TheTechGuide Forum
General Category => Idle Chat => Topic started by: JB Lee on June 26, 2008, 02:46:07 PM
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Rights sound like a good thing don't they? Knowing that you have certain rights makes you feel free, safer, more in control of your life. Think about this though: What if the government gave you a few new rights? Say...the right to be naked in public, or the right to kill someone? Still seem good to you?
One of John McCain's issues in his campaign for presidency is giving rights to businesses. He brings it up every now and again and it isn't ever questioned because it sounds like a good, solid thing to work for. However, you might be surprised to know exactly what rights he wants to give to what businesses.
John McCain is a big Anti-Net Neutralist. You can read my signature, visit this article (http://\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_neutrality\"), or search google for more information on Net Neutrality. In short, it is the belief that all websites on the internet should have the same abilities to be viewed, regardless of content or the owner. John McCain believes that certain websites should get priority, while others get slower speeds or are not allowed to be accessed at all.
Basically, there is a law in place right now in the US that states that ISP's (Internet Service Providers, the people you buy your internet from) are not allowed to discriminate the services they supply. John McCain wants to get rid of this law, giving the "right" to ISP's to do whatever they want with their signals. Right now, all of the control is held by producers and users, not the networks that connect them.
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Comcast has already gotten in trouble for forcing P2P downloads to have extremely slow speeds so that you would stop downloading illegal torrents. A new ISP is in the process of forming that will completely disallow porn sites. Virgin Media has stated they will be allotting 90% of their internet traffic to their partner sites and leaving 10% for the rest of the internet. Other ISP's are going to be starting a TV based system in which you pay a set price for a certain number of websites, and then pay more for the "premium package" with more websites. Whether or not the "Premium Package" supplies ALL websites is unknown.
What if you are a gamer? What if the game you play is not supported by your ISP? Oh well...
What if your ISP supports Yahoo IM and not MSN Messenger or AIM? Oh well...
What if your ISP supports thetechhelper.com and not thetechguide.com? Again...oh well...
You might not be able to view this site at all, and if you can, it might be so slow that you wouldn't even want to. This is all in an attempt to get you to use their affiliates over their competitions.
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Not only does this affect you as a user, this affects all businesses. If you want to create a website for your business, it will now be just as hard as if you were creating a TV station. A very limited number of supported "channels" (websites). This could easily cause a complete crash of the economy. Site owner's will not get as many visitors if they choose to only market to ISP's that would still support Net Neutrality, in turn getting less Ad Revenue. Without the ability to sell products or even advertise online, many businesses will fail.
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So, what can you do to help? Inform as many people as possible. McCain is trying to pass this off as if he is helping everyone by giving the country more rights, but the rights he is choosing to give us will destroy the internet, and in turn, the economy.
Don't just shrug this off with your finger's in your ears going "NANANANA, it will never happen, our government is good!", actually read what I just said, read it multiple times. Look it up for yourselves, do research. This is about the end of the internet, the end of the age of small businesses, and the end of the world as we know it. Tell everyone you know.
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Thank you for informing me about that i am going to go tell a bunch of people. really.
From that statement i have figured out that now BOTH! of our presedential canidates stink!