Who Controls The Internet?

Al Gore thought he invented it. For all we know, this administration, with its closet megalomaniacs, may indeed, possibly with good reason, believe it controls it. From a policy standpoint, they have exerted important influence. At one point, a damning memo from George Bush to Tony Blair, laying out the war with Iraq long before it was approved, was uploaded onto the internet. It was observable to internet users who did not receive service from Comcast, which blocked the memo.

The answer to the above question is: the ISPs. Up till now, we've just assumed the level playing field, equal access structure we've enjoyed thus far, will always continue. Don't bet on it. Short of regulation and Craigslist, the profit motive rules the internet, like everything else. Public companies must maximize profits or they end up like poor Time Warner and all the other entertainment companies having to face their angry shareholders.

For now, the ISPs look at content relatively impartially, giving rise to a new "Flat World" type economy, where all websites have a theoretically equal chance to be seen, to the extent they can gain attention from the public. This policy has given rise to the biggest growth spurt the world has ever seen as tiny, innovative companies and creative individuals all over the world scramble to get their content, ideas, items and services promoted on this incredibly powerful new medium.

This has forced big companies to stop complacently expecting profits from whatever crappy entertainment they provide and have to actually work to profit from content. This has caused problems for those very powerful, wealthy international conglomerates. And they are not taking it lying down. They continue to pressure governments and ISPs to restrict peer to peer usage.

Given the economic temptation, and the lack of transparency to their customers, I think it's only a matter of time until the ISPs start chipping away at their promise of carrier neutrality and start fiddling with hidden ways to profit. For example, ISPs could charge Google a premium to make its searches go faster than Yahoo's. Michael Geist, a Canadian, points to several examples of Canadian ISPs actually being caught fiddling with access speeds (to BitTorrent) and outright blocking. The most disturbing example is of an ISP blocking a pro-union website during a labor dispute. For now it seems they are most tempted to exclude their immediate competitors, the VOIP providers.

Without telling anyone, these companies can remove content, they can block or slow down access to individual sites, they can block particular services, like VOIP, or give preferential access speeds to different companies. The ISPs, like the entertainment companies, are also capable of forming monopolistic associations which will expand their control far beyond what the public would ever want. So far, we have been relatively protected because the interests of providers looking for customers didn't jive with the need of content providers to protect their capital. That can, and probably will, quickly change, as the scramble for market share marking the new industry matures into a far more static, monopolistic one.

The freedom of the internet is heady, but, we must never take it for granted. We will need to protect our internet freedom by searching for its newer, younger voices and making sure they have the same access the big players enjoy.