Free Talk Live

A Guide to the Open Internet

Network neutrality is the idea that your cellular, cable, or phone internet connection should treat all websites and services the same. Big companies like AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast want to treat them differently so they can charge you more depending on what you use.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is currently debating legislation to define limits for internet service providers (ISPs). The hope is that they will keep the internet open and prevent companies from discriminating against different kinds of websites and services.

When the Government Comes Knocking, Who Has Your Back?

EFF Charts the Privacy and Transparency Practices of the Internet's Biggest Companies

For Immediate Release: Thursday, May 31, 2012

(by Declan McCullagh): Internet companies and civil liberties groups were alarmed this spring when a U.S. Senate bill proposed handing the White House the power to disconnect private-sector computers from the Internet.
They're not much happier about a revised version that aides to Sen. Jay Rockefeller, a West Virginia Democrat, have spent months drafting behind closed doors. CNET News has obtained a copy of the 55-page draft (excerpt), which still appears to permit the president to seize temporary control of private-sector networks during a so-called cybersecurity emergency.

Law enforcement agents are following the rest of the Internet world into popular social-networking services, even going undercover with false online profiles to communicate with suspects and gather private information, according to an internal Justice Department document that surfaced in a lawsuit.

May 31, 2012 | By Rebecca Jeschke

When you use the Internet, you entrust your online conversations, thoughts, experiences, locations, photos, and more to companies like Google, AT&T and Facebook. But what happens when the government demands that these companies to hand over your private information? Will the company stand with you? Will it tell you that the government is looking for your data so that you can take steps to protect yourself? https://www.eff.org/sites/default/files/who-has-your-back-2012_0_0.pdf

"If you’ve got a business -- you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen...You didn’t get there on your own. I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else."

[Digg this-]

"The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet." [I always wondered why Al Gore invented the internet, now I guess I know]

From The New York Times: "In New Space Race, Enter the Entrepreneurs": Four years from now, the company plans for real modules to be launched and assembled into the solar system’s first private space station. "Every astronaut we have come in here just says, ‘Wow,’ ” said Robert T. Bigelow, the company founder. “They can’t believe the size of this thing.”

The CRTC (the canadian FCC) is looking into letting the telecommunication companies put a meter on the internet. Making downloading a gig to be up to 4-5 dollars each; whereas it only costs them 1 penny. If only licences to begin telecommunication companies in Canada were not restricted and costly; we could have better services at cheaper prices.

When you use the Internet, you entrust your conversations, thoughts, experiences, locations, photos, and more to companies like Google, AT&T and Facebook. But what do these companies do when the government demands your private information? Do they stand with you? Do they let you know what’s going on?

For example, which companies require a warrant to give up your data? Which ones will even bother to tell you when your data has been "requested"?