It's the End of the Web As We Know It --

FTC ABANDONS "NET NEUTRALITY"
Some things just don't get undone. So no corporate toady in Congress, after gutting 'Net neutrality', and bestowing extremely valuable communications monopolies on powerful media corporations in '07, is gonna turn around two years, later, after the '08 "election" and unshit the Web.
Nagahapun; aribuddy knows it.
So it pains me now to have been, once again, right.
But there it is.
In case you haven't been paying attention (this WILL be on the test): I have predicted long and loud and at some risk to my reputation as a 'serious fellow', since before 2004, that the Web was too fucking democratizing, too fucking empowering, to be permitted for too long to flout itself in the faces of the CorpoRats who'd spent the previous 80 years, trillions of dollars, and thousands of lives to corner the market in mediated reality.
It was unrealistic, I argued, to imagine that, with the stakes so high, the rewards so rich, the power so complete, that the folks who'd spent the previous 80 years cornering every kind of media they could by which to enslave the populace would just walk away from the WEB. They would, I assured anyone who listened, move heaven and earth to ensure their continued dominance over the means and instruments by which Murkins could imagine themselves.
And further, I argued that the ways of the Web we have all grown used to would probably NOT come to the '08 election in the same form as it came into the '04 and '06 election cycles.
Indeed, with the unexpected losses for the GOP, in a way, the successes of '06 sealed our fates.

Vide:

Iain Thomson, vnunet.com 02 Jul 2007

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has decided to abandon net neutrality and allow telecoms companies to charge websites for access.

The FTC said in a report that, despite popular support for net neutrality, it was minded to let the market sort out the issue.

This means that the organisation will not stand in the way of companies using differential pricing to make sure that some websites can be viewed more quickly than others. The report also counsels against net neutrality legislation.

"This report recommends that policy makers proceed with caution in the evolving dynamic industry of broadband internet access, which is generally moving towards more, not less, competition," FTC chairman Deborah Platt Majoras wrote.

"In the absence of significant market failure, or demonstrated consumer harm, policy makers should be particularly hesitant to enact new regulation in this area."

The report has caused outrage in the online community. Many are worried that any abandonment of net neutrality will harm competition, since it will allow big companies to outspend start-ups.

"Mostly the FTC suggests ways that the telephone and cable companies could have new ways to make money from content and applications providers," said Art Brodsky, of internet advocacy group Public Knowledge.

"Or lower-income subscribers could be charged lower prices, subsidised by 'prioritization revenues' much as supported email services now provide free email accounts. Nowhere is there discussion of what the consumer gets out of the deal."

Just in time to stem the popular tide.
I know I never imagined it...
Have I mentioned? Turn your radios to WASF, Radio We Are SOOOO Fucked, whereEVER you are...
While you still can...