I should mention there's a third ISP which advertises heavily in the
Ottawa area, and I believe they have some backing from the government,
but they're not Bell Canada either: they're Internet Anywhere, and
they're purely wireless. (I think they use a satellite hookup but I'm
not sure.) In any case, they're part of the government's plan to get
high speed coverage out to every Ontario village and farm, where Bell
mostly doesn't bother to go. (We have Bell phones here but we can't get
Bell high speed internet because Bell only covers the downtown areas.
So much for their alleged monopoly.)
As I said, the ISP market seems very fragmented to me. The days when
AOL could dictate what you got to see are long gone, and unless this
little group of conspiracists can get (nearly) all the ISPs on board I
don't see this flying.
How would big outfits like Google react to this? "We index 30 billion
websites! You can only access 300 of them, though." Somehow that
doesn't sound so good. And Google has a good bit of clout these days.
Stephen A. Lawrence wrote:
It's a chilling article. But I wonder if it will actually work?
They name two ISPs. As it happens I have two ISPs here in Ottawa, one
for cable, one for dialup, and neither is either of the ones named: I
go through Rogers and Storm. This makes me wonder if the ISP market is
too fragmented for this to work -- people aren't *that* stupid, and if
there are multiple providers they'll go with the ones who provide access
to more content (and more shopping sites, of which there are legion,
many of which are small).
As I recall AOL used to restrict users to the AOL sandbox, but I don't
think they do that any more. There's too much competition among the ISPs.
OTOH it's interesting to note that I can't use my company's SMTP server
because Rogers blocks port 25 across the board. You either use their
SMTP server, or you find somebody who provides an SMTP server at a
non-standard address.
Horace Heffner wrote:
From:
http://www.zpenergy.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2964
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.
--------
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
