Wrecking The Internet: Turning Gold Into Lead by Robert Storey - Distrowatch.com

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Wrecking the Internet: Turning Gold into Lead (by Robert Storey)

The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has limits.
- Albert Einstein

Not everyone realizes that the USA invented the Internet. Even fewer people realize that the USA is on the verge of wrecking it. This is not an exaggeration. Some nasty new legislation currently under debate in the US Congress could make the Internet as bland as day-old yogurt.

Those who do not live in the USA should not be smug. There is a famous old saying that when America sneezes, the rest of the world catches pneumonia. The USA has a history of exporting its bad laws. Most geeks are familiar with the notorious DMCA and software patents. Thanks to the DMCA, DVDs are region-coded and it's illegal to buy mod-chips for an Xbox. Thanks to software patents, most Linux distros do not have video codecs or an MP3 player. The fact that this execrable legislation originated in America did not prevent its rottenness from spreading around the world.

To understand what is at stake, you should become familiar with the term net neutrality. The basic concept of net neutrality is that Internet content should be dished out in a non-discriminatory fashion. Thus, your ISP should not be preventing you from accessing DistroWatch, nor should your bandwidth be throttled when you try to use BitTorrent or Skype. In this sense, the network is neutral - it does not play favorites.

All this would change (for USA residents) if the US Congress passes the Communications Opportunity, Promotion, and Enhancement (COPE) Act of 2006. This odious new law is the brainchild of telecom and cable TV companies. Chief ogres include Verizon, Comcast, BellSouth and AT&T. Their incentive for pushing this legal abomination is the opportunity to make a lot of money.

The COPE Act would do away with the requirement for net neutrality, thus turning America's Internet into a 'private network.' This would permit ISPs and telecom companies to dish out Internet access to the highest bidder. Under such a regime, AOL could, for example, block access to MSN, or Verizon could throttle your Skype bandwidth because it competes with their own voice-over-IP service. Even worse, a wealthy political party could pay ISPs to block access to a rival party's web sites and blogs. Emailing lists could also be throttled. It's not hard to imagine proprietary software companies paying to block access to DistroWatch, or prevent you from downloading the latest Ubuntu or Fedora release.

If the COPE Act is passed, the USA - which likes to boast of being a "bastion of freedom" - could ironically wind up with an Internet befitting a Third World dictatorship. However, the damage would not be limited to residents of the USA. The fact is that about 50% of the content on the Internet originates in America, even more if you're talking only about English-language content. Do a Google search on almost any topic - from "motorcycle repair" to "allergies" - and see how much of the hits are American-based web sites. The web sites themselves could be hosted on servers outside the USA, but server location is not the issue. Rather, deprived of their US-readership or US-based advertising revenue, many sites would have to fold. Would the Internet be as useful to you if Wikipedia or Google folded? For that matter, it's hard to see how DistroWatch (which is not US-based) could survive if we lost our American audience and advertisers.

There is a lot more I could write about on this topic, but there are others who have already done so (and do it better than me). Some excellent articles about this brewing fiasco appeared recently in The Nation, Raw Story and The Free Press. Sadly, I have seen nothing mentioned on the popular geek web sites that I visit everyday (which is why I'm writing this article).

Can anything to done to prevent this disaster (especially since the COPE Act seems to have the support of the Bush administration)? Fortunately, in this case I believe there is hope, though it's going to be a bitter fight. Although we are up against powerful, well-moneyed lobbyists from the telecom industry, we also have some heavyweight supporters, among them Amazon and Google. Opposition to the COPE Act is being coordinated by Save the Internet. If you are a US resident, you should visit their web site and sign their petition. Even more important, they also have a neat little form for sending a message to your representatives and senators - just type in your message, zip code and address, and it will get sent to the proper person (you needn't even know who your representatives are). All such messages should be short and to the point. Basically, what I said in my message was:

1. I oppose the Communications Opportunity, Promotion, and Enhancement (COPE) Act of 2006 in its present form.
2. I support the efforts to amend the act by Representatives Markey, Boucher, Eshoo and Inslee, and Senators Olympia Snowe and Byron Dorgan.
3. I am in favor of Net Neutrality.

The telecom/cable industry is pulling out all stops to polish this turd. Their "coalition" has the Orwellian title Hands Off the Internet - their thoroughly misleading web site can be found here.

The telecoms have lots of cash, and are handing out campaign contributions (otherwise known as "bribes") by the bucketful in order to get the COPE Act passed. Geeks of the world - especially US-based geeks - need to put down their cups of espresso for a moment and get busy fighting this thing. If we fail, the Internet will deteriorate to the point of near uselessness and we might as well put our computers in storage. In that case, we'll have to all find new hobbies. Possible candidates include knitting and flower arranging.