Late last week, ABC News had a show highlighting the latest goings on in the payola investigation conducted by the U.S. Justice Department and now the FCC. Payola is essentially pay-for-play without disclosure on the radio.
Explaining the scenario to my wife got me thinking: Do we have the same concern over payola as we do over net neutrality?
Actually, it's really more like payola in reverse. With traditional payola, record companies pay radio stations to promote their songs: content providers “bribe” distributors. In the absence of net neutrality, ISPs want content providers to pay for access to the end user: distributors “extort” content providers.
Does this description of why we need net neutrality make more sense to people?
How tech supports good policy
Press Release