2010 has been a fascinating year for the ongoing Battle For The Soul Of The Internet.
As far as net neutrality goes, we all know the arguments for and against. It may not sound appealing when you describe it in terms of “government regulation,“ but then, who really likes the thought of putting your web browsing at the mercy of manipulative corporate games?
And we need that healthy, vibrant internet, or where will you read such high-quality and stimulating comics as this?
…Okay, well that’s just one example.
I'm a little confused by what you mean in this comic. (Yes, I know how old it is) Are you talking about removing web search entries from places like Google? Because that's an issue with Google's web-crawling and organization algorithms, not with the ISPs.
If you are talking about blocking DNS access, that's both far stricter and significantly more dangerous. If you remove the entries, you shatter DNSSec, and if you just block the entries, what is updating these entries, say, in the event that it is removed and replaced with a new website? Even a near-perfect program that automates the process can't decide whether you, the user, wants a particular website or not. It can only really determine whether the website is bad. :/
Mostly, Net Neutrality isn't really represented correctly, because it's goal is to keep the ISPs from regulating the internet, not allow the government regulate the internet. I'm still not quite certain where that argument even came from, and the fact that it's still around is very confusing. :/
Just my two cents.
I'm not sure what you're referencing? The goal of the Net Neutrality movement is to:
A) Try and prevent legislation from being passed that would allow telecom companies to dictate how people can use the internet. These rules would have given an ISP the ability to control the pages you can see, the services you use, and even the search results that appear when you look for something. They were requesting the ability to control the content that is served to the user.
B) Failing that, the goal is to get specific legislation passed that would ensure those sort of anti-neutrality laws cannot be passed.
Simply put, the open-ended power grabs that telecom companies were reaching for would give them the legal right to do all you described and more.