Ditka

This may be something to be legitimately worried about.

Mike Ditka and the Grabowskis

Do people not *get* the Internet?

Executive Wants to Charge for Web Speed Some Say Small Firms Could Be Shut Out of Market Championed by BellSouth Officer

By Jonathan Krim

Washington Post Staff Writer

Thursday, December 1, 2005; Page D05

A senior telecommunications executive said yesterday that Internet service providers should be allowed to strike deals to give certain Web sites or services priority in reaching computer users, a controversial system that would significantly change how the Internet operates.

William L. Smith, chief technology officer for Atlanta-based BellSouth Corp., told reporters and analysts that an Internet service provider such as his firm should be able, for example, to charge Yahoo Inc. for the opportunity to have its search site load faster than that of Google Inc.

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Legislating otherwise "would be the same thing as saying to Google, 'I think we ought to have regulation on Google that says when I enter a search term, the top search result is always a random event,' " Smith said, claiming that Google allows clients to pay to influence the ranking of search results. In fact, Google does not allow payments to influence general search results, although advertisers pay for top billing on the lists that run on the right side of Google's pages.

story

Fuck that. If ISPs want to keep their common carrier status then they stay neutral. The second they fuck with traffic, cut 'em off.

And how can you be CTO of a major telecom and not know how Google works? Are you an idiot or just plain retarded?

The Internet works because it is the most democratic medium ever. From the tech to the content, anyone can do anything. One of the rightest things the US government has ever done has been to support and, more importantly, play hands-off with the Internet.

When people start messing with that, the system's fucked.

If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right.