Tech Giants' Internet Battles
Burt Helm at Business Week - A House committee voted down an amendment that would have required internet wire providers to accept all traffic equally. Unless this is changed, AT&T and the cable companies will be able to censor or bandwidth limit content they don't like or from suppliers who pay them less. From a freedom perspective, this is a complicated issue. In a true free market, this amendment would be an abomination. Those who own the wires would get to decide how they're used. Period. But telecom is anything but a free market. It's already highly regulated, meaning large barriers to entry by new competitors. I'm split on whether this amendment was a good idea. So my rule that less legislation is almost always the right thing takes over, and I support the elimination of the amendment. Unlike almost everyone who's become accustomed to a nearly-free internet, both free as in speech and free as in beer. Slashdot discussion. [/.]
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