Nherman: Welcome to the latest edition of the Firezone, a roundtable discussion of the hottest topics of the day. Firezone features myriad experts and the opportunity for you to interact with them. Today’s topic: Who Will Control The World Wide Web? Since this is so relevant to an online roundtable, we’re especially pleased to have the CEO and founder of Microsoft, David Gates. Let’s get to it.
Dgates: Actually, I’m the founder of the 70’s band, Bread.
NHerman: Our next guest is the CEO and founder of Netscape, one of the premiere web browsers on the market and a potential contender for the crown: Who Will Control The Web?. Please welcome, Mr. James Drysdale.
JBarksdale: Actually, Mr. James Drysdale is the banker from “The Beverly Hillbillies”. I’m Jim Barksdale...
NHerman: Whatever. Our next guest has very little to do with the Net at all, as his company is little more than a glorified e.mail service that features so-called “proprietary content” only slightly more interesting than reading the Congressional Record or going to Kino Night with your Jewish grandmother and her Alzheimer-stricken friends. Let’s welcome, SCase.
SCase: Thanks for the glowing introduction --
NHerman: Save it for the discussion, “Who’s The Weakest Online Service Out There, You or Your Buddies in Weakness, CServe and Pdgy?”.
JBarksdale: I agree.
NHerman: Finally, joining us all the way from his underground bunker in Northern California, let’s welcome the harbinger of doom, and spokesman for the Electronic Frontier Freedom Fortress Foundation Federation Fund, RUKidding.
RUKidding: Back when I started surfing the Net, it was nothing but homemade sites, BBSs, newsgroups, library databases and info on making fertilizer bombs. Now, it seems every site is some glossy corporate-sponsored commercial. The Net has been taken out of the hands of The People and is now just another Big Business tool for controlling the masses.
NHerman: I tell you what, go watch “Sneakers” and reminisce about the good ol’ days over a Bartles & Jaymes wine cooler and some Deee-lite. By my watch, it’s 1996. Time to wake up and smell the register ringing. Ch-ching.
JBarksdale: I think he brings up a point, however. The Net is truly the Great Equalizer. The People have as much opportunity to have their ideas heard as Big Business, The Government, and Teri Hatcher.
SCase: The truth is The People will control the Net. The only question left is Who Will Control The People?
RUKidding: Facist.
NHerman: I’m gonna have to agree with the cyberhippie on this one Case. But only because your mamby-pamby “online service” limits my access to obviously faked nude photos of Jennifer Aniston.
RUKidding: Getting back to the topic at hand, are we going to let Corporate America subsidize websites and, thereby, control the content of those sites?
PDboy: That’s a good point, however, nothing says lovin’ like something in the oven, am I right?
JBarksdale: I don’t even know what that means. I would like to say that the marriage of personal sites and corporate-sponsored sites has made the Net better all around. Even contributing to the kind of bleeding-edge technology available for personal sites.
NHerman: Mr. Gates, your company, the Microsoft Corporation, has recently thrown its hat in the web browser ring with the introduction of Internet Explorer. How will this affect the balance on the web?
Dgates: Um, I have my own site, “The Best of Bread”. I think the visitor counter is broken because it’s still stuck on 0.
RUKidding: The Net has become nothing but a big ad campaign for consumer products, and great technology doesn’t make up for the sense of community thing we’ve lost.
ACoors: That is so true. It’s like “Zima”. It’s Zomething Zifferent.
RUKidding: See what I mean?!
NHerman: I have no clue what you’re talking about. We have a questions from our users.
FBI: As an average citizen, I think the Net should remain in the hands of The People, but that you should have to register through some non-intrusive main database that drops a “cookie” into your hard drive to track your every move. For your own safety, of course.
CIA: Of course.
ATF: Of course.
NSC: Of course.
IRS: Of course.
Interpol: Of course.
Mossad: Of course.
TLCommis: Of course.
Illuminati: Of course.
DarkSkies: Of course.
TBell: Yeah! Right about now would be would be a good time to make a run for the border!
DWildmon: The Net needs to be purged of filth.
JBruce: Question for Gates: Is it your company’s goal to own the entire web?
Dgates: I guess so. Inasmuch as I’d like to see a “Bread” tribute alum with Tracy Bonham covering “One” and Stone Gossard from Pearl Jam covering “Baby, I’m-A Want You.”
DWildmon: The pornography level is frightening.
Mbate: Your desire to control other people is frightening, Wildmon.
DWildmon: Morality is not frightening; Hell is.
FBI: Right on, Mbate! What city and state are you in?
Mbate: NOYB, FBI.
FBI: Damn!
CIA: One step ahead of you, Fib. Hey, Mbate, you couldn’t be more fly in your opinion. What city and state are you in?
Mbate: Leaving.
CIA: Damn!
RUKidding: Truly the web is all of our domain. And you can’t mandate -- or legislate -- morality.
SCase: I can. It’s my company.
RUKidding: And your company sucks.
DWildmon: The Internet needs at least a modicum of regulation, otherwise you open the door to every obscenity.
RUKidding: If you regulate pornography, it opens the door to other excessive regulations.
Mbate: I’m back. Exactly, man! Power to the people!!
FBI: Yeah man, revolutionary sentiment! Let’s exchange Social Security numbers for fun!!!
Mbate: That doesn’t sound fun, FBI.
FBI: Damn!
Dgates: You can download a WAV file of “ .”
JBarksdale: What? The point is that regulations lead to other regulations until you eventually regulate yourself out of profit and out of freedom. That is why the sextant on our browser always points to sites dealing with pornography, Satanism, bomb-making, and sassing your parents. Just kidding!
DWildmon: The point is, “personal freedom” has become a euphemism for justifying every illicit idea I’ve ever had. You’ve ever had! Not me. You. I’m dirty. I’m dirty.
Mbate: The point is, I like to look at pictures of Jenny McCarthy, and I don’t need to be told if it’s right or wrong.
FBI: The point is no one has liked or cared about “Bread” since the 70’s. And maybe not even then. We don’t even have a file on you anymore.
DWildmon: File?
FBI: Just an expression.
Nherman: Back to the topic at hand: If we are going to regulate the Net, who should regulate it?
DWildmon: A body of right-thinking people representing the views that made America what it is.
RUKidding: I think it’s going to be tough finding that many slaveowners and Free Masons.
SCase: Actually, the topic at hand was who will control the Net.
NHerman: And, obviously, that will not be you.
RUKidding: See, the problem I’m having is with this word “control”. It started with a discussion of which company would “control” the Web by cornering the market. Now, it’s degenerated into governmental stranglehold on our First Admendment rights.
NHerman: Then how do you propose the Net be regulated?
RUKidding: Information should be free. Access to that information should be freely available!
JBarksdale: The businesses that do the most work on the Net should self- regulate themselves. That way, we won’t drown in a sea of overwhelming government red tape.
NHerman: Thank you, representative of the Libertarian Party. That debate is next week.
FBI: Not that I’m a big fan of governmental control, but giving a bit of the control to the government might give people one less thing to worry about. Wouldn’t that be great?
Mbate: No.
RUKidding: No.
DGates: No.
FBI: Damn!
DGates: Look, control of the Internet will be shared by the ISPs who provide access to the Net, the browsers that provide an interface through which to view webpages, website developers, and even online services, although I don’t really see what SCase has to offer. I think Microsoft’s new browser, Internet Explorer, as well as its online service, MSN, and its high-quality proprietary content, is an excellent example of this delicate balance.
NHerman: I thought you were David Gates, founder of “Bread”?
DGates: Um... “Baby, I’m-A Want You...”
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