Comment & Debate
Save the Internet.com. “What’s at stake if we lose Net Neutrality”. Retrieved 1.16.08 – ?…On the Internet, consumers are in ultimate control � deciding between content, applications and services available anywhere, no matter who owns the network. There’s no middleman. But without Net Neutrality, the Internet will look more like cable TV. Network owners will decide which channels, content and applications are available; consumers will have to choose from their menu.
The free and open Internet brings with it the revolutionary possibility that any Internet site could have the reach of a TV or radio station. The loss of Net Neutrality would end this unparalleled opportunity for freedom of expression.
The Internet has always been driven by innovation. Web sites and services succeeded or failed on their own merit. Without Net Neutrality, decisions now made collectively by millions of users will be made in corporate boardrooms. The choice we face now is whether we can choose the content and services we want, or whether the broadband barons will choose for us.
he Internet has always been driven by innovation. Web sites and services succeeded or failed on their own merit. Without Net Neutrality, decisions now made collectively by millions of users will be made in corporate boardrooms. The choice we face now is whether we can choose the content and services we want, or whether the broadband barons will choose for us.”
Vinton Cerf, a co-inventor of the Internet Protocol (IP), and current Vice President and “Chief Internet Evangelist”; at Google, in testimony before Congress on February 7, 2006, , said “allowing broadband carriers to control what people see and do online would fundamentally undermine the principles that have made the Internet such a success.”[1]
Timothy Karr. “Opinion: Neutrality Protects Internet’s Openness.” AOL News. February 2010: “Jan. 13) — The Internet is and was always intended to be an open and neutral network. And right now, the FCC is crafting the rules that will decide whether it stays that way. Thursday, in fact, is the deadline for public comments on the proposed rules.
Because of net neutrality, consumers have had unfettered access to new content and ideas online; our preferences and choices have determined which new ideas succeed and which don’t. Net neutrality simply means “no discrimination,” and this user-powered architecture is the reason the Internet has become such a powerful engine for consumer choice and democratic empowerment.
These protections have worked brilliantly. For two decades, the Internet thrived. It became a competitive market in the truest sense. Under net neutrality, doctoral students working out of their dorm room created Google; college students started Facebook; a Pez hobbyist invented eBay; an Israeli teenager wrote the code for instant messaging.