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.

It's the end of the line for Canada's humble penny. The government has decided the lowest denomination coin is more trouble than it's worth, so the Royal Canadian Mint will stop distributing the penny this fall. "It costs taxpayers a penny-and-a-half every time we make one. We will, therefore, stop making them.", said Finance Minister Jim Flaherty.

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

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"?

The Chinese government issued new rules on Friday requiring Internet users to provide their real names to service providers, while assigning Internet companies greater responsibility for deleting forbidden postings and reporting them to the authorities.

Chinese micro-blogging sites have become the latest target of Beijing’s internet police, which have ordered companies providing Twitter-like services to step up monitoring and purge sites of politically “sensitive” words and expressions....

Google and Pandora Internet Radio support FCC regulators setting pricing for content played over the internet [IRFA (HR 6480 and S3609)]. Musicians, record companies and performing rights organizations are lining up in opposition to the bills.

"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]

The idea for internetwork came from BBN, a private company. The rise of ISPs in the 1980s showed that other companies were willing to invest in this space. Once the home PC and dial-up services became available, people joined commercial networks by the millions. The economic incentives to connect those early networks probably would have resulted in something very much like today’s Internet even if the ARPANET had never existed.