[FYI] Will broadband providers control Net content in the U.S.?

["Axel H Horns" <axel.h.horns@gmx.net>]

<http://www.idg.com.sg/idgwww.nsf/unidlookup/DBA538C52BC6B04C48256CFE 
0013EEF6>  

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Will broadband providers control Net content in the U.S.?  

By Scarlet Pruitt  

IDG News Service, Boston Bureau  

04-04-2003  

NEW YORK -- As the U.S.' Internet architecture moves from dial-up 
access to broadband, some speakers at the Computers, Freedom and 
Privacy (CFP) conference in New York Thursday expressed concern that 
the major cable operators that provide the high-speed networks will 
control users' access to content.  

"If we don't do something now broadband access will be based on the 
TV model -- it will all be about directing marketing and advertising 
to your household," said Jeff Chester, executive director of the 
Center for Digital Democracy.  

Chester's fear is of a broadband world where cable operators steer 
users to content, services and applications that they or their 
partners own, and impede access to competitors' offerings, by slowing 
down users' connection rates to those sites or blocking them 
altogether.  

"It's about bucks and bites, not about free speech," he said.  

However, Michael Schooler, deputy general counsel of the National 
Cable Television Association, dismissed claims that broadband 
providers would control users' access to Web offerings.  

"(Cable operators) don't do this now, and I don't think it's going to 
happen in the future," he said.  

[...]  

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