A disturbing trend with regard to the whole Net Neutrality issue is disinformation. Sites have sprung up around the Internet (many sponsored by phone and cable companies), acting as “astroturf” sites - coalitions that appear to be grass-roots in nature and composed of a “nationwide coalition of Internet users” (HandsOff.org). In reality, they are merely sites that rely on false definitions and don’t answer the questions we have. As you may have seen in Gigi’s post, there is confusion and disinformation revolving around the issue of Net Neutrality.
…the staffer asked whether, if we require broadband network providers not to discriminate in favor of content, applications and services in which they have a financial interest, should we not require the same from search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN? The reasoning goes like this - just like there are two dominant broadband network providers, there are two, maybe three dominant search engines, so shouldn’t the latter be required to be neutral in their searches and sponsored links as well?
The issue isn’t about search engines’ preferential treatment of sponsors. It isn’t about degrading customers’ access speeds to the Internet. It’s not about changing how the Internet gets to your door, and it is definitely not about making it impossible for EMTs to transmit patient information over the Internet. This debate is about whether the phone and cable companies can break the current fabric of the Internet - whether they can look at the packets going over their lines, and block or degrade access based on how much protection money their clients have paid them. It’s as simple as that.
Yet many organizations persist on coloring and blurring the issue at hand. Their overarching claim? They need the extra money to “build the internet of the future”. That’s a very nice phrase - but they’ve already been given $200 billion dollars in tax breaks, over the past 15 years, to build this “Internet of the future”.
Read on (click read more) for a Question-and-Answer session that one site posted - their answers divert your attention from the issues, and urge you to accept flawed definitions and disinformation.
