Net Neutrality - a vid

[gmc]

I suppose "big business" by it's nature wants to control it's markets and keep out competition but it's not a good survival tactic in a compoetitive world.

Could be very bad for american business in the long run. Any business that tries to compete by stopping or squeezing out competition rather than welcoming it and matching it will always fail. It's a defeatist and very parochial attitude that seesm to be becoming endemic in the US.

It's not that american products are crap compared to imports it's claimed as unfair competition. We get the same kind of stuff over here as well every now and then with calls to impose draconian tariffs to protect industries that can't stand up to competition or adapt quickly enough. All very well in isolation but it usually results for tit for tat tariffs that affect industries that are doing well in importing to other countries and only staves of the inevitable collapse or adaptation. In the long run free markets always are better.

Just to give you a european perpective.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/02/24/iana_contract/

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/07/01 ... et_policy/

Clearly the internet has entered the Bush administration's vision and the resulting DoC statement - which boldly tells the rest of the world that the US will continue to run the Internet and everyone will just have to lump it - is very in keeping with how the US government is currently run.

The big question now is whether the rest of the world will be cowed. ICANN has yet to release a statement on the DoC’s surprise declaration but it knows which side its bread is buttered on and so will probably make a careful and broadly supportive statement.

The vision of a US-controlled internet infrastructure will be anathema to large parts of the world however and it is a demonstration of the US administration’s failure to think globally that it doesn't recognise that there is surprisingly little preventing other parts of the world from creating a second Internet outside of US control.

An already fractious situation has just got more difficult.


What you do domestically doesn't matter to anybody outside of america but in comparison to other countries it will set your domestic market back by making innovation harder and new business startups harder while everyone else in the world is trying to encourage the spread of broadband as it's seen as essential to business growth.

But any attempt to control the internet world wide will probably result in a resounding get stuffed. The US may be the biggest market at the moment but there is plenty of scope for development elsewhere. The more the US makes it difficult to do business the more companies will look elsewhere for new markets. The more the US is seen as trying to call the tune the more that will happen. It's short term protectionism that should worry emericans-as a non american I don't really care what you do:)

[Accountable]

Watch out for a "truth in advertising" tack. The gov't will try to use it as an excuse to lock the internet down. Can't have just anybody lying to the public for free, right?

[gmc]

Accountable wrote: Watch out for a "truth in advertising" tack. The gov't will try to use it as an excuse to lock the internet down. Can't have just anybody lying to the public for free, right?


You mean they will stop macdonal's and their like advertising their stuff of as nutritious good quality nosh?:eek:

[Accountable]

There's truth and then there's truth. The better truth comes from a lobbyist with a fist full of cash.