Cable Wants to Colonize Your TV: Consumer Groups Ask FCC for Help

CABLE WANTS TO COLONIZE YOUR TV: CONSUMER GROUPS ASK FCC FOR HELP
[SOURCE: Public Knowledge, AUTHOR: John Bergmayer]
How would you like it if, to get on the Internet, you had to run an operating system and browser of your ISP’s choice? If that were the case, we'd probably all be running Windows ME and Netscape 4. Would you like it if your ISP could take over your browser, providing you with “important” information and targeted advertising? Of course not. When it comes to the Internet, almost everyone realizes that it makes no sense to hand control over the software you use to access a network over to the network operator. Choice, competition, and openness lead to innovation, which leads to superior products and a better experience for everyone. But openness has always been missing from the cable TV network. And if the cable industry gets its way with a new technology called “OCAP,” it’s going to further increase its control over the network. It wants to mandate what software all consumer devices that receive and decode cable signals must run, and it wants control over the look-and-feel of the devices that attach to the cable network.
http://feeds.publicknowledge.org/~r/publicknowledge-main/~3/124242630/1006