» Crying wolf with Net Neutrality
I hate when things are taken out of context hence my response. Here’s what I said:
I’ll be the first to promote the ideals of net neutrality but I feel like this is a case where someone’s offhand comment on a forum has been taken way out of proportion by consumeraffairs.com. I’m really disappointed that you, Matt, would post an article like this citing that article without thinking it through for one second. I usually feel like you know what you’re talking about. So let me break it down since no one else has so far. (You all can feel free to flame me to oblivio as I already expect that this comment will be given a piss poor rating anyway.) Verizon has decided that becuase a lot of users mistype their URL’s, they’ll use a custom DNS setting that will redirect your request to what looks like a branded Yahoo page which happens to have ads on it. These ads generate revenue for Verizon. This is really similar to the basic service OpenDNS provides; of course OpenDNS has a few other useful features. Also, if you install Firefox on your computer, you don’t seem to mind that your default search page is a branded Google page. Sure this page doesn’t have any advertisements but the Mozilla Foundation makes money off of this, folks, and I, for one, am happy that they get it. It costs a lot of money to make software and they should keep up the good work. What Verizon really did wrong was make this an opt-out service rather than allow the user to decide to opt-in. When there are advertisements present, we all like to get incensed. I do wonder, however, if there is information on this “feature” being present is available before signing up for the service. The opt-out process is certainly available to everyone. Of course, everyone’s quick to say “give them an inch, and they’ll take a mile” but I think this is a case of hype taking over. I think this is just an obnoxious practice rather than a Net Neutrality violation.
