p2p news / p2pnet: America’s largest telephone and cable companies, "are crafting an alarming set of strategies that would transform the free, open and nondiscriminatory Internet of today to a privately run and branded service that would charge a fee for virtually everything we do online," says the Center for Digital Democracy’s Jeff Chester on The Nation.

Certainly, Dick and George and the people over at the Pentagon would like it that way. Then they’d be able to bring bottom-line pressure to bear against the Net, seen by the US military as an enemy to be grappled with in the fight against tourism, as George W calls it.

Meanwhile, "Verizon, Comcast, Bell South and other communications giants are developing strategies that would track and store information on our every move in cyberspace in a vast data-collection and marketing system, the scope of which could rival the National Security Agency," says Chester in The Nation. "According to white papers now being circulated in the cable, telephone and telecommunications industries, those with the deepest pockets – corporations, special-interest groups and major advertisers – would get preferred treatment. Content from these providers would have first priority on our computer and television screens, while information seen as undesirable, such as peer-to-peer communications, could be relegated to a slow lane or simply shut out.

"Under the plans they are considering, all of us – from content providers to individual users – would pay more to surf online, stream videos or even send e-mail. Industry planners are mulling new subscription plans that would further limit the online experience, establishing ‘platinum,’ ‘gold’ and ’silver’ levels of Internet access that would set limits on the number of downloads, media streams or even e-mail messages that could be sent or received."

"To make this pay-to-play vision a reality, phone and cable lobbyists are now engaged in a political campaign to further weaken the nation’s communications policy laws. They want the federal government to permit them to operate Internet and other digital communications services as private networks, free of policy safeguards or governmental oversight. Indeed, both the Congress and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) are considering proposals that will have far-reaching impact on the Internet’s future. Ten years after passage of the ill-advised Telecommunications Act of 1996, telephone and cable companies are using the same political snake oil to convince compromised or clueless lawmakers to subvert the Internet into a turbo-charged digital retail machine."

And there’s more, Chester warns.

At the core of the "new power held by phone and cable companies" is "deep packet inspection" through which the likes of AT&T can mine the data you’re receiving online.

Deep packet inspection technologies are partly designed to make the Net pipeline open, but they’re, " also being used to limit some peer-to-peer downloading, especially for music".

"But these tools are also being promoted as ways that companies, such as Comcast and Bell South, can simply grab greater control over the Internet," says The Nation. "For example, in a series of recent white papers, Internet technology giant Cisco urges these companies to ‘meter individual subscriber usage by application,’ as individuals’ online travels are ‘tracked’ and ‘integrated with billing systems.’

"Such tracking and billing is made possible because they will know ‘the identity and profile of the individual subscriber,’ ‘what the subscriber is doing’ and ‘where the subscriber resides’."

Chester believes a national debate is vital to make sure the corporatios don’t wind up as all-powerful overseers.

"We must insure that phone and cable companies operate their Internet services in the public interest -as stewards for a vital medium for free expression," he says.

(Thanks, Justine)

Also See:
The Nation – The End of the Internet?, February, 2006
fight against tourism – The Pentagon vs the Net, February 1, 2006

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