Who will control the Internet?

Even two years ago it was impossible for me to imagine how anyone can control the Internet. I mean, TV, radio, and newspapers are those media sectors that historically were under someone’s control, be it government or businessmen. But Internet, as for me, was created not only for convenience in searching information or creating new data base, but also to fight with that information control and to give voices to voiceless. With the development of Independent Media it became even clearer that web is a “free of control” space for those, who have something to say. It seemed that people all over the world were “celebrating” the global holiday of freedom and total absence of control in the information flow. But as Internet becomes more popular, informative and influential, more and more people realize that having control in the web space is equal to having control in the whole media sector. And of course, if there is something as huge and global as Internet there will be always someone, who wants to own this “something.” Some governments chose the easiest way to control it – block all “dangerous” web-sites in the whole country, which basically destroys the whole idea and point of Internet existence. While people in the U.S.A. or E.U enjoy the total freedom of speech in the Web and talk about Independent Media every two seconds, citizens in china or Turkmenistan still can’t use the Internet for its primary purpose. We heard all the stories with Google in China, where it’s searching engine blocks all the Web-pages that go against Chinese government’s ideology. But we don’t understand that the main problem here is not about Google Company, but about the government that has total control in all the spheres of social life in China. Yes, Google could have resisted providing its service in China and left the country. In this case the whole “democratic” world would respect the Company, but what about China? What are all those people suppose to do? It’s easy to give an advice living in the U.S., but it’s not that easy to fight against the government in countries like China.
But blocking Web-sites is not the only problem. At&T idea of creating fast and slow lanes, with big companies paying extra money to move to the fast line is even more dangerous as it might affect all countries, including democratic America and Europe. Big conglomerates that already control broadcast media now realize that Internet is the next step. And this idea is not as crazy as it sounds and not as impossible as any of you might think. If those big corporations have enough money to buy media broadcast they definitely have enough money and creativity to find the way to control Internet. Will the Internet be divided into fast and slow? Will it be privatized by media corporations or controlled by the government? Will we still be able to write whatever we want on the blog in 20 years? Who knows? But what I know now is that Internet became too big and too important in the whole world to be unnoticed and untouched by those who have money and power.