Monk

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Comcast has taken the pioneering step infringing on Internet neutrality, interrupting file-sharing programs. Comcast asserts that the company is not blocking sites such as BitTorent but is only delaying that traffic when its network is overloaded. Even if that were actually true, who cannot see that this is just a first step to see how the water feels. I have been out of the file-sharing game ever since WinMX was forced out of business, but I'm afraid that this is just another big step toward making the Internet as bland and blah as network television. This has been my nightmare anyway, and what a shame if it should come to pass.


(Source: Kim Hart for The Washington Post)

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Net neutrality is a principle that bars Internet providers, primarily phone and cable companies, from charging higher rates to Web-based firms in return for giving their content priority treatment on the pathways to consumers. Without such restrictions, proponents say, a user might find it time-consuming, or even impossible, to call up a favorite site that carriers have relegated to slower lanes for economic or even philosophical reasons.

-- Charles Babington for The Washington Post

And one of the last things Monk would care to see is phone and cable companies deciding what we can see by virtue of their philosophical principles.

This article reports that the debate for net neutrality is partisan, being led by Democratic and liberal interests, even though representatives of such groups as the Christian Coalition believe that it is important to maintain net neutrality. Conservatives apparently have not been weighing in. I imagine that is because Conservatives are not wholly in disfavor of being able to regulate and even block Internet content.

If phone and cable companies need money to invest in the 'pipes,' I am sure that can be managed through those monthly fees. We do not need them to play censor.

God, please don't let them turn the Internet into network television. Let freedom breathe!

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