Nearly 80% of U.S. Voters do NOT Support Net Neutrality

A new poll by Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that 54% of respondents (and “likely voters”) are outright opposed to regulation and 25% are not certain. Most fear regulation would promote political agenda.

It is not clear that most voters understand what net neutrality actually is. When asked if they had been following stories about net neutrality, only 20 percent said they are following news of the net neutrality regulations “very closely,”

The question asked by Rasmussen was:

“Should the Federal Communications Commission regulate the Internet like it does radio and television?”

As Amy Lee posted on Huffington Post:

“The respondents were asked, ‘Should the Federal Communications Commission regulate the Internet like it does radio and television?’ With a topic as broad, and as complicated, as net neutrality, such a question addresses only one small part of the whole picture.

For example, Rasmussen could just as legitimately have asked, ‘Should all internet users have the same access to the same Internet, regardless of how much they pay?’ Or it might have asked, ‘Should broadband carriers have the ability to block or remove content based on their discretion alone?’”

At least one of the other three questions suggested that if the Federal Communications Commission is given the authority to regulate the internet, they might use it to promote a political agenda.

According to Rasmussen:

“The survey was conducted shortly after the FCC decided on a party line vote to impose so-called “net neutrality” regulations on the Internet world. Republicans and unaffiliated voters overwhelmingly oppose FCC regulation of the Internet, while Democrats are more evenly divided.”

There’s little doubt the outcome would have been different if the ramifications of the lack of legislation had been stated in the questions and/or had the suggestive questions not been used.

Things to Know

I received the following email:

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I just noticed that Firefox has a new add-on. It's called Browser Highlighter. It highlights words on your website, and when you mouse over it, it pops up a window with advertising in it. When you click on the ad, it takes you to the website of the advertiser; it takes the viewer to a page off your site. In other words, it hijacks your viewer and makes it look like it is part of your site.

I find this not only wrong, but highly unethical to the extreme. I found it wrong years ago when someone else did it, at which time many website owners were screaming to the high heavens about it. I haven't heard anyone complaining about it yet, but believe it is only because it is not been brought to anyone's attention.

What are your beliefs about this?

Robert Morris
www.edmmarketing.com
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First, although I thoroughly dislike this type of thing, there's a difference in this and what they were doing a few years ago. Technically, this one is permission-based. The other wasn't.

I asked my partner in iCop Hosting, Chuck Mattice, if he knew anything about it. Turns out, Chuck had fallen heir to this through Skype. He wrote:

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Yeah, didn't know how I got it until I read:

http://thebrowserhighlighter.com/help.jsp

I have removed it, It originally hit my browser when I added the Skype add-on.

It can be disabled by going to "Tools" - “Add-ons” - scrolling to it, then, disabling it. It can also be removed. Firefox does not add this; it has to be downloaded.

Chuck
www.authentic-empowerment.net
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Net Neutrality

The subject of Net Neutrality has been around for a while. But, it's coming close to a decision by our U.S. Congress.

This will decide whether the big ISPs can control what is seen in the browsers of their customers. Of course, the lobbyists for AT&T, Verizon and Comcast are going crazy with it.

They do not want the public to keep control of their browsers! And, right now, they seems to be winning!

Worst case scenario is ...

If we don't get Net Neutrality, the day may come where you will have to pay these giants to have your web site shown at all! That's in addition to them telling you what you can, and cannot view.

As with anything that's been around for a while, lots of myths have arisen around the subject.

I STRONGLY suggest every reader become familiar with these 10 myths - and the reality. It is all well explained here:

www.freepress.net/files/dejavu.pdf