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Health & Fitness

Net Neutrality- Why You Should Care: A Letter from the President of Pinnadyne

Readers and Technology Enthusiasts,

With Verizon  (and other ISP’s) winning their case, and net neutrality being struck down in the United States Court of Appeals in the District of Columbia ; we may be watching the end of the internet we are familiar with and the ushering in of a new internet. A for-profit corporate-driven internet. Some may look at this as just being the eventuality of where the internet should evolve, it has greater impact than some may think.

Net Neutrality is the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC)  approach to a long standing policy that freedom of access to lawful information on the internet is available without preferential treatment. With this new verdict going against this premise, this now allows the Internet Service Providers (ISP’s) like Comcast, Time Warner, Verizon, AT&T and others to be able to charge for traffic over the internet. This could mean a sharp rise in prices on the internet which has been briefly described in a graphic from 2009, originally posted on Dvice.com, and created by a Redditor known as “quink”, shows quite accurately what impact this could have on services we use.

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The real issue I see in this, is the same unfair practices that stifle innovation and create monolith corporations are in control of large portions of information. The entrepreneur trying to work in one of the fastest growing, yet fledgling mediums that innovates new technology, will be stifled unless he carries with him corporate sponsorship. If the ISP’s can indiscriminately charge more for whatever they consider premium traffic, this disallows the ability for scientists, technology experts, and the digital inventors of the future to utilize a medium that they have already been using to share information. Why draw lines here and stifle progress? Do we really want the internet to become like television, where to share information you must first endure a stream of marketing?

The other option is the FCC begins regulation of the ISP’s which now brings bureaucracy to a corporate controlled internet.  To see this in action, one only needs to look at the Airline industry, the oil industry, or even the media under the FCC. The regulators and the profiteers lock horns and it usually creates inconvenience and almost disdain from the user.

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The internet is the last place where the local business owner can compete almost fairly with the corporations (operative word being almost) and we have now even seen the creation of digitsl currencies (“Bitcoin”) and new, non-bank sources for small businesses to get funding from like crowd sourcing solution “Kickstarter”.

I fear that with the end of Net Neutrality, we are also looking at the beginning of the end for innovation. I fear a future where large corporations which already move into towns and cripple local entrepreneurs, begin to do the same to the internet. The internet which really is the last frontier for the small businesses who supply the big businesses. And even more so, this also means that content can be censored under the power of not only the FCC, but also by the ISP’s. For example, Time Warner could potentially favor CNN since they are corporately partnered and slow traffic for Comcast MSNBC , and that is just one of hundreds of examples of how content can be manipulated. Overall, we lost the battle to keep the information on the internet as readily available as possible and I truly believe that will stymie innovation.

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And remember, when in doubt reboot, and save and save often. And as always, happy computing.

Thank You,

Eric Harvie,

President, Pinnadyne Inc.

 

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