[…] I have had an extremely busy day, I am tired, and all I want to do is sleep, something pulls me to the computer to see what is going on. Just to make sure I haven’t missed anything new or an interesting point of view. […] Src
I did not realize one can “quit the internet”… it must feel good. really. but is it doable?
“I’m actually a little uncomfortable, in principle, [with the idea] that the action of a French court indirectly caused the removal of content in the United States”, David Clark (one of the first chief protocol architects of the Internet). #.
Clark was referring to Yahoo’s being sued in France for making Nazi memorabilia available for sale on an e-commerce site (illegal in France but protected under the First Amendment in the U.S.).
This one raises an interesting question:
Geek, open-minded and democrat I very much value Internet as a platform for free speech (even to a certain extend if it is about selling Nazi memorabilia but it is not the point here).
On the other hand I am more and more interested in politics (one says it comes with age) and the more I think about it the more I value the sovereignity of a country or a state. To be more precise I value my right to participate to the law within a country.
So if through means of votation I participate in the democratic choice of banning sales of certain items in the state I choose (ideally) to live in. Do I really want to let Internet to overrule my own choice?
Not really sure which one makes me feel the more uncomfortable.
Quick and dirty attempt to lay down my current thoughts about the whole net neutrality issue.
What ?
Net neutrality is about providing to users the same quality of service (ie. mainly the bandwidth capacity you paid for) to access all services on the internet. In other words, an internet service provider (ISP) should not discriminate one traffic over another. Since it does concern the last mile infrastructure it depends on the local regulations which means obviously that it might be different from one country to the other.
Problem ?
To keep growing and monetize their infrastructure ISP needs to find new revenue flow and one outcome could be to head towads tiered-internet. ISP might be tempted to make pay selected services for a better quality of service (ie. insure bandwidth) on their network, hence granting for the end user the best possible experience for this service. While getting the best service possible without spending a penny sounds good for the end users (ie. us), it has a drawback: it gives priority on the network to the companies that have the most money, and since start-ups are not part of those it would basically kill innovation.
I attended last friday this one day conference in Sierre. Nice event, well organized, and a good opportunity to network a bit. All videos are online on klewel.com.
Among all things said and heard there is one “outcome” that really make me thinking… “the web is dead, long life to the internet”!