Sean-Ward.com

I am not prevented from drinking Coke or Pepsi or RC Cola. Nothing stops me from shopping at Kroger or Meijer or Wal-mart. I can go to any number of gas stations in town to refuel my vehicle. Truly, the only thing that stops me from going to any given location is based upon my personal preference. For example, I do not go to Wal-mart because I don’t agree with many of their business practices, I drink Pepsi because I think it tastes better than Coke or RC Cola, and I shop around for the best deal for gas, which typically happens to be Kroger.

I certainly would not expect my browsing on the web through the Internet to be limited because the communication company who owns the channels my Internet traffic uses did not get a high enough bid from the site owner.

Supposedly. The issue, it appears, has a couple different stances, much like any given issue.

Where to start? I decided that I would use technocrati to read blogs with “a lot of authority”, as this should help me filter through the bloggers who lept before looking.

• I found The Original Blog, which had two links to Benton Foundation:
  • the bill in question as a pdf file and
  • a summary of the bill as a doc file
• Next, I read the wikipedia article on network neutrality. I’m thinking its possible the article may be biased, specifically the “economics” section.
• I came across post on Crooked Timber called Norms, networks, and neutrality. From there, I read two explanations by one Ed Felten: Nuts and Bolts of Network Discrimination and Nuts and Bolts of Net Discrimination, Part 2.

I’ve concluded this: I am no where near being done with gathering background about this subject. If so, why did I post this? I felt that it is good to add some more information to the blogosphere, even if it is not original. After all, there is a lot of informed posts out there about this, and I doubt many people choose to research before making a conclusion. I’ll even admit I did this a bit myself. I thought that the e-mail I received via MoveOn.org would be worthwhile, and that I would get some good information about the issue. At the moment, I can’t say for sure if this was the case. Any way, I did some clicking and sent an e-mail to my state representatives. Only after that did I find that I may just be causing more harm then good.

I’m going to have to look at this more this week. Aside from that, enjoy the links, and if anything, educate yourself on the matter.