"fully expecting to see net Neutrality read its last rights."

It's a metaphorical funeral, not a police line-up. Rites.

Otherwise, a pleasure to read.

We have had serious problems with the neutrality of the net since the beginning.

How do you access the world wide web?

Most of use through Google or some other search engine.

How much of the net do they actually spider and allow access to? 11%.

What sites show up in the top end of search results? Those who can afford to pay for a search engine optimization program.

Who gets to publish on the internet? Not the individual. Most cable internet service providers block port 80. This is the port that web sites are served on. What this means is that I can not run a web server from my home computer and "broadcast" my information on to the net in a way that people can easily find it. I would have to pay for hosting. If I want to serve rich media content like youtube, then I have to pay very expensive server and bandwidth fees. This means that publishing on the net is increasing tilted towards those who can afford to publish. This in turn limits the voice and content of the net to information and content that is marketable or assumes a profit. We don't notice the disparity now because a blog looks very similar to Salon.com. Text, images, users. The future holds much richer media types like video, and also much more complex application layers to the sites. In a short time, the published content on the net will heavily skew to the big players who can afford the bandwidth, the servers, the development costs, corporate attorneys, and the search engine optimization programs. Add content packet delivery tolls on top and "we the people" definitely don't have equality in net access and publishing rights.

thanks for pointing that out. it's fixed now.

"In late June, Net neutrality received a stunning rebuke in the Senate, when the Commerce Committee tied 11-11 on the Net neutrality provision to the telecom bill put forth by Snowe and Dorgan. The vote, says Scott, "sent a shock wave" through the horde of telecom lobbyists gathered in the congressional hearing room, fully expecting to see net Neutrality read its last rites."

Are you sure that that shouldn't be "In late June, Net neutrality foes received a stunning rebuke..."

It doesn't make sense with what preceeds and follows that paragraph (much less, it lacks internal consistancy...) Those who were shocked, i.e. "telecom lobbyists", should be the ones who were "rebuked", no?

This issue still puzzles me a bit... Please let me know if my understanding/analysis is mistaken: If the "telecoms" get what they want, then you'll have to pay if you want your information to be delivered through the "fast lane" (you being the information providers). Information providers that can't/won't pay... They'll stay the same old, slow internet speeds that they have right now. Not that they'll be slowed down, just that they'll have to pay to have access to the fast lane... No? Sounds like they are whining and want a "free and fast" ride...

Or are the telecoms going to neglect the regular internet and put their resources (including the government subsidies...) into the more lucrative "fast lanes" that they'll charge more for...?

There is a lot of background info that is missing from this piece... Not all of us read WIRED or other geeky (but nice, hip and cool) sources of info... We just use the internet slow lanes and are happy enough with them. Please remember that and allow for the fact that everyone on Salon.com isn't necessarily in the choir when you start preaching to us.

What does it say when this issue generates such a large response when torture, loss of habeus corpus protections for whomever the POTUS deems an "enemy combatant" is in the offing - and how many letters are going to our legistators about that?

Thanks for your consideration.

A few answers/comments:

> No one wants a "fast free ride". People want fairness in traffic. It is likely that tiered models will be as much about slowing down or eliminating non-premium traffic as it will be about faster service with higher cost. Think of it this way. You put out a request for a page-view on a non-payee site. Your request will be at the lowest priority, which means any site with a higher priority, i.e., has paid the telecoms, will go before you. If traffic is high you may wait a long time.

Okay, what if there is plenty of bandwidth such that no one HAS to wait. Will the person paying extra be happy? Maybe someone will make sure lower priority traffic must wait a certain amount of time before a request is granted. Net neutrality prevents this.

> Have you flown lately? Notice how some airlines have created fast lanes through security for first class? We all pay for security and it is a government function (TSA, remember?). Why then should first class people get this advantage as well as all the other advantages?

Think of the internet in a similar way. We all helped pay for the internet, and we pay for expansion too. Why should wealth dominate the modern "meeting square"? Money owns politics ($ = free speech still seems a stupid ruling to me, but I guess if I was rich...) and pretty much everything else.

Sen. Ted Stevens is like George Bush, neither of them knows much of anything. Bush's ignorance shows every single time he makes a speech or fondles Angela Merkel in public. Bush is nothing but a clown, an emporer with no clothes and because of that he is destroying OUR America, it's not his America.

Rumsfeld, he of little if any military knowledge, says he has the confidence of the pres. and people just accept that. But there is a huge fallacy in logic here. SO WHAT IF HE HAS BUSH'sCONFIDENCE, that mere statement is supposed to imbue him with some kind of credibility, NFW. The Bush himself has no 'credibility or body of knowledge and expertise', so what does that confer on Rummy. IT CONFERS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. This is simply and nothing more than the blind leading the blind, or the dumb leading the dumb, it's simply a case of DUMB AND DUMBER.

'We the people' hesitate to run for political positions at any level of government. I't is no wonder that congress/government/the WH gets so little done. These assholes actually know very little. They are driven by nothing more than partisan political ambitions and self aggrandizement.

I personally think most of them are incompetents other than the fact that most of them are lawyers(may the saints presevere us from lawyers, insurance salesman and used car salesman and most of all POLITICIANS) most politicians seem to know little else than the law which they don't follow anyway or which they bend twist and distort to meet their own selfish ends.

And on top of all that, they are liars to 'we the people'.

Let's get right down to the bottom line, any politician who lies to the people ought to be removed from office, spend a year or more in jail depending on the severity of damage done and never be allowed to hold public office again.

That alone would REVOLUTIONIZE our political sytem. The other thing that needs to be done is our election system needs major reforms.

The power has to be returned to 'we the people' or I am convinced American democratic values are doomed.

Does anyone really want Halliburton or Bechtel or Kerr McGee or ADM or Cargill or the Carlyle group running our elections, our social security system, our government, or our military.

I read very recently that after WWII corporations paid for about 40-45% of the cost of running our government via their taxes. Hang on now you will be shoched. Corporations pay 7% of the cost of running our government that means 'we the people' pay 93% of the cost of running our government.

He who has the gold makes the rules. 'We the people' pay almost the entire cost of running our government that means it is our damn government, we frickin' own it. We pay the bills than we get to make the rules.

If corporatocracy wants to rule our gov't then they must pay 97% of the cost to run OUR government than it will be their government and they will have the right to make the rules.

AMERICA BELONGS TO 'WE THE PEOPLE'.

AMERICA IS THE PEOPLE.

It is that simple and at the very same time IT IS THAT PROFOUND.