Ellacoya<\/a> provides<\/p>\n"network traffic control" software and hardware<\/b> that<\/p>\n
allows Internet Service Providers (ISP) to track their own customers closely<\/p>\n
and to "enforce a very large number of policies" regarding Internet<\/p>\n
use. The technology can, for example, limit traffic from particular sites<\/p>\n
or categories of sites to a certain speed, or block connections altogether<\/p>\n
to particular sites, or block connections at certain times of the day<\/p>\n
for certain customers. The great danger is that ISPs can now speed up<\/p>\n
connections to Websites that have paid them for special treatment, while<\/p>\n
subtly slowing down other sites. ISPs will certainly have the incentive<\/p>\n
to discriminate in this way if they are owned by a major content provider,<\/p>\n
such as Microsoft or AOL Time Warner.<\/p>\n
This means that if your favorite low-budget nonprofit seems to have a<\/p>\n
slow Website, your ISP may actually be responsible. Also, ISPs may slow<\/p>\n
down users who want to create and post material, rather than merely consume<\/p>\n
it. (Ellacoya says: "Operators can easily discover their top talkers<\/p>\n
and then set up restricted bandwidth pools for specific applications and\/or<\/p>\n
user groups during peak hours.") This kind of discrimination will<\/p>\n
be hard to detect, so customers will not switch their ISPs to avoid it.<\/p>\n
Yet it strikes at one of the fundamental principles of the Internet. You<\/p>\n
should be able to share any kind of (legal) material with anyone without<\/p>\n
an intermediary throwing obstacles in your path. Whereas overt obstacles<\/p>\n
are easily detected and can often by bypassed, subtle discrimination poses<\/p>\n
a serious danger.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Here’s a troubling technological development, pointed out by Jeff Chester of the Center for Digital Democracy. A company called Ellacoya provides "network traffic control" software and hardware that allows Internet Service Providers (ISP) to track their own customers closely and to "enforce a very large number of policies" regarding Internet use. The technology can, for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-internet-and-public-issues"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4182","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4182"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4182\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}