Canadian ISP's Plan Net Censorship

[ModelShrines]

Could this be a hoax or is it possible in the near future?

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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.?

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), and alternative news outlets, like AFP, would incur a 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/channels that people will 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.?

http://www.americanfreepress.net/htm...ensorship.html

[Official Babe]

if you think about it tv will be broadcasting over the internet in the future, so i don't doubt that there will be some sort of censorship for the internet in the future.

[Brad]

I don't see this happening. Do this and people advertisers (mainstream) loose a huge advertising avenue. With PVRs (I have read reports that they have about 25% market penetration in the US not sure about Canada) being increasingly popular I think advertisers are looking elsewhere to advertise their products rather than TV.

If they were to try something like this there will be a host of new ISPs coming out of the woodwork to fill the void.

If TV does make it's way to the internet by then I am sure you will have to subscribe to it like a porn site, but beyond that why would they ever do this?

[JayDeeZee]

Originally Posted by Adult Lounge - Brad

I don't see this happening. Do this and people advertisers (mainstream) loose a huge advertising avenue. With PVRs (I have read reports that they have about 25% market penetration in the US not sure about Canada) being increasingly popular I think advertisers are looking elsewhere to advertise their products rather than TV.

I worked of TV advertising for 4 years. Why do you think I made the move to online? I saw my TV budgets deflating while the online departments were doubling in size. Mass media advertising is dying. The internet is killing it.

CBellglobemedia is a huge broadcaster, the own CTV among others(Canada's largest broadcaster). If advertisers are taking money away from CTV and spending it online. It makes perfect business sence for them to try and control the internet and ad revenue.

[Brad]

Originally Posted by JayDeeZee

I worked of TV advertising for 4 years. Why do you think I made the move to online? I saw my TV budgets deflating while the online departments were doubling in size. Mass media advertising is dying. The internet is killing it.

CBellglobemedia is a huge broadcaster, the own CTV among others(Canada's largest broadcaster). If advertisers are taking money away from CTV and spending it online. It makes perfect business sence for them to try and control the internet and ad revenue.

But CTVglobemedia don't have a stake in the Internet. Not to mention the fact that they should worry about improving their HD offerings before worrying about how to make money on the interweb. And if they are so interested in the interweb then they should figure out how to licence the content that they buy from the US for use on the Interweb here. The US networks seem to do quite well these days doing this. Alternatively they could actually produce good shows that people want to watch and you know get viewers and advertisers that way , maybe even make some DVD money. But they focus on crap like Canadian Idol and shit that is not watched. In addition they rely to heavily on certain advertisers as opposed to diversifying their portfolio (P&G alone can not keep you afloat regardless of how many product placements you do).

[xmas13]

I have a solution. Let's call the Pentagon.

[G-Rotica]

It will never happen.

[Socks]

The article is pure bullshit, bell and telus aren't even "the two largest isp's in canada" lolz, I'm pretty sure both Rogers and Shaw are larger than Telus.

Bell internet is HORRIBLE.. They did a very thorough real test on the Internet speeds across Canada from various ISP's, and Bell did the worst, achieving less than 30% of the speed their connection is supposed to get. They tried at several different homes across the city, same results.

Besides, ISP's are loving piracy, they stand the most to gain from it.. They're all trying to sell $100+ a month very fast services now, and getting as many customers onto their $100 a month program by implementing caps.. Fast connections, low caps, and when you go over your cap, you'll be asked to upgrade.. Once you're on their fastest connection, they just won't bother you much about overages, because they've converted you.

So why would ISP's stop piracy? It's like 70% of their business

[BlackCrayon]

This is a joke made after Bell and Telus announced they are going to charge 15 cents for every text message recieved.

[spider_x]

LOLZ!!!!!!
More business for Shaw Cable W00t!

[Kevsh]

I smell bullshit. If they even hinted at paying for access to sites (never mind the censorship part) their customer base would go south faster than a Saigon ho. There is plenty of competition for Internet access and it would be a major PR disaster.

While it may be possible sometime down the road, it would have to be very, very slowly eased in. Very slowly.

[ModelShrines]

Even if this is being discussed, I don't think it will ever occur. Let's see if Time Magazine ever publishes the article. It would make the story much more credible.

[LadyMischief]

This was already shot down. In fact, there was a huge public uproar about it.

[LadyMischief]

Canadians REALLY don't like censorship of ANY form.