Feel free to call me cynical after you read this :) In general i am a fan of net neutrality, i think corporate interests (greed for money) will eventual lead to many companies elbowing out smaller or undesireable voices from their large scale networks. on the other hand it is a delicate situation because if a company invests in its own deployment of network infrastructure why are they not allowed to divvy up access however they like? the problem to me is these massive monopolies or even co-opolies (is that a word?) will work for what their best interests are which frequently will result in taking advantage of customers every chance they get. then only after long and tiring government and private investigations, court involvements, watch dog marketing campaigns, etc will there be a "take it easy on the customers" change of attitude (at least enough change to stop the onslaught). The importance of the internet to the world i think means we need to have some regulation on companies involved in connecting the internet. it is not just a little side project/hobby/convenience for people and companies, it is massively critical for large swaths of the population. Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. It is another challenging issue regarding personal rights, including "corporate personal rights", and public good and "public rights". There are many examples of this in history. Freedom, rights, responsibilities, value systems, beliefs, nothing is easy when dealing with a large enough scales. I tend to believe the strong pressure for companies to make money will not result in a better internet overall if significant portions of the internet are unevenly balanced with the sole reason being an advertiser is willing to pay for it. The tight integration of the internet into more and more aspects of our lives is making it more and more an important part of our infrastructure and less and less a convenience/luxury. We need to be careful and having OPEN and FREE public discussions are critically important. I am glad there are non trivial people attending this like the FCC commissioners and Senator Franken and other prominent individuals. The people need to be heard no matter their viewpoint. As for the recent google/Verizon publicity, as far as I know they neither of those companies have the rights to form, enact, or police government regulations. As I understand it they are just making a proposal, which if passed into law by our government would likely go thru tons of revisions during their procedures of creating laws. Wish I could go tonight but I have other commitments already. -----Original Message----- From: tclug-list-bounces at mn-linux.org [mailto:tclug-list-bounces at mn-linux.org] On Behalf Of Ryan Coleman Sent: Thursday, August 19, 2010 11:15 AM To: TCLUG Mailing List Subject: Re: [tclug-list] Net Neutrality hearing in Minnesota I found the guy pushing regulation (or in this case, making the unofficial stance official) today on MPR was way off base. He said that an independent blogger would have no voice without paying money in the proposal by Google and Verizon. In my experience, this is not true; they just won't reap the benefits of people getting their content at the speed which their provider provides. I can afford a 12Mbit/2Mbit line at home now. Cheaper than colocation of my custom server (capacity right now of 7TB, soon 14TB) because I don't have $15,000 to spend on the rack space requirements for the servers plus the monthly colocation costs for 2U to 8U of space. My two bits. -- Ryan On Aug 19, 2010, at 11:01 AM, Erik Mitchell wrote: > Harry, I think that's a very important point to make. There was a > diary on DailyKos about the recent dustup over the Google/Verizon > story: > > http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/8/12/892044/-End-of-the-Internet-As-W e-Know-It! > > In short, it was broadly misreported by folks on the left. The story > looked on the surface like a big corporations doing evil things story > and so it got reported that way. > > In the process, the concept of net neutrality became redefined. Media > outlets were defining it as saying that different content TYPES should > be treated equally, rather than different content providers. > Obviously, if this definition of net neutrality took hold, it would be > bad -- especially in wireless. If you have a minute, read the diary. > The dkos guy does a better job of explaining it than I can. > > My hope is that there are people at this hearing that know what > they're talking about, who will stand up and make a good case. I don't > think more regulation on the internet would be a good thing. However, > I support net neutrality, in that every person's or company's data > should get the same priority as anyone else's (given the same type of > content). > > Anyway, it's a tough issue to get your head around, especially for the > layperson. And unfortunately, Congress is full of laypeople. > > Long live Ted Stevens, > > -Erik > > On Thu, Aug 19, 2010 at 10:41 AM, Harry Penner <hpenner at gmail.com> wrote: >> At the risk of flames: the Internet as we know it has flourished in >> large part because its original sponsor, the federal government, has >> mostly left it alone. Why do we think adding government regulations >> to it will make it better (or preserve the freedom we enjoy on it)? >> Generally speaking, doesn't regulation take away freedom rather than >> increasing it, by definition? I'm no futurist but it seems to me that >> putting restrictions on the big guys is likely to affect us little >> guys in some unforeseen but unpleasant way. >> >> Sorry if the above sounds trollish but I just think we should be >> careful what we ask for. With companies you can usually vote with >> your feet to try to change or avoid their bad behavior, but >> regulations are usually universal and forever... And the regs will >> surely by written by people not nearly as close to or as thoughtful >> about the problem as we tclug'ers... >> >> Seems to me we ought to show up and tell the FCC to keep their paws off us. >> >> -Harry >> >> On Aug 19, 2010, at 9:52, Brian <goeko at Goecke-Dolan.com> wrote: >> >>> There will be a hearing on the Net Neutrality here in the Twin Cities. >>> >>> >>> http://savetheinternet.com/mnhearing >>> >>> >>> I am not associated with this, just thought people would be interested >>> to know. >>> >>> ==>brian. >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota >>> tclug-list at mn-linux.org >>> http://mailman.mn-linux.org/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list >> >> _______________________________________________ >> TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota >> tclug-list at mn-linux.org >> http://mailman.mn-linux.org/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list >> > > > > -- > Erik K. Mitchell -- Web Developer > erik.mitchell at gmail.com > erik at ekmitchell.com > http://ekmitchell.com/ > > _______________________________________________ > TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota > tclug-list at mn-linux.org > http://mailman.mn-linux.org/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list _______________________________________________ TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota tclug-list at mn-linux.org http://mailman.mn-linux.org/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list