Memo to Lawmakers: Open networks are not only better, they are necessary in a free society

Our so very tech illiterate, good for nothing that is good congress is at it again. Isn’t it time for their month long holiday recess yet? With so much news about dirty tricks to manage net traffic by Comcast and others, many of our “representatives” are determined to grab attention by passing new laws. Very bad idea. Most new laws regulating commerce declare someone a winner, and it is never the consumer. How about open competition? Sure, in totally open markets bad stuff happens, but in the end the consumer has more choices, and service providers are more compelled to satisfy them. If a company is behaving very badly, the consumer votes with their feet and puts them out of business. The problem with open markets for politicians is there is no special interest to serve, and no one collect protection money from. And there is no way to win elections by promising to protect consumers who are much better at doing it for themselves. By they way Congress, the way we stretch the application of existing law, I think the 1st amendment has net neutrality covered. (article on Cnet)

I predict if we get a “net neutrality” law from our Congress, it will result in a network managed with a heavy hand. Here’s a glimpse of what “net neutrality” as defined by congress could bring us:

Jonathan Zittrain, who has written a book due out in April called The Future of the Internet–And How to Stop It, gave a public talk on the issue Wednesday night at CNET’s offices here. News.com hosted the talk–a first for our newsroom. The event, which drew 120 people, was sponsored by the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

You can call Zittrain’s theme the AOL-ization of technology. Instead of personal computers being able to run any program from any source without approval from a third party–which many of us were used to in the 1980s and 1990s–Zittrain fears we’re entering a world where centralized approval becomes necessary. (also from Cnet)

If you think central management is a great idea, go spend a few days in Cuba. I think you’ll change your mind.