Harry, I think that's a very important point to make. There was a diary on DailyKos about the recent dustup over the Google/Verizon story: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/8/12/892044/-End-of-the-Internet-As-We-Know-It! In short, it was broadly misreported by folks on the left. The story looked on the surface like a big corporations doing evil things story and so it got reported that way. In the process, the concept of net neutrality became redefined. Media outlets were defining it as saying that different content TYPES should be treated equally, rather than different content providers. Obviously, if this definition of net neutrality took hold, it would be bad -- especially in wireless. If you have a minute, read the diary. The dkos guy does a better job of explaining it than I can. My hope is that there are people at this hearing that know what they're talking about, who will stand up and make a good case. I don't think more regulation on the internet would be a good thing. However, I support net neutrality, in that every person's or company's data should get the same priority as anyone else's (given the same type of content). Anyway, it's a tough issue to get your head around, especially for the layperson. And unfortunately, Congress is full of laypeople. Long live Ted Stevens, -Erik On Thu, Aug 19, 2010 at 10:41 AM, Harry Penner <hpenner at gmail.com> wrote: > At the risk of flames: the Internet as we know it has flourished in > large part because its original sponsor, the federal government, has > mostly left it alone. Why do we think adding government regulations > to it will make it better (or preserve the freedom we enjoy on it)? > Generally speaking, doesn't regulation take away freedom rather than > increasing it, by definition? I'm no futurist but it seems to me that > putting restrictions on the big guys is likely to affect us little > guys in some unforeseen but unpleasant way. > > Sorry if the above sounds trollish but I just think we should be > careful what we ask for. With companies you can usually vote with > your feet to try to change or avoid their bad behavior, but > regulations are usually universal and forever... And the regs will > surely by written by people not nearly as close to or as thoughtful > about the problem as we tclug'ers... > > Seems to me we ought to show up and tell the FCC to keep their paws off us. > > -Harry > > On Aug 19, 2010, at 9:52, Brian <goeko at Goecke-Dolan.com> wrote: > >> There will be a hearing on the Net Neutrality here in the Twin Cities. >> >> >> http://savetheinternet.com/mnhearing >> >> >> I am not associated with this, just thought people would be interested >> to know. >> >> ==>brian. >> >> _______________________________________________ >> TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota >> tclug-list at mn-linux.org >> http://mailman.mn-linux.org/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list > > _______________________________________________ > TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota > tclug-list at mn-linux.org > http://mailman.mn-linux.org/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list > -- Erik K. Mitchell -- Web Developer erik.mitchell at gmail.com erik at ekmitchell.com http://ekmitchell.com/