This article is about internet freedom, and who controls the information on the internet. President Obama suggested that the telephone service and or the company that delivers electricity be classified as a public utility, therefore giving the F.C.C. grounds to regulate the price and content. There is hesitation to do this, however, because the internet is the nations fastest growing service and very profitable. Companies such as Netflix have accused broadband providers of slowing their service on purpose, thus breaching net neutrality. There can also be political motives behind internet advertising, another reason the government wants to regulate content. Overall, however, the internet needs to be regulated to protect the "smart kid with the clever new idea" from "the zippy websites of established players in the fast lane". The net neutrality debate has been a hot topic in the United States because of the demand for technology.
I chose this article because I had done an article on net neutrality before and the follow up is very interesting to me. I think that being in a communications class, the use of the internet is vital to discuss. I think that the government regulating the internet, however, would take away the freedom of it. From a business standpoint, I learned that the bottom line for most things come from profit. In this case, business do not want the internet regulated because they can’t make as much money and they cannot advertise what they want. I also found this article interesting because it mentions that T-Mobile offers free music streaming to it's customers, which is one of the reasons my family just switched providers, so their advertising and internet manipulation does work.
Victoria,
ReplyDeleteThat was the best current events article ever :)