Net Neutrality? Everythings Coming Up Roses!!! (or so they say)

Ya know, I get spooked real quickly when government entities make their long awaited decisions on ANYTHING and have a collaborative picture that looks like this.

Take a look after the jump at what our Government has put forth as their benevolent policy going forward. (click here on the government approved jump)

And please, comment and tell us your thoughts of what today's outcome means.

Is Comcast Already Undermining Net Neutrality?

Comcast has plenty of reasons to not like Netflix's popular streaming service. Not only does it compete with Comcast's own video on demand services, but it does so using Comcast's internet services. But them charging an extra toll for delivering Netflix doesn't seem right.

Unfortunately, that's just what they're doing. Level 3 Communications, which helps deliver Netflix's streaming movies, has been hit with a new toll for delivering streaming video content. Essentially, this goes against the idea of net neutrality, allowing for an ISP like Comcast to favor its own content over that of another website or provider.

It's certainly a lousy precedent to set! Hopefully net neutrality will be come law soon to nip this sort of nastiness in the bud.

Read the whole article here at the NY Times.

[NY Times via Dvice]

Poly Ticks and Micro Chips

You got politics in my technology!
No! YOU put technology in my politics!
* fight *

This article [arstechnica.com] gives an overview of a recent comparison between the McCain technology think tank, and the Obama tech kids.

There's nothing really surprising here, but might be of interest to some readers. You may not be sure what net neutrality, V1-B visas, or retroactive immunity for telecom giants are all about. Then again, perhaps you ought to know?

Complete with white paper linkage goodness. Yum!

RIAA Wants Your Anti-Virus To Scan For Pirated Content

So now the RIAA wants your Anti-virus to scan your downloads for pirated content. The one thing that went through my mind at first was "I can barely get the damn Anti-virus to do what it was designed to do", and now the RIAA wants to Big Brother my downloads via Anti-virus? Cary Sherman says "doesn't give rise...to any privacy concerns because it can operate automatically and anonymously"? uhh.... yeah, right.

But Sherman at least knows that people wouldn't go for this:

"Why would somebody put that on their machine? They wouldn't likely want to do that, they'd do that when it benefits them such as for viruses and so on and so forth...it could be enforced at the modem or put in by the ISP."

Oh, so now you want my ISP provider to filter my content now? Yes copyright material should be protected, but this isn't the way. If the ISP providers open this Pandora's Box, where will it end?

What else will be filtered one day? News? Blogs that bad mouth ISP's?

We can't afford to let this happen.

[Public Knowledge via Gizmodo]