Well,it looks like the telecoms are all powerful — their bid to take over the internet and essentially shake down web sites for the right to use their pipes is significantly closer to passing. Net neturality, essentially what we have now — a “neutral” internet that treats all sites the same — is in serious jeopardy. Soon it may be that sites that assent to letting the telecoms extort money from them will load faster than sites that do not. I’m not sure what it means in practice, but my guess is that Restaurant Fuel and other independent blogs might cease to exist under this model. I think it’s safe to say that your ability to choose what sites you visit — especially in the ecommerce arena — may be seriously limited. I can see Barnes and Noble, for instance, becoming the exclusive online bookstore for Verizon, completely blocking Amazon from Verizon’s users.

This is the anthesis of what the internet was created for — for anyone to share information for free. The telecoms are running ads that say that Google and other companies that oppose them want to stifle innovation on the internet. This is so far from the truth — Google and Microsoft and MoveOn and Gunowners of America and a number of other diverse groups are the good guys. The open internet is what encourages innovation — it’s Verizon and AT&T and BellSouth and the other telecoms that want to stifle innovation by closing off the internet to only those who can afford to pay the big bucks.

I work as a web developer for a University. Will this jeopardize my job? Especially if my school can’t afford to pay what the telecoms want? What about every other web developer out there. If our organizations refuse to pay to be part of this, will our jobs exist. Seriously, this could kill the internet as we know it. The telecoms must be stopped.

Call your Senators, write the President (not that he would ever veto a pro-business bill). If the interent becomes privatized, all the online content and services that we enjoy today will evaporate.