The Web's inventor slams the telco lies

By Donnell Alexander . Posted June 22, 2006.

Last month, the man that created the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee, gave the most eloquent and poignant defense of Internet freedom to date-- you can read it in full here. This month, with things not getting terribly better on the Net Neutrality front, he's posted again and upped the stakes a bit. It's clear and to the point, and demonstrates so symbolically where the power to sway the government currently lies:

Control of information is hugely powerful. In the US, the threat is that companies control what I can access for commercial reasons. (In China, control is by the government for political reasons.) There is a very strong short-term incentive for a company to grab control of TV distribution over the Internet even though it is against the long-term interests of the industry.

Deanna Zandt is a contributing editor at AlterNet.

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