Telecom and internet infrastructure providers seek changes in the way the internet is regulated to be able to charge for preferential treatment and greater access. The Washington Post reports: Executive Wants to Charge for Web Speed: “William L. Smith, chief technology officer for Atlanta-based BellSouth Corp., told reporters and analysts that an Internet service provider such as his firm should be able, for example, to charge Yahoo Inc. for the opportunity to have its search site load faster than that of Google Inc.”
In Linux Journal, Doc Searls discusses why open access, rather than preferential access, makes the internet the success that it is today, and how end-users and creators can protect this principle: Saving the Net: How to Keep the Carriers from Flushing the Net Down the Tubes:
They see a problem with freeloaders. On the tall end of the power curve, those ‘loaders are AOL, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and other large sources of the container cargo we call “content”. Out on the long tail, the freeloaders are you and me. The big ‘loaders have been getting a free ride for too long and are going to need to pay. The Information Highway isn’t the freaking interstate. It’s a system of private roads that needs to start charging tolls. As for the small ‘loaders, it hardly matters that they’re a boundless source of invention, innovation, vitality and new business. To the carriers, we’re all still just “consumers”. And we always will be.
