June 10, 2006 | In Technology, Politics, Law |
In a deliberate mockery of net neutrality, U.S. House Representative, Charles Gonzalez, a Democrat from Texas, has proposed that the principle be applied not only to Internet Service Providers, but also to the internet itself.
The proposed amendment would restrict and regulate the online business activities of companies like Amazon, Microsoft, Yahoo, and Google, and make it illegal for these entities to discriminate in any way. For example, Google would no long be able to reject undesirable advertisers, and Amazon wouldn’t be allowed to form exclusive relationships with retail partners.
This would obviously make it very difficult for the internet companies to do much in the way of serious business, and effectively cripple the e-commerce world as we know it. At this point, you might ask if this whole proposal is some sort of joke. And the answer is quite frankly, yes.
In reality, Charles Gonzalez almost certainly opposes net neutrality legislation, and is performing a political maneuver to make the big internet giants abandon their support for the cause. Anyone with a brain in their head, however, would see that Mr. Gonzalez’s bogus “proposal” would serve the exact opposite purpose of genuine net neutrality.
The whole point of the principle itself (at least from my perspective) is to keep the web fair and unregulated for both businesses and consumers, by preventing ISPs from filtering or regulating internet traffic.
People like Gonzalez don’t seem to understand that most net neutrality advocates aren’t trying to restrict or regulate the internet, but rather prevent service providers from doing just that. Personally, I don’t see this as a political issue that the government should be involved in at all, but instead, a battle by internet users to conserve the fair and unfiltered medium that we know and love.
I have little doubt that the Googles and Amazons of the world will have no problem seeing through this idiotic attempt by Mr. Gonzalez to ridicule the entire cause and allow ISPs to butcher the web as we know it.
