The CEO of Virgin Media in the UK has openly said in an interview this week that net neutrality is 'bollocks' and that Virgin is already in negotiations with major net sites to see who will their users have access to.
Basically, what that means is that Virgin are planning on deciding what sites it's subscribers get to see online by charging sites for priority attention from their subscribers!
If this becomes a trend for ISP's worldwide (and it will, if Virgin are allowed to make money from this idea) the concept of a 'free' internet will die.

Make up your own minds about this.

http://stopvirgin.movielol.org/
(despite the rather drastic action they plan to take, the issues raised are valid)


If you're a UK resident there is an e-petition to sign connected to the 10 Downing Street website. The more signatures, the more the government will be forced to act.
http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/unfairdata/

I've heard of the the US trying to do something kind like that. Where you pay for everything page you go to, every bit of data that is downloaded to your computer.. we're talking going to bookcrossing and paying for the hit to the site, plus how much is downloaded so you can see the site.. like icons and stuff. Email will also be a charge.. and how I've heard it, is say you go to like iTunes and pay 99 cents to download a song, your ISP will also charge you some figure because you downloaded a file.

I've heard its in congress or something. I haven't done any research myself, just what my parents heard on CNN.

As addicted as I am now to the net, I can't imagine not using it.. but if it comes to that... I more than likely won't be using the net anymore.

I can't say I wouldn't use the net anymore, too many things dependent on it, but it could certaily affect how I use it! No more F5'ing a million times if something like that came to pass :angry2:

Now for me, it might actually be a good thing and lead to more productive time overall in my life, but that doesn't mean I'm for it! :lol:

The knock-on effect is what worries me the most.
When some sites are favoured more than others, sooner or later people are going to choose the favoured sites just for convenience (or because they know no better) - which will result in less traffic for many sites. Less traffic = less revenue, which in turn will slowly kill these sites off.
In the long run the big ISP's will be determining which sites you get to choose from.
I hate to sound all 'Mulder' about this, but the bottom line is about control and freedom of information.
If Virgin are allowed to make a profit from this then other large ISP's won't be content to miss out on a potentially massive cash-cow like that, and will follow suit.
Then it's just a matter of time until sites that aren't as widely visited as others will start to dwindle and vanish.

I'm not suggesting that there's a huge conspiracy about all this, obviously the bottom line is greed, but the effect of this will be felt in a few months/years with a severe lack of choice online.
The beauty about the interweb is the freedom to visit any site you want, you literally have the world at your fingertips. If this becomes common practice the world at your fingertips will only be the world the big ISP's decide to show you.

Oooooh. That sounds.... bad :( I don't like it. Thanks kaishowing I will sign the petition.

Net Neutrality on Snopes

very scary stuff

I don't like this either. Heck I'm already paying to have access to the Internet. I would think most all of us are unless some have found a way around that. I'd hate to see us going backwards with the Internet. I recall when there were only providers like Compuserve and AOL and you had to pay for by the amount of time you were online. :o

No doubt if the proposed tier system becomes common policy for ISP's there will be a couple of companies that will keep a network neutral service. Of course the question will be now many of the smaller web services will still be running offering free forums or blogs. Of course their demise will be slow, perhaps too slow to cause any alarm - but they say that drop a frog in boiling water it'll hop right out, but put him in tepid water and slowly heat it, he'll happily sit there while he cooks alive! A rather nasty comparison, but to extend the simile, I don't intend to cook alive.

It's been argued that the potentially huge financial incentive generated by a tiered service will promote next generation services and equipment for the consumer, but Vinton Cerf (one of the internet's founding fathers) has said 'The Internet was designed with no gatekeepers over new content or services. A lightweight but enforceable neutrality rule is needed to ensure that the Internet continues to thrive.'

If things are allowed to continue, we'll see a similar system online as we do for pay-per-view on TV - where a select few have exclusive rights to certain things.
How would you like to have to choose an ISP not only for the speed of connection, but for the websites that only they had exclusive rights to?
Or perhaps you may have to subscribe to more than one ISP to get the range of services you require? One ISP that has rights to Google, while another has rights to YouTube....Or an even more frightening thought - one with rights to BookObsessed while another has rights to BookCrossing!
Not much looking forward to a fragmented interweb. :(

That's terrible :(
I signed the petition also

It's okay to sound like Mulder - sometimes there is a conspiracy. :erm:

I felt the need to qualify my statement as on many other forums, anyone who throws the label 'conspiracy' or 'conspiracy theorist' is as good as saying that the poster in question doesn't have all his/her dogs barking! :wacko: