Sean's Blog

On Wednesday, aside from getting sick, I attended February’s TechTrend at BGSU. The talk was given by Alex Cutris, Director of Policy and New Media for Public Knowledge, and was called “Why Should We Care About Net Neutrality”. Overall, it was a good presentation about net neutrality for those that may not have known anything about the issue, as many good, key points were made.

March’s TechTrends is going to be on March 22, 2007 starting at 2:30 PM, and will be called Technology Trends and Web 2.0. The first 250 attendees will get a copy of Chris Anderson’s The Long Tail.

Since I had a bout of food poisoning since I saw the presentation, I’m just going to post what the BGSU TechTrends page has. (In a couple weeks, that page may not have this information, as it will have moved to a new location.)

Net Neutrality

Network neutrality is a concept about keeping the free flow of Internet content, barring phone and cable companies from erecting tiered pricing that favors some Web traffic or sites over others. To ensure fair and equal access to the Internet by service providers from discriminatory pricing and preferences set by Internet service providers, citizen groups and politicians introduced bills for “Net Neutrality”. On Jan. 9, Senators Byron Dorgan (D.-ND) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME), reintroduced the Internet Freedom Preservation Act, which would keep Internet service providers from prioritizing the traffic to some Web sites over others. An earlier version of the bill faltered in a Senate committee in June after receiving an 11-11 tie vote that split roughly along party lines, with Republicans largely opposing the measure.

On one side are tech companies such as Google, Yahoo!, Intel, Microsoft – that specialize in Web-related content and technology, pushing for rules that they say would keep the Internet free from discriminatory pricing. On the other are the phone and cable companies that run the networks, shuttling that information from place to place. They oppose regulation of the Internet.

For a Network Neutrality Overview, please reference: www.publicknowledge.org/issues/network-neutrality

Public Knowledge (PK)

Public Knowldge is one of the most prominent organizations in promoting net neutrality. The policy issues that PK is currently working on in telecommunications inlcude net neutrality, repurposing of spectrum “white-spaces” for licensed and unlicensed use, and increased broadband deployment. PK intends to promote a positive copyright agenda in the 100th Congress, focusing on at least two key issues: orphan works and fair use limitations on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Orphan works deals with the legal conundrum of what a user may do with a work when the rightful copyright owner cannot be found to ask permission. A critical part of the solution will involve an online visual copyright registry that, much like a Google Image search, will help to reunite orphaned images with their rightful owners.

Alex Curtis Biography

Alex is Director of Policy and New Media for Public Knowledge (aka PK), aWashington, DC based public interest organization that works on behalf of consumers and innovators at the intersection of copyright, telecommunications, and information policy. Before finding PK, Alex interned on Capitol Hill for United States Senators Mike DeWine and George V. Voinovich He worked on legislative issues such as Broadband, Digital Online Music, and Open Access to networks, while at the Antitrust Subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Alex graduated from Wake Forest University in 1998 with a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration. He later earned his Juris Doctorate in 2001 from the University of Akron School of Law, where he focused on intellectual property.

According to The Register, the US government is asking for comments on how the Internet should be run, and anyone is allowed to comment. I definitely need to take a look into this sometime in the next couple days.

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I am not prevented from drinking Coke or Pepsi or RC Cola. Nothing stops me from shopping at Kroger or Meijer or Wal-mart. I can go to any number of gas stations in town to refuel my vehicle. Truly, the only thing that stops me from going to any given location is based upon my personal preference. For example, I do not go to Wal-mart because I don’t agree with many of their business practices, I drink Pepsi because I think it tastes better than Coke or RC Cola, and I shop around for the best deal for gas, which typically happens to be Kroger.

I certainly would not expect my browsing on the web through the Internet to be limited because the communication company who owns the channels my Internet traffic uses did not get a high enough bid from the site owner.

Supposedly. The issue, it appears, has a couple different stances, much like any given issue.

Where to start? I decided that I would use technocrati to read blogs with “a lot of authority”, as this should help me filter through the bloggers who lept before looking.

• I found The Original Blog, which had two links to Benton Foundation:
  • the bill in question as a pdf file and
  • a summary of the bill as a doc file
• Next, I read the wikipedia article on network neutrality. I’m thinking its possible the article may be biased, specifically the “economics” section.
• I came across post on Crooked Timber called Norms, networks, and neutrality. From there, I read two explanations by one Ed Felten: Nuts and Bolts of Network Discrimination and Nuts and Bolts of Net Discrimination, Part 2.

I’ve concluded this: I am no where near being done with gathering background about this subject. If so, why did I post this? I felt that it is good to add some more information to the blogosphere, even if it is not original. After all, there is a lot of informed posts out there about this, and I doubt many people choose to research before making a conclusion. I’ll even admit I did this a bit myself. I thought that the e-mail I received via MoveOn.org would be worthwhile, and that I would get some good information about the issue. At the moment, I can’t say for sure if this was the case. Any way, I did some clicking and sent an e-mail to my state representatives. Only after that did I find that I may just be causing more harm then good.

I’m going to have to look at this more this week. Aside from that, enjoy the links, and if anything, educate yourself on the matter.