[LennonCook]

Originally posted by John D Harris:The phone and cable companies want to be free to charge for new services and make more money,

'New services'? No. The service the ISPs provide is to allow access to the content. They do not provide that content - they provide access to it. What they want to do is directly equivelent to charging you extra for ringing someone and speaking spanish to them about what happened yesterday, as compared to ringing that same person and talking to them in English about what will happen tommorow. To do this, they need to listen to your conversation and find out what it's about - this is, quite clearly, an invasion of privacy. Therefore, privacy laws prevent phone companies from charging for new services and making money.

and they argue that it's not up to the government what they do with their networks."

Well, no. But it is up to the government to prevent certain business models that would endanger the free market.

HMMMMMMMMMM it seems that it's NOT ok for the phone and cable guys to make money, but is ok for MIRCOSOFT not to have to spend more money?

What the telcos want is to charge MSFT twice. They already charge them to make their content available in the first place. They already charge you to download that content. Now they also want to charge MSFT for your download.

"HALE" I'll bet dollars to donuts the writer of the article was several years ago piss'n & moun'n about microsoft and anll the money it's making, now he/sge wants to hold microsoft up as something to be admired?

That Microsoft is a convicted monopolist who overcharge for their services, aim to have complete control over how much 'freedom' people have, and constantly engage in unethical business practices to do this, is a completely independant issue to net neutrality. Just because MSFT are the enemy on several fronts doesn't mean they can't be an ally on this one.