But Lawson says that could change drastically if Canadian telecommunications companies like Bell, Telus and Rogers follow the lead of their American counterparts, including Verizon and AT&T. Canadian companies have already argued in various forums that Net neutrality legislation isn't necessary.
"Our position on network diversity/neutrality is that it should be determined by market forces, not regulation," Jacqueline Michelis, a spokeswoman for Bell Canada, said in a recent e-mail to The Canadian Press.
That viewpoint is making those who advocate for a free and open Internet nervous.
"Let's say you're Rogers and you're trying to sell Major League Baseball stuff so the Toronto Blue Jays content loads faster than anyone else's, or you're Bell Globemedia, so you ensure that CTV content loads far faster than the CBC's does," says Michael Geist, a professor at the University of Ottawa who specializes in Internet law.
Rogers owns the Jays and Bell Globemedia owns CTV.
"There's clear incentive there for those who have the economic interests to discriminate. That's why it's necessary to ensure that there's a level playing field and you have to do that legislatively."
Lawson says Canadian companies want exactly what American companies want - to control the web and make a lot of money doing so.
"There's a big push in Canada right now to allow those sorts of discriminatory practices," Lawson says.
"The companies that own the pipes of the Internet - the telecom companies - haven't liked sitting back and watching big content providers like Google and Yahoo make billions of dollars. They want a piece of the pie, and they want to be able to favour their own content or the content of the corporations that would pay them big money."
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/MediaNews/2006/11/04/pf-2231599.html
[Proofreader's note: this article was edited for spelling and typos on November 6, 2006]
Note: http://cnews.canoe.ca/C...
Battle For 'Net Neutrality' Arrives In Canada And Could Forever Alter Internet
Posted on Sunday, November 05 at 12:21 by AnonymousContributed By
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"Son, if you wanna get ahead in this world, never work for another man as long as you live."
We all knew that they had to do something about free speech over the internet. I mean, how can they allow websites operating on a shoe string budget to out compete websites such as CNN that are funded with multimillion dollar budgets? That's just not fair!
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Expect little from life and get more from it.
Since when have the super-rich and privileged ever been concerned with "fairness"?
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"and the knowledge they fear is a weapon to be used against them"
"The Weapon" - Rush
In other words, the internet should be turned into a monopoly regulated by a few special interest groups that don't want to see any competition at all.
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These individuals have supported MC because it is in THEIR best interest (not the Canadian people's best interest) to eliminate dissenting and informed opinions which may get people thinking. Of course, it is also in their best interest to get their buddies in the Government to eliminate all forms of competition.<br />
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The Corporate backed Government supports MC because it (1) helps to keep the population in the dark about a variety of issues and (2) helps their filthy rich buddies make more and more and more.<br />
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<a href="http://www.cariboo.bc.ca/carryon/dcharbon/forum/blackink.htm">http://www.cariboo.bc.ca/carryon/dcharbon/forum/blackink.htm</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.juancole.com/2006/05/canwest-and-lobby-kind-reader-alerted.html">http://www.juancole.com/2006/05/canwest-and-lobby-kind-reader-alerted.html</a><br />
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Even if the major players were permitted to eliminate all the smaller competition on the net, they would still have a difficult time succeeding. The bottom line is the information Big Media is providing to the public is total crap and their websites pretty much suck all the way around.<br />
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Personally, I would rather wait an hour for a quality website to load than have instant access to a bunch of self-serving rubbish. Just because the only item on the menu is horses**t, it does not mean it has to be eaten.
I've been given this subject some additional thought since yesterday, and I came to the same conclusion - even if they force high volume 'alternative' websites to load very slowly, the exact same number of people will be patiently waiting in line for these websites to load anyway, while CNN, FOX, CTV, and so on, would continue to be largely ignored - probably even more so because you'd be able to identify the quality websites by how slowly they load up!
As for *my* end of the pipe, please, charge me more to get to google. I'm sure I can find or make a cheaper connection just like google too. Same goes for making connections I use slower.
This isn't about free-market, it's about legislation designed to stick it to the customer, big or small. Charge for services that they aren't even providing and to control the network for their own profits. (IE. Marketing.)
This is just more of the same dog & pony show, designed to fool the public into thinking that the government is doing a fine job of thinking for us.
Sometimes I really wonder if people even listen to themselves speak.
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Everybody got to deviate from the norm