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Web Inventor Slams Telecoms
David Utter
Staff Writer
2006-05-23
 Insider Reports RSS Feed
Tim Berners-Lee suggested a chilling effect on voting and democracy could happen should telecom companies gain the right to enforce a tiered Internet.
The cause of Net Neutrality has been reported on at length by our writer, Jason Lee Miller. The concerns discussed in those reports took on a new context in the wake of comments from World Wide Web inventor Berners-Lee in Scotland.
"I hope that the U.S. will come to the right decision (as) there is a very strong groundswell of opinion for net neutrality," Berners-Lee said. IDG reported his comments from the 15th International World Wide Web conference, an all-week meeting in Edinburgh, Scotland, exploring new Internet technology.
Should telecoms gain control of the Internet by compelling higher payments for specific content, it would threaten the openness that has led to the Internet's growth, according to Berners-Lee.
The problem goes beyond people creating blogs and uploading photos to websites. Berners-Lee said "efforts to control content have far-reaching impacts on other areas for users, such as decisions on voting and development of democracy" in his speech.
He also noted that past efforts at gatekeeping, or creating a walled garden around content, had not worked for ISPs.
The most significant example of this, AOL, moved virtually all of its content online last July in an effort to shift from a subscription model to an audience-supported advertising model instead.
AOL has gained notice for the various initiatives it has tried with streaming content. Its coverage of the Live 8 concerts in 2005 likely drove the most recent efforts by many companies to place streaming video, both content and advertisements, online.
The potential for the next big streaming event to be limited by telecom companies to those who pay above and beyond for access would be a distressing development.
But not nearly so frightening as a stranglehold on democracy would be.
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Tag: Tim Berners-Lee
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About the Author:
David Utter is a business and technology writer for SecurityProNews and WebProNews.
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