Who owns it anyway?

It is inevitable, I guess, given US dominance of the Net in so many ways, that debates about net neutrality and the freedom to use the Net should be most strident across the pond. Each of the debates throws up its own miscellany of comments, tidbits and dispatches from the various front lines. For the politicos amongst us, for instance, it is interesting to note that the current DOPA legislation - try here if you want to read it 'in the flesh' - was born out of a series of polls commissioned by the Republican Party in an attempt to capture suburban America's current Zeitgeist and to create legislation in response to its findings. DOPA is only one amongst a bunch of measures we can expect to be wrenched out of the findings from this enlightened and liberal constituency. The polling was done by 'Republican Pollster' John Mclaughlin - McLaughlin's home page cites a reference from the Washington Times to the effect that they are "one of the best Republican polling firms (my emphasis)" - quote: 'McLaughlin & Associates are "truly trustworthy" and "the best at scientifically taking the public's pulse and advising those who significantly shape public perception.' What do you have be taking to be able to pretend to comprehend the concept of an overtly partisan pollster? Or, for that matter, to define the word 'scientifically' as used in the reference above! On the Net Neutrality issue - an intriguing attempt to get at some of the facts behind the arguments can be found in the Net Effects blog, one of CIO Magazine's blogs. Ben Worthen worked with Bill Cheswick, Chief Scientist at Lumeta, to map who owns all the routers on the American backbone. The neutrality debate is currently mainly about control of the last mile, but Worthen wanted to see it if there was a way to check whether any potential monopolies exist out there on the backbone. Interesting outcome - possibly even surprising! Check for yourselves by downloading the 'map' from Worthen's post. It's a PDF - you can see what Worthen is getting at from the initial view of the map when downloaded, but zoom into 300% to see the results in detail.

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© John Connell
The views expressed in this weblog are entirely my own and are not intended to reflect the views of any other individuals or organizations. All sources will be fully acknowledged.