Why would ISPs be so willing to filter copyrighted materials when there is a huge exemption written in to law? This has puzzled me for years. I thought and still believe that there are payments from large content producers for just such an action. Another discovery by UoW and the actions of Comcast to filter BitTorrent traffic have also revealed what their intentions.
ISPs are planning to move away from simple connections and intend to edit the web streams that you receive. The University of Washington has reported ads being inserted into to web pages when some view a UoW web site. By injecting adds the ISP becomes a de facto web editor and throws away the legal protections in the DMCA. It’s crazy and very risky, but they’ll do it for the chance to make money in slow growth market.
In a paper, set to be delivered Wednesday, the researchers document some troubling practices. In July and August they tested data sent to about 50,000 computers and discovered that a small number of Internet service providers (ISPs) were injecting ads into Web pages on their networks. They also found that some Web browsing and ad-blocking software was actually making Web surfing more dangerous by introducing security vulnerabilities into pages.
ISPs Meddled With Their Customers’ Web Traffic, Study Finds
Being an ISP is a very static business, as it should be. It’s the equivalent of providing water, gas, roads, etc. Not sexy and with a very slow growth curve. So, how can they jack up growth and revenues for Wall Street. By selling everything and anything. ISPs believe they own you and your clickstream on both ends of the pipe. The monthly service fee is only the beginning. Ten years from now your Internet service fee should be double. Not because the companies have earned it, but because they seek to raise it to the maximum possible rate that the consumer will tolerate. After all, that’s supply and demand, right?