SanJoseNerd
Premium
join:2002-07-24
San Jose, CA
| Politically Motivated Blocking
quote:
A carrier could block access to a labor union site during a dispute. It could block access to a Web site after a special interest group makes a lot of noise about it. It could even block a political site to curry favor with the current administration. All that sounds far fetched, but the whole point is that there is nothing in place to stop carriers from doing it," Amazon VP Paul Misener told the E-Commerce Times.
There is nothing far-fetched about it. Just last month, Bush's Housing Secretary, Alphonso Jackson, bragged about killing government contracts that would have gone to critics of Bush. Here is what he said, according to CNN:
quote:
"Why should I reward someone who doesn't like the president, so they can use funds to try to campaign against the president?" Jackson was quoted as saying. "Logic says they don't get the contract. That's the way I believe."
It's very easy to imagine some FCC commissioner or other government official saying, "why should I let Verizon expand their network, if they allow Democrats to use that network to campaign against us?". (Of course, if Democrats were in power, they would do exactly the same thing in reverse.) Verizon and others will quickly figure out that it's in their interest to block any content critical of the government, on which they are highly dependent. |
