Has the United States gone mad? Has all the freedom and power that this country holds made us greedier than ever before? I definitely believe so. For many years, the Internet has been a place of freedom and publications. The government has always protected this freedom while major search engine corporations battled for the top spot in the research industry. The big debate is whether Internet Service providers should be able to charge more money for some traffic, or whether the law should mandate equal access.
It seems as if money is always in the very middle of every discussion concerning the government and power. Maybe that is because money is power in this country. "According to white papers now being circulated in the cable, telephone and telecommunications industries, those with the deepest pockets - corporations, special interest groups and major advertisers - would get preferred treatment. Content from these providers would have first priority on our computer and television screens, while information seen as undesirable, such as peer - to - peer communications, could be relegated to a slow lane or simply shut out."(The End of the Internet, Jeff Chester). Money seems to overshadow all logical reasoning. As we live on, the saying "the rich gets richer and the poor poorer" just becomes more and more real.
Personally, I believe that Network Neutrality should stand and not be tampered with. What would the Internet be like if there was total dictatorship over what you could and could not do on the Internet? What else would this dictatorship lead to? Well, I know that I definitely don't want to be the generation to find out the answers to those questions. The standards of the Internet need to be upheld. The virtual world would never again be the same if we allow these corporations to tamper with response times and interfere with the very interaction between various content providers(wikipedia, Network Neutrality).
"These companies want to be Internet gatekeepers, deciding which websites go fast or slow and which wont load at all."(wikipedia, Network Neutrality). Today major cable companies and DSL providers control almost 98% of the residential and small business broadband market(Free American Broadband!, S. Derek Turner).
It is every ones interest who is at risk. Both the individual users and the service providers. "Under the plans they are considering, all of us - from content providers to individual users - would pay more to surf online, stream videos or even send email."(The End of the Internet, Jeff Chester). For everyone who commonly uses the Internet, Network Neutrality would be at our best interest. The corporations want to control our Internet airways so badly because if they can control who we pay and who we use as search engines, they know that their pockets will just continually get fatter and fatter. The corporate giants are so hungry for this revolution, that they are fighting vigorously to stop cities and towns from building "Community Internet" systems, which is just affordable high-speed broadband services funded in part by community groups and municipalities(Free American Broadband!, S.Derek Turner). There would be no point in having the Internet anymore if everything all the way down to emails would be vigorously monitored. There would be no freedom and no choices that would be made by you yourself.
"Net Neutrality is so contentious that many people debating it cannot even agree on a definition"(K.C. Jones, 2007). After researching and reading all the debates from different sources, I've come up with my own definition: Network Neutrality is the protection and seal that Shields the abuse and monopoly of the corporate giants in the Internet industry. I totally support the issue of Network Neutrality. I support it because I believe in freedom. Users should have the freedom to choose their search engine, the freedom to surf the web without any dictation on where to go and most of all, the freedom to pay whomever they want to pay as an Internet provider.
Chester.J. (2007). The End of the Internet? Retrieved April 12Th, 2007 from http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060213/chester
Turner. S. Derek (2007). Free American Broadband! Retrieved April 12Th, 2007 from salon.com
Jones. K.C. (2007). Net Neutrality Debate remains Contentious.Retrieved April 12Th, 2007 from http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=198001557
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