Today marks the first great voluntary Internet Slowdown – a protest against the US government and the United States Federal Communications Commission handling of the Net Neutrality issue. All across the web, many sites like Reddit, Netflix, and WordPress, will display a spinning “loading…” icon, symbolising that the proposed internet slow lanes — where websites which will (can) not pay their ISPs ‘extra’ money, will load more slowly than others.
The Internet Slowdown is a public awareness effort by Battle for the Net, an off-shoot of Fight for the Future, which is a non-profit that was hugely successful in spearheading the fight against SOPA and PIPA. In a surprise move even the EFF has changed its position – from advocating dismantling of the FCC, the EFF is now calling for a ‘retuning’ of the same organisation for ‘minimal’ oversight!
And the big (US) ISPs are acting in concert, to read the reports, in a covert manner. Instead of saying they want a little extra to give to equal access, they have couched their proposals as some sort of deluxe, a la carte, access – calling them Internet Fast Lanes. Obviously if there are fast lanes, there have to be slow lanes too, right?
Guess who will end up in those slow lanes?
As a simple example, think of today’s Facebook or the original Hotmail of Sabeer Bhatia! Because the Internet was free, and provided equal access whether you are an internet startup or an established corporation, both the products could establish, and become market leaders.
If either Bhatia or Zuckerberg had to shell out $30,000 a month to stay on proposed the Internet Fast Lane, could their Hotmail or Facebook survived?
To mark today, and create awareness, major websites and participants are displaying overlays or banners on their websites – and blogs, like me. The display shows a ‘spinning wheel’ or ‘loading…’ icon with the query that ‘if the site takes this long to load, will you wait?’ Mind you, the site itself is not slowed down, but the overlay gives a feel of what it would feel like.
Clicking on the icon will take you to a page where you can sign a petition to US Congress to oppose the proposed FCC rules. If you are not a US citizen, you can do what I do – try to spread the word!
The Internet Slowdown is a public awareness effort by Battle for the Net, an off-shoot of Fight for the Future, which is a non-profit that was hugely successful in spearheading the fight against SOPA and PIPA. In a surprise move even the EFF has changed its position – from advocating dismantling of the FCC, the EFF is now calling for a ‘retuning’ of the same organisation for ‘minimal’ oversight!
And the big (US) ISPs are acting in concert, to read the reports, in a covert manner. Instead of saying they want a little extra to give to equal access, they have couched their proposals as some sort of deluxe, a la carte, access – calling them Internet Fast Lanes. Obviously if there are fast lanes, there have to be slow lanes too, right?
Guess who will end up in those slow lanes?
As a simple example, think of today’s Facebook or the original Hotmail of Sabeer Bhatia! Because the Internet was free, and provided equal access whether you are an internet startup or an established corporation, both the products could establish, and become market leaders.
If either Bhatia or Zuckerberg had to shell out $30,000 a month to stay on proposed the Internet Fast Lane, could their Hotmail or Facebook survived?
To mark today, and create awareness, major websites and participants are displaying overlays or banners on their websites – and blogs, like me. The display shows a ‘spinning wheel’ or ‘loading…’ icon with the query that ‘if the site takes this long to load, will you wait?’ Mind you, the site itself is not slowed down, but the overlay gives a feel of what it would feel like.
Clicking on the icon will take you to a page where you can sign a petition to US Congress to oppose the proposed FCC rules. If you are not a US citizen, you can do what I do – try to spread the word!
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