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Posts Tagged ‘ISPs’
The Net Stays Neutral, For Now
Amanda Moshier | September 21st, 2009
The question of net neutrality has been a topic of concern since the advent of the Internet, but a 2005 decision by the FCC changed the landscape, giving internet service providers or ISPs the legal right to looser regulation and thus increasing their power to control online communication. Since 2005, there has been much regulation in favor of net neutrality, and investigation into unlawful practices by the ISP. If ISPs were given the control they want over web traffic, broadly understood as the ability to price internet access according to the amount of bandwith being used, complicated questions arise. Would liberal ISP control over what is prized as a hotbed of enterprise and free speech infringe on American’s 1st amendment rights and inhibit healthy competition among businesses? Would ISPs leverage their control to pad their profits by subtly favoring their own online properties? Would Americans sit quietly while the cost of access skyrocketed in direct proportion to how much bandwidth they used? Now, four years later, the FCC has expressed a strong position in favor of net neutrality, and plans on signing into law new principles to ensure ISPs remain neutral. Reading about this, I was reminded of Google’s maybe-monopoly on paid search, and the palpable influence Google’s methods of pricing keywords has on the economy and even media. In theory, minimum keyword bids are determined to a large degree by demand, but Google makes a profit every time a PPC advertiser pays for a click on a text ad. Continue reading…
Tags: FCC, Google, Google antitrust, Google monopoly, ISPs, net neutrality
Posted in Google, Internet News, Random!, Technology | 2 Comments
My ’09 Online Wishlist: 5 Things I’d Like to See in the New Year
Amanda Moshier | December 22nd, 2008
Amidst last-minute holiday shopping, new years resolution making, and perpetual to-do list creating, I’ve been thinking about how I’d like the web to change in 2009. Much different than a list of predicted trends that are hardly original, this post will offer up my semi-serious personal online wish list for the new year. Allow me to begin: 1) A one-stop online shop (or storefront, if you will) I know we have OpenID, FastDial, and iGoogle and online giants are developing open versions of their most popular services, but I’d like to see everything I need and use (and everything you need and use) on daily basis all in one place. Email, calendar programs, bill paying, bank accounts, online shopping, IM services, news sites, social networking, premium video, music…I could continue, but I won’t. The idea is I want everything essential available in one location, designed in a cool way, and easily customizable. I want to login to my Facebook and bank accounts from one location, and I want to contact the same support center if I have a problem with either. CAVEAT: I don’t know if this is safe. I guess in theory aggregating everything we do online would make us easier targets for identity theft, but I’ll leave security to the experts. I just want to make things easy. 2) Irrelevant website (and application) regulation…because it’s not quantity, it’s quality If one more faux-authoritative news site pops up touting exclusive coverage of the latest political scandal or a productivity Continue reading…
