老澳门开奖结果

Ars Technica yesterday that AT&T has confirmed it will allow web sites to pay money so that data downloaded from those sites will not be counted against customers鈥� monthly data caps. I don鈥檛 know whether this is a business model that will take hold鈥攂ut if it does, it is dangerous to the openness of the Internet.

At stake here is Network Neutrality, which has been usefully by Public Knowledge as 鈥淭he principle that the company that connects you to the internet does not get to control what you do on the internet.鈥�

If I have a data-limited cellphone plan, and I鈥檓 faced with the choice between a clunky and cumbersome service provided by some giant existing company that can afford to pay these fees, and a cool and innovative new service provided by a startup that can鈥檛, I鈥檓 likely to stick with the incumbent even though its upstart competitor is better. AT&T, which is supposed to provide me access to the internet, is using its power over the network to influence what I access. (To be precise, it鈥檚 selling that power.)

Opponents of enshrining Network Neutrality into law protest that it will 鈥渋nhibit innovation.鈥� But this is not a pro-innovation, 鈥渇ree market鈥� development in our telecom services. It鈥檚 a market distortion by an oligopolistic, utility-like company that will shift power toward already successful companies and stifle potential competitors. And it allows AT&T to enable some speakers to communicate better than other speakers. As I (and many others) have argued, this kind of poisonous development is precisely the 鈥渋nnovation鈥� that is likely to take place in the absence of Network Neutrality rules. Net Neutrality, on the other hand, protects the kind of innovation鈥攁nd the freedom and diversity of speech鈥攖hat make the internet so valuable.

The internet is the goose that has laid a billion golden eggs, but it is a human institution that we cannot take for granted. There is no guarantee that bad policy won鈥檛 ruin the things that have made it great. This is not a road we should permit our carriers to go down.