HomeI’m probably not going to add anything new to this discussion, but I wanted to point out this issue that I think anyone who spends more than 5 minutes online needs to be aware of. I first saw this over at Dvice. I’ve done some research online and didn’t come up with anything new to this story as the deal appears to be both fairly new and being kept fairly hush hush.
image detailing the deal between google and verizon that could end net neutrality
Essentially it boils down to Google and Verizon working out a deal where some websites (google) can pay the ISP a small fee to make it possible to have their pages load quicker than another webpage. Another option on the table is that ISPs will become like cable providers where they only carry a set number of pages (abc, cbs, nbc, usa, syfy, etc) and for a small fee can get access to others (hbo, showtime, etc). Either way this spells really bad news for small businesses, internet marketers, and everyone who accesses the internet. Right now you can use PPC and a bank account to help rank a page somewhat in Google, but the biggest pull for Google is relevant interesting content. Content that is getting reposted, pingbacks, and dumped on slashdot/digg. Having this great content can allow a small business or a basic blog to beat out larger companies, this is fantastic! This means that you have a much better chance of finding what you are wanting, and it gives a certain amount of survival of the creative (ie- successful internet marketers are the ones who are creative NOT necessarily the ones with the largest checkbook). Another implication is the paying by companies to have bad comments/reviews about them load slower than their websites which would in turn decrease visits, and then not rank lower in google. This takes away a significant amount of the power from the internet. It frankly puts us in the same ballpark of China censoring the internet, except instead of a unified government we’re going to have whomever can pay the most money. I’ve tried to make this a reasoned argument, putting up a few thoughts based on the limited information coming out about this deal. I strongly urge anyone reading this to get themselves up to date on this deal and take action. Visit this site for some more. I found this quote over at alternet.org. As they pointed out is amazing how fast a company with the motto: “don’t be evil” can slide down the slippery slope of profit: ”Today the Internet is an information highway where anybody – no matter how large or small, how traditional or unconventional – has equal access. But the phone and cable monopolies, who control almost all Internet access, want the power to choose who gets access to high-speed lanes and whose content gets seen first and fastest. They want to build a two-tiered system and block the on-ramps for those who can’t pay.”
