Communicating Profit

We knew it couldn't last forever. We knew the profit motive would catch up with technology. We knew the communications industry would develop a strategy to squeeze even more money from us. We knew they wanted to get us hooked, so most people would find it next to impossible to quit cold turkey.

The end of the free and accesible internet may be coming our way. So reports Jeffrey Chester at Alternet.

The nation's largest telephone and cable companies are crafting an alarming set of strategies that would transform the free, open and nondiscriminatory Internet of today to a privately run and branded service that would charge a fee for virtually everything we do online.

Verizon, Comcast, Bell South and other communications giants are developing strategies that would track and store information on our every move in cyberspace in a vast data-collection and marketing system, the scope of which could rival the National Security Agency.

According to white papers now being circulated in the cable, telephone and telecommunications industries, those with the deepest pockets -- corporations, special-interest groups and major advertisers -- would get preferred treatment. Content from these providers would have first priority on our computer and television screens, while information seen as undesirable, such as peer-to-peer communications, could be relegated to a slow lane or simply shut out.

We should not allow OUR internet to become yet another profit-driven medium...without a fight.