Public concerns

[Stewart Sinclair]

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070206.wnetneut0206/BNStory/Technology/?page=rss&id=RTGAM.20070206.wnetneut0206

globeandmail.com: Tories fear telecom giants?

Posted AT 8:22 PM EST ON 06/02/07

Tories fear telecom giants?
LEE-ANNE GOODMAN
CANADIAN PRESS

Internal documents suggest the Tory government is reluctant to impose 
consumer safeguards for
the Web because it wants to protect the competitive position of 
businesses that offer Internet
access.

Documents obtained by The Canadian Press indicate that Industry Minister 
Maxime Bernier, who
has previously declared a “consumer first” approach, is carefully 
heeding the arguments of large
telecommunications companies like Videotron and Telus against so-called 
Net neutrality
legislation.

Net neutrality, dubbed the First Amendment of the Internet in the United 
States, aims to ensure
the public can view the smallest blogs just as quickly and easily as the 
largest corporate websites.
It stops telecom giants from ensuring that pages of companies that pay 
them load faster than any
others.

Mr. Bernier has been poring over a report for almost a year by the 
federally appointed
Telecommunications Policy Review Panel that recommends changes to the 
Telecommunications
Act, including replacing a clause on “unjust discrimination” that does 
little to either uphold the
principles of Net neutrality or prevent it from being violated.

...cut


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