versa. "If I go to the airport, I can buy a coach standby ticket or a first-class ticket," Smith said. "In the shipping business, I can get two-day air or six-day ground."

In my view, executives like Smith forget that they get the use of public resources, like the airwaves and public rights of way, on which they have built their businesses and made a lot of money. As such, they shouldn't be able to squeeze out some Web sites in favor of others. This would be a betrayal of the public trust.

You, the consumer, should be able to choose which sites you want to visit without the telecommunications companies interfering. What it really comes down to is this: The telecommunications executives say we should trust them to provide a level playing field of service, but can they be trusted to play fair?

You already know the answer. If not, ask your repair guy why he didn't show up when promised or consider why the telecom companies block some high-tech services from reaching your cell phone as their own services flourish, as reported recentlyexternal link by Walter Mossberg in the Wall Street Journal. Or how about the fake grass-roots Web sites, such as Hands off the Internetexternal link, the telecom industry has set up to support its cause? Is that the height of honesty?

It seems to me that many telecom execs have a deep investment in "truthiness," where they make claims about this or that thing without bothering to support those claims with facts. Perhaps the clearest example of this behavior is when they say that keeping the Net neutral, as it is now, involves more government intervention and regulation, when really the opposite is true.

So let's keep the Net as it is now: Neutral, fair and free. If you care about this issue, please visit Save the Internetexternal link and write to Congress.
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krosfyah · Jun 11, 2006

I saw a new segment on NBC last week about this as well. Really crappy. Its funny how the Internet providers are currently in business because the current Internet model blew up and now they want to change that water down the very thing that got them here.

nyquil82 · Jun 11, 2006

Yes, it's true.

The CEO of Ebay is a woman.

Xenochimera · Jun 11, 2006

sadly it is, it will totally affect online gaming community, those b*stard.

DaDakota · Jun 11, 2006

Xenochimera said:

sadly it is, it will totally affect online gaming community, those b*stard.
Click to expand...

Nah, it will only effect Ebay and sites that use a large bandwidth, they will have to pay more for their usage, it won't effect us at all.

Read the rebuttal in the CNN link above.

Sounds plausable to me.

DD

rimrocker · Jun 11, 2006

DaDakota said:

Nah, it will only effect Ebay and sites that use a large bandwidth, they will have to pay more for their usage, it won't effect us at all.

Read the rebuttal in the CNN link above.

Sounds plausable to me.

DD
Click to expand...

Slippery Slope.

Yonkers · Jun 12, 2006

I'm still on the fence about this because I see both sides of it.

Those arguing against tiered-Internet seem to forget that we have tiered everything else in America - airplanes, tollways, etc. They're acting as if tiered-Internet is un-American. And since voice and video are very much 'here' and they do technically work better if they're prioritized, it would make sense to be able to prioritize them. Plus, the less government regulations the better, IMHO.

On the other hand, the Internet has worked well the way it is. And we technically do have enough bandwidth already but it's the telco's who are limiting our bandwidth and then turning around and saying that consumers don't have enough bandwidth. If Korea and Japan can do it, why can't we. And the thought of charging Google and Ebay more, for end-users to have better access to their sites, is pretty stupid. Google and Ebay already pay for their bandwidth. If you want to charge them more for bandwidth then do so. And if you want to charge end-users more for bandwidth then do so. But don't prioritize a company's traffic based on how much their competitors are willing to pay you.

What I find pretty funny is that Google, et al, are unwilling to allow the same regulations applied to them. One Congressman suggested that tiered policies apply to Google too. That means that they can't move a search result higher up because some company paid them more money. They would have to give all companies equal access to search results. Of course they argued that this is 'different'.

rhadamanthus · Jun 12, 2006

Good link for information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality

Some cnn commentaries (both sides)

http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/06/09/newmark.internet/index.html?section=cnn_topstories

http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/06/09/mccurry.internet/index.html

krosfyah · Jun 12, 2006

The tread title sucks, btw.

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