Net Neutrality

Ok, ok I get it the idea of the "article" for Net Neutrality and not being to access it was to show us what would happen if the FCC did not step in and make sure that the providers do not have the chance to overcharge people for the use of their sites.  I read a couple of different articles from "The Times" and from Verizon and I see that this is not the way we want to go in the future, it is almost as if the companies are trying to take away our Constitutional rights.

http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/20/verizon-appeals-fccs-net-neutrality-rules/#

http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/subjects/n/net_neutrality/index.html

The American Railroads: A Long and Storied History

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/28/fcc-net-neutrality-news_n_815626.html

This kind of reminds me about the information I have been reading for my US History class.  The Railroad companies tried to do the same thing with their tracks across the country.  The companies tried to extort as much money while they were laying the tracks.  Then after the tracks were down they tried to control the various load they would carry from other companies as well as the towns they went through.  We cannot allow companies to strong arm our freedom of speech, ideas, or the way we collect information and data.  I can understand that the time and energy that went into all the equipment that need to be put out there has to be paid for but it seems to me that is why there are advertisements and I can see how they could charge a fee for certain things.  Even though I don't think we need more government control, I do see that we need to make sure this does not happen with some government program overseeing this.  This is so that we do not get over charged just for basic information or Web site charges in order to access the Web.  I was unaware of this situation but with the information I will gain from this class I don't want to loose the chance to use what I learn because I am not going to be forced to pay exorbitant amounts of money just to go to a Web site.