The Web’s Wannabe Gatekeepers: Comcast, Now Cox
May 15th, 2008 by Tim KarrComcast is not alone on the list of wannabe gatekeepers. Cox Communications has joined the ranks with news today that it is degrading and blocking customer file-sharing in the same deceptive manner.
The news follows an exhaustive study by the Max Planck Institute, which tested the connections of 8,175 Internet users around the world. According to Institute spokesperson Krishna Gummadi, they found conclusive evidence that Cox blocked file-sharing connections alongside Comcast in the United States.
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Robb Topolski, the former Intel engineer who first revealed Comcast’s blocking last year, told the Associated Press that the Institute’s investigation was the most authoritative study so far of this type of Web discrimination.
These results confirm what’s already become obvious to many Internet users around the country: Cable companies simply can’t be trusted to protect the free-flowing Internet.
Despite widespread public outrage and an ongoing investigation of Comcast, these companies persist in thinking that Internet content can be shaped and manipulated like their legacy video services.
“This harmful practice appears to be spreading through the marketplace,” Free Press Policy Director Ben Scott said.
Indeed, as a high-speed Internet connection becomes our portal to all things media – from email to user generated video and music – the old media regime can resist the temptation to get in the way.
These corporations have built their empires upon controlling the ebb and flow of information in America. The Internet, however, is about free choice and user-generated content – all being shared without the need of content gatekeepers or middlemen.
They want to be more than just a window to the Web, and have proposed a closed scheme of Internet fees and filters that allows them final say over which ideas make it to the top of the heap.
These moves by Comcast and Cox are further evidence that the threat to Internet freedom is real; the need for baseline user protections more urgent than ever.
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UPDATE: Read Harold Feld’s latest post at WetMachine for more on the anticipated spin.
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UPDATE 2:And at the Wall Street Journal, beware the “wrath.”
