On 02/04/2015 02:54, Mike Godwin wrote:
Andreas writes:
"Prominent organisations campaigning for a free and open web very strongly disagree with your view."
I said there are no facts, and you responded by citing opinion pieces. That's cool, but opinions are not themselves facts.
Furthermore, in some circles, I've been considered from time to time to be someone "prominent" whose entire career has been dedicated to a free and open web. If you're suggesting that everyone -- or even everyone "prominent" -- who believes in a free and open web "very strongly" disagrees with me, then you are misinformed.
No we think that there are relationships between faux advocacy and what benefits large multinational tech corporations to the detriment of everyone else. That we do not see 'citizen advocacy' groups speak out against the rape of privacy that online web operators engage in, that they speak mainly of governments who by and large out-source the surveillance to private companies.
For example did the EFF speak out about Google using "Apps for Education" to profile kids? No totally silent on the vile behavour of its pay master: http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2014/03/13/26google.h33.html https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2014/04/30/google-stops-data-mining-student...
There is an honest difference of opinion about what the developing world needs first. And, in my experience, it is only individuals in developed, industrialized countries with very little direct knowledge about the infrastructural and access challenges in developing countries who imagine that zero-rated services are categorically a threat to "a free and open web.
That "free and open" is bullshit for the entrenchment of the status quo. That Government turned a blind eye to the abuses in the early days, effectively allowing monopolies to become established and that it about time that they reigned the bastards back. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/04/01/modernise_safe_harbour_for_the_tech_...
I've actually written about this issue at length, and will be publishing another article on the issue next week. I'll post the link here when I have it.
Whether the U.S. government's Federal Communications is not itself a "prominent organization" that has committed itself to "a free and open web" is a proposition worth challenging is, of course, up to you. But I hope you don't expect such a challenge to be taken seriously. I know the FCC's new Report and Order on net neutrality is a very long (400-page) document, and there is of course no requirement that you actually have read it (much less some appreciable fraction of the comments that led to it). But I've done so. The FCC expressly refused to adopt the categorical, simplistic, binary approach you have posted here.
Yeah we heard that. That despite all the supposed brouhaha http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/02/05/us-usa-internet-google-idUSKBN0L91...
The FCC came out in favour of - GOOGLE http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/03/13/net_neutrality_rules/
I gather that a recent FTC report is being investigated by a Senate that is waking up to the fiddling that is going on http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/04/03/senate_to_probe_obamagoogle_lovein/
My friends and colleagues at EFF, Access Now, and elsewhere -- as well as individual scholars and commentators like Marvin Ammori -- know me,
Those will all be Google shills correct? http://www.scribd.com/doc/103158031/Google-Shill-List http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2014/03/10/sopa_copyright_voluntary_...
In effect it is becoming clearer and clearer that the later day robber barons, their supporters and fellow travellers need a clear lessons in citizenship. That the rule of law is catching up. http://www.cnn.com/2015/04/03/us/califomia-revenge-porn-sentence/index.html