Internet Freedom Preservation Act February 13, 2008
Posted by Matthew Woolums in Net Neutrality, Opinion.trackback
Multiple sources are reporting that U.S. Representative Edward Markey is offering up another Net Neutrality bill, this one called the Internet Freedom Preservation Act. Here is the Scientific American article on the subject. While some are cheering the new bill, like the folks at SaveTheInternet.com, others are claiming it is a waste of money, like the folks at the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste. I’m sure others will chime in about whether the legislation is needed or not, or whether this particular bill adequately addresses the issue. My hope is that the legislation actual accomplishes more than just paying for a study and conducting public hearings.
In case you don’t think the Internet needs some sort of guarantee of openness, read this Scientific American article about the current practices of Comcast to decide which types of traffic should be restricted. Some of Comcast’s reasoning sounds more like ‘customers are great as long as they pay for a service that they don’t use very much’. You might also take a look at a recent turn of events where Google has decided to hijack specific web pages and replace them with their own content. These are not trivial issues in a world that depends so much on access to information.
Oh, and just in case you wanted to make use of this in the classroom, besides being a controversial topic, here is a mashup that tracks the progress of legislation on a Google map.
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