Vote against COPE.

[icarus]

I can't believe it. The House of Representatives actually passed COPE. This is the equivalent of allowing a business to put up roadblocks and extort money from passerbys.

titti has a really detailed post about this, but here're the nuts and bolts: AT&T and Verizon want to scam the U.S. internet providers for more money by charging for the speed of your connection to their site. Oh? You don't want to pay for the privilege of allowing people to access your site conveniently? Too bad, so sad -- no matter how fast your visitors' internet connections are, your site will run at the speed of sludge.

Nice.

The House of Representatives hasn't thought this through. Who will be able to pay for these fast connections? Well. Who makes tons of money off their sites?

The highly profitable rip-off porn industry.

I believe in the first ammendment, but I don't believe porn sites should be privileged over college research. Or childrens' web spaces. Or news sites.

Have a conservative representative? Help them make the connection between the profitable porn industry and AT&T and Verizon's bid to make money off of it. Tell them to vote no:

http://www.savetheinternet.com/=act


An article on the subject if you'd like more information.

Comments

[mark356.livejournal.com]

How horrible! Thanks for the link-- keeping the internet as accessible as it is, even if it was never really free, is hugely important, and I don't look forward to having any site that can't afford ransom fees load at dial-up speed (ugh!), so I'm glad to be able to do something, even if just a little.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

When I pick up the phone at my house, my call goes through just as quickly as when I call from the office. Apply this legislation to telephone lines and we could expect delays waiting for a clear line when we call from home because we'd have to pay a fee for "fast" telephone service.

Free/not free is deceptive. We're talking about equal access.

Icarus

[florahart]

Not to mention, do you think there's really any chance .gov sites won't be exempt?

Propaganda, much?

[dingdongdevious.livejournal.com]

Ok, I'm kind of confused. According to Wikipedia, it seems that COPE actually promotes network neutrality?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Communications_Opportunity%2C_Promotion_and_Enhancement_Act_of_2006
Has anyone actually read the real bill?

[dingdongdevious.livejournal.com]

Also, this site (http://handsoff.org/hoti_docs/aboutus/) is supposedly supporting the bill, but it seems to be talking about something completely different than what "Save the Internet" is talking about. I feel like the whole story isn't being told by either side and that the only way to take a good view of this is to read the actual bill (http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=109_cong_bills&docid=f:h5252ih.txt.pdf). It's kind of long . . . but if I have the time, I think I'll look into it, and I think others should too before making judgements.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Good. You do that.

[brashley46.livejournal.com]

I just skimmed that bill; it does not seem to have anything to do with whether AT&T or any other provider can charge for access to my self-hosted Internet site in Toronto; I fail to see any provision for them not to, however, which may be the point.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

The think won't open for me, it just freezes.

Usually if someone wants to hide something really dirty they hide it in a bill called "Save The Widows And Orphans" hoping the name alone will carry it.

Icarus

[brashley46.livejournal.com]

It's a PDF. You have Acrobat Reader or some such utility linked to your browser?

There's lots of stuff about cable operators getting Federal franchises for the areas they operate in or wish to, and about non-discrimination in provision of access to services, and about how VOIP providers would be compessed to provide access to 911 services ... which makes me wonder how in Hades Skype is supposed to do that? ... but the only connection I can make to what the Free the Internet web site is talking about is that the practice is not strictly prohibited.

[brashley46.livejournal.com]

Compelled, dammit.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I usually can open PDFs. Hmph.

Where previously the practice had been prohibited. Here's an article on the subject (http://telephonyonline.com/regulatory/news/bell_internet_coalitiion_042406/): "the Net neutrality issue is a rare case in which government regulation is required to ensure a "free marketplace of ideas."

Icarus

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

So I looked into it. That file won't open for me for some reason, but I managed to find an article that delved into the issue.

Both sides are over-simplifying a complicated bit of legislation.

What we're talking about here is the Republican bogeyman, deregulation. This is usually viewed as a positive by most conservatives. But here a number of conservative organizations that use the internet to deseminate free information and do outreach recognize the consequences of allowing currently prohibited gateway fees: reduced access.

Originally the internet was primarily used by the Department of Defense (they designed the system of "packet" encryption currently in use) and some universities. There wasn't the kind of traffic we see now and the military had every reason to prevent additional fees.

The question is how the internet is going to be treated, as a premium service like cable with variable fees collected by AT&T and Verizon, or if it's going to be treated like telephone service with equal access for all.

The current legislation eliminates protections and regulation and allows the collection of fees and variable service levels. We don't want this. Livejournal will be affected, as well as my website, and U.S.-based archives. A lot of the free content that we've come to take for granted will be discouraged.

Now some people are against any regulation of the internet. They don't recognize that regulating AT&T's greedy little paws might be a good thing. There are implications here though. Once you regulate one aspect of the internet, it does become easier to regulate others. But the main thing web owners have in their favor is massive quantity of content available on the net. It's far, far easier to control content by pricing it out of reach than it is to pursue countless little free sites.

Icarus

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Here's the article from the Washington Post, and you can't get more credible than that (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/07/AR2006060702108.html?referrer=emailarticle).

It's time for you to stop buying the obfuscation and support Net Neutrality.

Icarus

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

The bill before congress allows AT&T and Verizon to charge gateway fees. I'll check your link but remember wikis can be way off. The one on Tibet is amazingly bad, written by their conquerers from China. A number of Tibetans are challenging the factual accuracy of that page but it takes time to get these things fixed.

I've heard about this from pretty reputable sources. From MoveOn.org and many others. I seriously doubt they've neglected to read the bill.

Icarus

[jaig.livejournal.com]

I've been reading this for forever, but this is strictly confined to US internet providers, right?

That's massively- genius of them, actually. If only it was the nice sort of genius.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

If I read this right, it would affect any site you access in the U.S. So, for example, Fiction Alley.org. Or the Restricted Section.

Icarus

[jaig.livejournal.com]

Or basically three fourths of the sites I access. D:

That's incredibly selfish.

[dkwilliams.livejournal.com]

We've been talking about this at work because we've been worried about how it would affect us. I work for the University of Georgia, College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. We manage 150+ websites across the state for the county extension agents, 4H, urban agriculture, etc. We also host a nation-wide web site called DDDI (digital data imaging) - basically, the county agent takes a digital picture of a plant or a bug and uploads it to a site where experts can examine it and make a diagnosis, which is also part of the system to watch for agroterrorism. The state had been using its own internet service, Peachnet, but that is being phased out because dear old Bellsouth convinced the state government they could do it cheaper and cover more of the state. And yes, if this goes through, they could charge us the gatekeeper fees to fast-lane our sites, although they could equally give us a free-pass. (Anyone want to take bets on which they choose?)