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Potential Death of Free Internet - Canada could be the test case
Posted on Tuesday, July 29, 2008 @ 22:08:26 UTC by vlad
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Modernsteam writes: Canadian ISPs Plan Net Censorship
Concerns grow that Canada's plan will wipeout alt news sites and spread to U.S.
By Mike Finch
A net-neutrality activist group has uncovered plans for the demise of the free Internet by 2010 in Canada. By 2012, the group says, the trend will be global.
Bell Canada and TELUS, Canada's two largest Internet service providers (ISPs), will begin charging per-site fees on most Internet sites, reports anonymous sources within TELUS.
"It's beyond censorship, it is killing the biggest ecosystem of free expression and freedom of speech that has ever existed", I Power spokesperson Reese Leysen said. I Power was the first group to report on the possible changes.
Bell Canada has not returned calls or emails.
The plans made by the large telecom businesses would change the Internet into a cable-like system, where customers sign up for specific web sites, and must pay to see each individual site beyond a certain point.
Subscription browsing would be limited, extra fees would be applied to access out-of-network sites. Many sites would be blocked altogether.
We had inside sources from bigger companies who gave us the information on how exclusivity deals are being made at this moment between ISPs and big content providers (like TV production studios and major video game publishers) to decide which web sites will be in the standard packageoffered to their customers, leaving all the rest of the Internet unreachable unless you pay extra subscription fees per every non-standard site you visit,Leysen said.
We knew the sourceto be 100% reliable, but we also knew the story would be highly controversial if we released the information. We did it because we knew that we get more official confirmations once we come forward with it.
And indeed that is what happened. Dylan Pattyn, who is writing the soon-to-be published article for Time Magazine, received confirmation from sources within Bell Canada and TELUS after we released the information.
The plans would in effect be economic censorship, with only the top 100 to 200 sites making the cut in the initial subscription package. Such plans would likely favor major news outlets and suppress smaller news outlets, as the major news outlets would be free (with subscription), and alternative news outlets, like AFP, would incur a fee for every visit.
The Internet will become a playground for billion-dollar content providers just like television is, said Leysen. It won'tbe possible for a few teenagers in their parents basement to start a small site like E-bay that then grows out to be the next big thing anymore. Right now the Internet belongs to those with the greatest ideas. In the future, it'll belong to those with the biggest budgets.
With plans in Canada uncovered, I Power thinks that companies in the United States and other nations are also planning similar actions.
By 2012 ISPs all over the globe will reduce Internet access to a TV-like subscription model, only offering access to a small standard amount of commercial sites and require extra fees for every other site you visit.
These other sites would then lose all their exposure andeventually shut down, resulting in what could be seen as the end of the Internet, Leysen said.
Such a subscription plan could possibly restrict free speech far beyond even the current restrictions set by the governments of communist China. Not only would browsing be limited, but privacy would be invaded, as every web site viewed would likely be recorded on a bill in a manner similar to a phone bill.
Why would the ISPs institute such a plan? One word: money.
This new subscription model is commercially far more beneficial to them than how it is now, Leysen said. If Fox wants to launch a new television show online, they'll have to pay big money to all major ISPsto ensure that their new show will be offered and pushed in the standard package& of sites/services/channels that people will get through their Internet access. Plus ISPs will also gain extra revenue out of people trying to access the rest of the Internet, as they'll pay extra subscription fees for every web site they visit.
But it's not just the big ISPs that stand to gain.
Marketing and big budget content-pushing just doesn't seem to work on the Internet, and this is something that several industries want fixed. ISPs know this and will benefit greatly by fixing this for the marketing and entertainment industry, Leysen said.
The ISPs are said to be confident they can institute such plans through deceptive marketing and fear tactics.
The Internet will be more and more marketed as a place full of child pornography and other horrible illegal activity in order to get people on their [the ISP side once they start restricting it and make it safer, Leysen said. Unless we really make a stand for this and make sure that mainstream media thoroughly covers the issue, the whole thing will be eased in with proper marketing to make sure that most mainstream customers won’t make a big deal out of it. They will only realize what was lost long after it's gone.
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For more information about this story see http://ipower.ning.com
For more information about Internet freedom: savetheinternet.com
Not Copyrighted. Readers can reprint and are free to redistribute - as long as full credit is given to American Free Press - 645 Pennsylvania Avenue SE, Suite 100 Washington, D.C. 20003
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Re: Potential Death of Free Internet - Canada could be the test case (Score: 1)
by malc on Wednesday, July 30, 2008 @ 01:03:23 UTC
(User Info | Send a Message) http://web.ukonline.co.uk/mripley | It will never happen. Even a complete moron can see that the canadian companies cannot charge non canadians for their internet access so what do you end up with:
US/Canadian citizens (and companies) have less internet freedom than non canadians
Non US/canadians unable to access canadian web sites unless they pay
Non US/canadians able to browse non canadian sites freely
Hmmm let me think now, what will this do for the canadian business. Oh yes I know....kill it!
This is a desperate attempt to continue to try and make money with an ever increasing and cheaper distribution of information/date/multimedia by many more independant non telecom non traditional businesess. It's on par with the copyright fight that the likes of hollywood, emi, sony and the like are involved with.
Unfortunately the people that make these decisions are the same bright sparks that created the credit crunch. You know the ones, over paid, under taxed but worth every penny due to their influence on the economy!!!!!!!!!!
In order to work EVERY ISP in the WORLD will have to cooperate with each other........................whew just stopped laughing at the thought.
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Re: Potential Death of Free Internet - Canada could be the test case (Score: 1)
by modernsteam on Wednesday, July 30, 2008 @ 09:00:03 UTC
(User Info | Send a Message) | Well Malc, I hope it never happens. The point is that this pseudo-censoring, - charge-per-site system could spread beyond Canada. You're right that folks outside Canada could not be charged by Canadian ISPs, but ISPs in the U.S. and elsewhere might, - depending on national communications regulations in particular countries - implement such charges.
As for "In order to work EVERY ISP in the WORLD will have
to cooperate with each other" - I hate to be a doom-sayer, but it's a possibility, now that anti-collusion laws are seldom or no longer enforced in Canada, and possibly the U.S.
And any "canadian business" in the fold of large corporations like Bell would likely not be "killed", since they'd have special arrangements with the trunk carrier(s), they'd have their own sort of "ISPs", and they tend to use the internet for business purposes. People like me - highly political and "welded" to New Energy issues, trying to learn more for free all the time - would be effectively locked in a sort of "solitary confinement" - no access to the things which matter so much to us, but so annoying to the large corporations who have in mind that we should be "good little girls and boys", and obedient to corporate wishes.
ISPs would argue that it costs them every time a customer of theirs visits a site. But since ZPEnergy is an energy-related site, my understanding is that so very little electricity - mere microwatt-seconds per user - is used by the ISP through the fibre-based trunk system that it isn't really worth accounting for, even at today's high electricity prices. Besides, most of us know that ISPs lease their lines from the owner(s) of the trunk facilities on a per annum bulk "eat-as-much-as-you-want" basis. I believe what the user pays the ISP and the ISPs pay the trunk carriers (mostly Bell in Canada) more than covers all the costs and assures the trunk carriers a handsome profit to boot.
The problem appears to be with the large trunk carriers in Canada - mostly Bell Cda Enterprises. It seems they are the ones who would levy those extra charges - if the communications authority lets them get away with it (CRTC in Canada). The CRTC is controlled by the Government of the day in Canada - the Harper Conservatives - and the "Harpies" are cozy with the current Bush Administration in the U.S. If the "Harpies" are re-elected in Canada this fall, and McCain gets in as President in the U.S., I wouldn't put it past both governments to allow the trunk carriers to do what they want, in the name of controlling the communications behaviour of the rank-and-file population by pricing access to information to effectively censorial levels. There would go democracy - down the tubes, sinced real democracy depends on intercommunication amongst the rank-and-file.
What can we do? Put the "screws" on our elected representatives to thwart this stuff. In the past, enough such pressure from enough constituents has brought such attempts to a halt. Otherwise, we allow, by default, private corporations to govern our lives in their own interest only. It's a form of "divide and conquer" by corporations in league with government, and that would be de facto fascism (as defined by Mussolini).
Hal Ade
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Re: Potential Death of Free Internet - Canada could be the test case (Score: 1)
by kurt9 on Wednesday, July 30, 2008 @ 10:17:13 UTC
(User Info | Send a Message) http://www.metatechnica.com | Malc is right.
If an ISP adopts this business model, most customers will simply change their service to another ISP that does not use this business model.
I use comcast as my provider. If they tried this business model, they would very quickly loose me (and probably several tens of millions of other customers) as a customer.
This would be financial suicide for any ISP that tried it. I think this is a paranoid rumor.
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Re: Potential Death of Free Internet - Canada could be the test case (Score: 1)
by ElectroDynaCat on Wednesday, July 30, 2008 @ 13:34:21 UTC
(User Info | Send a Message) | It's no secret that an uncontrolled communication medium is the greatest threat to the power of the status quo. Thinking it can't be controlled is dangerous.
If the status quo had its way, we would not even be able to talk to one another, only listen to a continuous blather of inane commercials and corporate propaganda.
Eternal Vigilance.... |
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