As you might have noticed with Geeky KOOL and numerous other websites today, it is Internet Slow Down Day. Battle for the Internet is a website and movement to highlight Net Neutrality. It brings to light the issues of internet providers being able to slow down specific websites such as Netflix.
As you will have noticed, the popup doesn’t really slow down the internet nor Geeky KOOL. We are loading at the same speed. But in the future, we might be throttled down by your internet provider.
The internet providers have already started holding specific websites hostage. Websites require one thing to exist. They require people to hit their webpages. If an internet provider throttles the speed, then people aren’t able to hit the site or they grow tired of waiting for it. ISP have made deals with specific sites to keep the speed up. This is an old fashioned shakedown. They are paying protection money for the ISP do to what you are already paying them to do~ to give you access to the web at the speed you are paying for.
I am a guy that is pro-business but also pro-competition. I don’t like the government to intervene in business affairs. But the problem is that ISPs will be able make or break a website business by slowing down the speed. They will either get a paid day or make it difficult for a business to survive. That isn’t true competition.
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If you go to Battle for the Net, it will pull up an area for you to put in your Name, Email, Address, and Zip Code. You can sign a letter to your legislators about this issue. I did receive a letter from my Congressman where he tried to convince me that Net Neutrality is a bad idea but couldn’t explain why.
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By the way, the technical problems earlier were caused by my enthusiasm to post this Internet Slow Down Day popup.
Here is a video about Net Neutrality. It is blunt and has some bleeped out cursing. It is very funny and get the point across.
Stay Geeky My Friends!
