Consistently in the polls on this site, when asked where they get their news, an increasing plurality if not outright majority indicate they have pretty much turned away from the traditional broadcast mainstream media, and have turned to the Internet as their source of accurate, up-to-date news that is free of the control and distortions of the MSM acting in their current role as lackies of a corrupt corporate and political power structure in this nation.
I certainly count myself in this category.
I am also certain most frequenters of this site are familiar with the threats to "Network Neutrality" which repeated efforts by telecommunications giants and their wholly owned subsidiary members of Congress are trying to push through into law.
But are you aware of what is about to explode on the scene in the coming year, already demonstrated in a test dry run by Canada's largest ISP recently?
A screen shot posted to the web over the weekend seems to show that Canada's largest provider of high-speed internet access is exploring a controversial data substitution technique that lets it add its own content to the webpages customers visit.
In Test, Canadian ISP Splices Itself Into Google Homepage
This was reported in a recently created online forum I subscribe to and read regularly, the NNSquad, or Network Neutrality Squad.
NNSquad.org: A project of PFIR - People For Internet Responsibility
The Network Neutrality Squad (NNSquad) is an open-membership, open-source effort, enlisting the Internet's users to help keep the Internet's operations fair and unhindered from unreasonable restrictions.
The project's focus includes detection, analysis, and incident reporting of any anticompetitive, discriminatory, or other restrictive actions on the part of Internet Service Providers (ISPs) or affiliated entities, such as the blocking or disruptive manipulation of applications, protocols, transmissions, or bandwidth; or other similar behaviors not specifically requested by their customers.
This hijacking, for that is what it is, of Internet traffic, was reported by the creator and moderator of this forum, Lauren Weinstein, who has for years been at the forefront of activism in the area of threats to privacy on the Internet in and in our society in general.
The Privacy Forum
Weinstein is quoted as follows in the article:
This is what Net Neutrality is about -- it's not just making sure that data is handled in a competitive and non-discriminatory manner, but it's also that the data that's sent is the data that you get -- that the content is unmodified, not with messages that are woven into your data stream [from third parties]
I am sure all of you enjoy not watching CNN Headline News as much as I. It for me has come to epitomize the screen that is so busy with injected elements that have nothing to do with what is being reported that I simply cannot focus on the primary subject. You have tickers running across the bottom, logos and alerts flashing all over the screen at random. Aside from the fact that I would never try to watch Nancy Grace or Glenn Beck in the first place, I find the way in which TV networks now constantly clutter the screen with crap intrusive and distracting. It is one of the reasons I watch very little network series TV. I gave up completely on the news shows years ago because, well, there was very little news to watch. That was available only on the Internet if you searched for it.
Now imagine your ISP deciding to start inserting traffic into the stream of all the web pages being delivered to you. Imagine DailyKos with advertising banners NOT FROM KOS running across the top or bottom. In the first place, one can only imagine the lawsuits that will start rolling, initiated by those whose traffic is being interfered with and changed.
I would have thought that the legal consequences of framing other people's sites would have gotten the message across.
Framing/ Inline-Linking: Copyright and trademark law infringement?
Poznak Law Firm LTD. Pitfalls in Web Linking
That is why, aside from the fact it is atrocious design, you don't see frames used on sites much anymore. The moment you start framing someone else's site, you raise all sorts of issues about claimed association with the originating site.
Gator tried this back in 2002, in the heyday of companies putting adware and spyware on people's computers, forcing pop-ups on websites that were not related to or were in competition with the websites, and of course insisting these were just legitimate business practices.
The Gator Corporation appears to have lost the first round in its fight against 10 Web site publishers who sued the company last month, saying that its use of online pop-up advertisements violated copyright and trademark laws.
Judge Claude M. Hilton of the United States District Court in the Eastern District of Virginia said on Friday that he would issue a preliminary injunction against Gator. The judge did not offer specifics about the terms of the injunction, but both parties expect him to bar Gator from displaying ads on the plaintiffs' Web sites until the trial is finished. The publishers include The New York Times Company, the Gannett Company and the Washington Post Company.
Gator Loses a Round to Web Sites in Fight Over Pop-Up Ads
Not only is there no difference here, this is exponentially worse.
Without getting too technical, you need to understand how injection of data into a web page would occur.
Explanation of Packets on HowStuffWorks.com
To accomplish this, the ISP has to be intercepting, examining, and MODIFYING every packet of data being transferred from a web site. When you load a page in your browser, you are not really loading a page. You are reassembling broken down bits of information from packets of fixed length, and each packet may have the equivalent of just a few sentences of information each in their data section. These packets are all routed from their point of origin on the Internet across multiple routers, and each packet includes IP number and addressing and origination information that allows your web browser to accept them in a stream and reassemble them so the data can be displayed in your browser.
Eavesdropping on Internet communications operates on exactly this same principle. The eavesdropping software simply monitors all the data in all the packets, and scans for key words.
I for one find this development to be the biggest threat I have seen in some time to the integrity of the Internet as it has evolved, as a marketplace of free and open information exchange.
Of course all the ISPs care about is a way to generate more money.
And the politicians and corporations, of course, are reeling from their loss of control of the message in the medium of the mainstream media.
So be prepared. If ISPs are allowed to move in this direction, what is to stop them from not just injecting 'important messages to our clients' into the data streams? What is to prevent them from deleting data? Changing data? Suppressing data they disapprove of for whatever reason, political, regional, social, religious, misguided enforcement of their concept of ethics and morality, or of course, just good old simple greed?
You better be prepared to fight this trend, and defend Network Neutrality, or you might just enjoy your Internet while you can, because it is going to changed, and for the worse, if these trends are allowed to continue.