We now live in a world where the technology for watching what people do with their data packets is sophisticated enough to give a company like Comcast the ability to decide which packets can be shuffled into slower or faster traffic lanes, depending on what its business model dictates. And, in addition to having the technical ability to discriminate, Internet providers now have the legal authority to do so. In the 2005 Brand Xdecision, the Supreme Court ruled that cable broadband providers were not a "telecommunications service" but an "information service," and, therefore, were freer to keep competitors off the network.

Buying votes:

According to the OpenSecrets.org website, in 2008 the top 5 corporations in the communications industry contributed as follows to Congress:

1] AA&T $4,499,965 DEMS: 49% REPS: 50%
2] Microsoft $3,243,389 DEMS: 72% REPS: 27%
3] Comcast $2,920,952 DEMS: 64% REPS: 36%
4] Time $2,910,523 DEMS: 81% REPS: 19%
5] Verizon $2,501,869 DEMS: 50% REPS: 49%

In election cycles going back to 1990, the communications industry has contributed $776,513,166---$455,700,000 to Democrats and $315,900,000 to Republicans. Compare that to the $851,450,000 contributed by the healthcare industry.

Net neutrality is a critical issue and one that has the potential to impact our lives more than any other in the future from cost-of-living to our basic right to obtain unfiltered information.

Be sure to stop by his galleries for a look at more of Ben's superb photography.

Creative professionals are under a daily assault from external sources attempting to devalue our work. We are constantly being told, often times by colleagues, that to compete in the "global marketplace" we have to provide our hard-earned skills and talents nearly free-of-charge. Spec "contests", work-for-hire agreements, and the RFP process devalue our profession even further by encouraging professional creatives to forgo their integrity in order to land "needed" work.  Now, a respected company is taking advantage of crowdsourcing and is legitimizing a creative outlet that quite literally devalues our profession with each and every sale.

In the end, yes, an easy argument can be made that having another company jump on the crowdsourcing bandwagon means little to "real" designers. I often hear designers make statements like "the people who will buy these logos are not your customers anyway"  or "why shouldn't a low-cost solution be available to people with low budgets?"

My answer to both these statements is simple.

Hat Tip: Engrish.com

The proposal, to be announced Monday by FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, will include an additional guideline for carriers that they make public the way they manage traffic on their network, according to sources at the agency. The additional guideline would be a "sixth principle" to four existing guidelines adopted in 2005 on Internet network operations. A fifth principle is expected to be announced by Genachowski on Monday during a speech at the Brookings Institute that would prohibit the discrimination of applications and services on telecommunications, cable and wireless Internet networks.

Cecilia Kang, Washington Post

It looks like the talk will turn to action this fall, when some large newspapers are expected to put up Internet toll booths.

MICHAEL LIEDTKE, The Associated Press

But privacy watchdogs warn that too many people have no idea that Internet marketers are tracking their online habits and then mining that data to serve up targeted pitches - a practice known as behavioral advertising.

So Congress could be stepping in. Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va., chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Communications, Technology and the Internet, is drafting a bill that would impose broad new rules on Web sites and advertisers. His goal: to ensure that consumers know what information is being collected about them on the Web and how it is being used, and to give them control over that information.