The End of Open Internet?

http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/canada_net_censorship.html_

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 package' offered 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 source to 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'd get more official confirmations
once we'd 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.an

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)subscription)<WBR>, and alternative news
outlets, like AF
fee for every visit.

"The Internet will become a
playground for billion-dollar content
providers just like television is,"
said Leysen. "It won't be
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 and
eventually 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
ISPs to ensure that their new show will be offered
and pushed in
the `standard package' of sites/services/the `standard
package' of si
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's] 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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