Virgin Media CEO Vows to Slow Websites that Don't Pay for Premium Service

[snot]

Virgin Media CEO: Net neutrality is "bollocks," promises to breach agreement with customers

"Neil Berkett, the new CEO of Virgin Media . . . has announced that he considers Net Neutrality to be "a load of bollocks" and he's promised to put any website or service that won't pay Virgin a premium to reach its customers into the 'Internet bus lane.'"

"As a Virgin customer, I'm not paying to see those services that bribe Virgin to reach me, I'm paying to reach the entire web, whichever bits I think are useful, as quickly as Virgin can deliver them."

"Theoretically, I'm locked into a Virgin plan for another six months, but as far as I'm concerned, they've just announced that they're violating the agreement by announcing that the services I can reach will be systematically slowed down unless they pay Virgin extra. That means that we're now null and void. I'll be calling to cancel today."

(snip)

"Update: Charlie Stross (http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2008/04/brand_dilution.html )is pissed -- and he's convinced that Virgin drops packets if they detect a router on your network. This jibes with my experience too."

More at http://www.boingboing.net/2008/04/13/virgin-media-ceo-net.html and http://torrentfreak.com/virgin-media-ceo-says-net-neutrality-is-a-load-of-bollocks-080413/

[Ian David]

1. What a giant bag of douche. n/t

[Uncle Joe]

2. Virgin Media is trying to screw the Internet and turn it in to another corporate media.

I'm not sure what "bollocks" is, but I believe Berkett must be full of it.

I will say it again for the 11,297th time I believe reasons such as this were the primary motivations for the corporate media's unconscionable, relentless slander, libel and trashing of Al Gore while they gave Bush a free pass to the White House. Furthermore, most all of the misery, the U.S. and the world at large have experienced has been a direct result of the corporate media's long time abandonment of it's sacred duty to inform the people as to the critical issues of the day. They have been actively trying to dumb the people down and when the people are stupid, they make stupid decisions and corruption flourishes.

The Internet threatens the corporate media's long held traditional monopoly on information with all the power, money and influence that goes with it and that's what corporate toadies such as Berkett wish to recapture whether by hook or crook. They can't handle an even playing field because truth stands a much better chance against power and money.