From:
http://www.zpenergy.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2964
Modernsteam writes: Canadian ISPs Plan Net Censorship
Concerns grow that Canada's plan will wipeout alt news sites and
spread to U.S.
By Mike Finch
A net-neutrality activist group has uncovered plans for the demise of
the free Internet by 2010 in Canada. By 2012, the group says, the
trend will be global.
Bell Canada and TELUS, Canada's two largest Internet service
providers (ISPs), will begin charging per-site fees on most Internet
sites, reports anonymous sources within TELUS.
"It's beyond censorship, it is killing the biggest ecosystem of free
expression and freedom of speech that has ever existed", I Power
spokesperson Reese Leysen said. I Power was the first group to report
on the possible changes.
Bell Canada has not returned calls or emails.
The plans made by the large telecom businesses would change the
Internet into a cable-like system, where customers sign up for
specific web sites, and must pay to see each individual site beyond a
certain point.
Subscription browsing would be limited, extra fees would be applied
to access out-of-network sites. Many sites would be blocked altogether.
We had inside sources from bigger companies who gave us the
information on how exclusivity deals are being made at this moment
between ISPs and big content providers (like TV production studios
and major video game publishers) to decide which web sites will be in
the standard packageoffered to their customers, leaving all the rest
of the Internet unreachable unless you pay extra subscription fees
per every non-standard site you visit,Leysen said.
We knew the sourceto be 100% reliable, but we also knew the story
would be highly controversial if we released the information. We did
it because we knew that we get more official confirmations once we
come forward with it.
And indeed that is what happened. Dylan Pattyn, who is writing the
soon-to-be published article for Time Magazine, received confirmation
from sources within Bell Canada and TELUS after we released the
information.
The plans would in effect be economic censorship, with only the top
100 to 200 sites making the cut in the initial subscription package.
Such plans would likely favor major news outlets and suppress smaller
news outlets, as the major news outlets would be free (with
subscription), and alternative news outlets, like AFP, would incur a
fee for every visit.
The Internet will become a playground for billion-dollar content
providers just like television is, said Leysen. It won'tbe possible
for a few teenagers in their parents basement to start a small site
like E-bay that then grows out to be the next big thing anymore.
Right now the Internet belongs to those with the greatest ideas. In
the future, it'll belong to those with the biggest budgets.
With plans in Canada uncovered, I Power thinks that companies in the
United States and other nations are also planning similar actions.
By 2012 ISPs all over the globe will reduce Internet access to a TV-
like subscription model, only offering access to a small standard
amount of commercial sites and require extra fees for every other
site you visit.
These other sites would then lose all their exposure andeventually
shut down, resulting in what could be seen as the end of the
Internet, Leysen said.
Such a subscription plan could possibly restrict free speech far
beyond even the current restrictions set by the governments of
communist China. Not only would browsing be limited, but privacy
would be invaded, as every web site viewed would likely be recorded
on a bill in a manner similar to a phone bill.
Why would the ISPs institute such a plan? One word: money.
This new subscription model is commercially far more beneficial to
them than how it is now, Leysen said. If Fox wants to launch a new
television show online, they'll have to pay big money to all major
ISPsto ensure that their new show will be offered and pushed in the
standard package& of sites/services/channels that people will get
through their Internet access. Plus ISPs will also gain extra revenue
out of people trying to access the rest of the Internet, as they'll
pay extra subscription fees for every web site they visit.
But it's not just the big ISPs that stand to gain.
Marketing and big budget content-pushing just doesn't seem to work on
the Internet, and this is something that several industries want
fixed. ISPs know this and will benefit greatly by fixing this for the
marketing and entertainment industry, Leysen said.
The ISPs are said to be confident they can institute such plans
through deceptive marketing and fear tactics.
The Internet will be more and more marketed as a place full of child
pornography and other horrible illegal activity in order to get
people on their [the ISP side once they start restricting it and make
it safer, Leysen said. Unless we really make a stand for this and
make sure that mainstream media thoroughly covers the issue, the
whole thing will be eased in with proper marketing to make sure that
most mainstream customers won’t make a big deal out of it. They will
only realize what was lost long after it's gone.
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For more information about this story see http://ipower.ning.com
For more information about Internet freedom: savetheinternet.com
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