Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Carriers to Charge for Services

And I don't mean the ones you pay for?

Engadget is reporting wireless carriers in the US are considering the idea of charging customers for the different online services they use. From Youtube to Facebook, carriers are entertaining the idea of charging a different price for each individual service that you use, while of course not charging for you to use their own services.

All of this is bad news for anyone wanting net neutrality. With the government not too keen on passing net neutrality legislation and Google making deals with the devil, I have to believe that unless Americans really make some noise nothing is going to get done. In fact, from the looks of it, it’s going to get a whole lot worse for Americans. I also have to wonder as these companies start using technologies to determine what kinds of services you are using, (even if you are using services to obscure what it is you are doing), whether this will lead to privacy concerns.

All in all this is quite frightening. I thought us Canadians had it bad; it seems Americans may end up having it just a little bit worse. In any case, we’re going to have to wait and see who if any decide to take the plunge and begin charging. So what do you think?

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