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QuoteRight now, your Internet company doesn't get to choose which websites open quickly on your computer. They can't decide that Google will open more quickly than Yahoo, or that the website of a company they own will open more quickly than a small business competitor. That's because of Net Neutrality--the rule that's been in place since the Internet was created that says Internet service providers can't discriminate between websites.
Dominant telephone and cable companies (like AT&T, Verizon, BellSouth, Comcast, and Time Warner) want to permanently eliminate Net Neutrality so they can put tollbooths on the Internet and prioritize sites that pay them the most. They've been quite blatant about it--here's what one top executive told the Washington Post:
"William L. Smith, chief technology officer for Atlanta-based BellSouth Corp., told reporters and analysts that an Internet service provider such as his firm should be able, for example, to charge Yahoo Inc. for the opportunity to have its search site load faster than that of Google Inc." (Washington Post, December 1, 2005)
If Google may get outbid for the right to work quickly on people’s computers, one can imagine the fate of small businesses, nonprofit organizations, activist groups, religious groups, and other everyday Internet users that use the Internet to communicate. And in rural areas, where the open Internet allows small businesses and entrepreneurs to make a good living through e-commerce, the end of equal access to the Internet for the little guy means more younger people moving away to find opportunities.
http://www.civic.moveon.org/save_the_internet/
In order for this lobbying system to work, it will also require sites in general to load more slowly (because in order to make one site faster then another, since you cannot speed up it's natural bitrate, you will have to slow down the lower-paying sites). This last sentence was put in by God.
Lilly Satou
Acquired on 2 April 2012
