[521] in Privacy_Forum
[ PRIVACY Forum ] Net Neutrality, Health Care,
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (privacy@vortex.com)
Sun Oct 4 16:27:10 2009
Date: Sun, 4 Oct 2009 13:01:30 -0700
To: privacy-list@vortex.com
Message-ID: <20091004200130.GC21767@vortex.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Disposition: inline
From: privacy@vortex.com
Reply-To: PRIVACY Forum Digest mailing list <privacy@vortex.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Errors-To: privacy-bounces+privacy-forum=mit.edu@vortex.com
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
Net Neutrality, Health Care, and "The Customer is Always Wrong!"
http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000620.html
Greetings. The surest way to screw up future innovative applications
would be for ISPs to make constraining assumptions about the future
based on existing applications' performance. Discussing P2P behavior
as if it were some monolithic, unchanging entity is simply wrong.
What is P2P? BitTorrent? Skype? CNN live video feed fan-outs? And
what of changes to these existing apps? What of future apps? By
definition, the sort of "intelligent" network being promoted by
anti-neutrality folks will only perform well when applications toe the
line according to yesterday's definitions -- stifling true innovation
at its core.
P2P paranoia and data jitter fetishes in this context are little more
than attempts at obfuscation. The key "take away" lesson of the last
few days over on the NNSquad list ( http://www.nnsquad.org )
has been the spectacle of one technical party explaining what they
needed from Internet access to conduct their business, and another
technical party responding in essence "You don't need that! Make do!
Be glad ISPs have deemed fit to provide you with any broadband at
all!" Ah, future echoes of techno-arrogance in the finest tradition
of Ma Bell's monopoly-era business practices.
But this all helps to illuminate a crucial point. The technical
details are important of course, but at this stage in debates about
"network neutrality" and transparency it's far more important to
establish first principles. Access to broadband Internet facilities
is becoming as crucial to everyday life in key ways as access to power
and water. Yes, any given individual can probably live without the
Net, but around the world it has become clear that lack of quality
Internet access will be as debilitating to success and advancement in
the long run as being forbidden a basic education.
There are disturbing parallels between these Internet-related
controversies and the ongoing U.S. health care debate. In both cases,
we have extremely large and powerful entrenched interests (giant ISPs,
and enormous insurance companies) who act as "gatekeepers" to a range
of services that consumers and subscribers want and need. These
gatekeepers are hell-bent on protecting their turfs at all costs and
on their terms, the real needs of broader society seemingly be damned.
The question is, will society at large accept such a state of
affairs -- like lambs to slaughter -- indefinitely?
--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein
lauren@vortex.com
Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800
http://www.pfir.org/lauren
Co-Founder, PFIR
- People For Internet Responsibility - http://www.pfir.org
Co-Founder, NNSquad
- Network Neutrality Squad - http://www.nnsquad.org
Founder, GCTIP - Global Coalition
for Transparent Internet Performance - http://www.gctip.org
Founder, PRIVACY Forum - http://www.vortex.com
Member, ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
Lauren's Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/laurenweinstein
_______________________________________________
privacy mailing list
http://lists.vortex.com/mailman/listinfo/privacy
