OK, as Wi-fi hotspots develop even further, could we come to the point where one could access the Internet at any location at all (say, at a park or a subway or other public places)? And if that happens, could there be a legal/judicial case made that the Internet could be declared a braodcast, and thus be subject to possible censorship?

I hope this isn't the case (after all, you have to pay to access some sites, which would be more analagous to cable), but it's something that's been bugging me for a while.

As long as you have to pay to access the internet, I think it would be more akin to cable or satellite TV than to broadcast.

I read something once, a long time ago, it said some stuff about this topic.

Which is where we're at now, and with Wi-Fi spots, you would have to purchase some product in whatever business you're going to. But if those Wi-Fi spots encroached to public places, that's where my concern is at.

Also, would this be moot in the sense that Wi-Fi providers would have to require a fee for their service outside of businesses that would pay for the service?

Eric, if you have a link to that article, I'd love to see it.

I have every article I've ever read bookmarked and indexed under the Internet Dewey Decimal System. I'm not sure if I put this one under internet law or broadcast law. This may take all morning for me to post, but ok.

I work for a pretty large ISP that provides free Wi-Fi in three different "public squares" of the city and we're trying to increase that. The way that we get paid is by advertising involved. The way it works is that when you open up a browser, you have to accept an acceptable use policy and then it's wide open. There is no fee involved and I have not heard of any legal issues concerning the free wi-fi spots.

here in philly we've got some public park wifi spots (love park) and plans to create a city wide (possible low-cost) wireless internet access. i'm sure we'll see these issues come up within the next few years....

**tugs at collar nervously**

ASU provides Wi-Fi anywhere on campus, and I'm not sure if it has been established yet, but I know the City of Tempe is planning on providing Wi-Fi throughout the entire city, or the downtown area (I'm not sure which).

The inter-web is already subject to censorship all over the world. Have you heard of what Cisco did for China?

I am more concerned it will be subjected to a world-wide-tax.

don't you mean Google?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4647398.stm

I saw that google story on the BBC. It's amazing what they are doing for google.cn.

I just hope that we're not now on the start of a slipperly slope thats going to lead to the internet being heavily regulated

And here's the economist's take on it:

Here be dragons
Jan 26th 2006
From The Economist print edition

Google, the internet search engine that has grown into a corporate giant, began operations in China on January 25th. Though critics suggest it has betrayed its own motto—“don't be evil”—by agreeing to censor certain sites, Google maintains it will do more good than harm

[img]http://www.economist.com/images/ga/2006w04/Google.jpg
[/img]

IN 2001, human-rights activists in China crowed that a little-known search engine called Google was the most important tool ever created to skirt state censors. Users could retrieve content that Beijing banned by clicking to call up a “cached” copy of the web page, stored by Google. Soon, however, Google itself was being sporadically blocked. The firm was instructed to deactivate that particular feature, and for a short time its web address was even re-routed by Chinese network operators to the website of a local rival.

The continual cat-and-mouse game ended this week when Google, now a corporate giant, entered the dragon’s den. On January 25th the search engine “Google.cn” began operations. It is a first step towards beefing up the company’s local presence, which will also mean placing computer-servers in the country. This will speed up service for mainland users, who otherwise must penetrate the great firewall of China, which dramatically slows down access to Google.com.

Having local infrastructure gives an advantage to Google’s search-engine rivals, such as China’s Baidu.com (which enjoys around 40% of the Chinese search market, compared with Google’s 30%), and Yahoo! and Microsoft’s MSN, which have local Chinese operations. China’s internet market, with more than 100m users, is one of the fastest-growing and most lucrative in the world. Can Google—with its motto “don’t be evil”—do business in China without betraying its soul?

The company is making a concerted effort to do just that. It has reached an agreement with the Chinese authorities that allows it to disclose to users, at the bottom of a list of search results, whether information has been withheld. This is similar to what the company does in other countries where it faces content restrictions, such as France and Germany (where Nazi sites are banned), and America (where it removes material that is suspected of copyright infringement). Although the disclosure is more prominent on these western sites, putting such a message on its Chinese site is an important step towards transparency and, furthermore, is something its rivals do not do.

Furthermore, Google is tiptoeing into the country with only a handful of services. It is not offering e-mail, blogging or social-networking services, because it worries that it will not be able to ensure users’ privacy. It wishes to avoid the situation in which MSN and Yahoo! find themselves, whereby they are forced to obey the Chinese government’s orders in censoring content and revealing users’ identities. Rather than be placed in a position where it may have to compromise its values, Google instead is narrowing what it offers (although its news service will contain only government-approved media sources).

Google believes that entering China, even with restraints on content, lets it offer more information than if it remained outside. Yet the decision comes as American internet firms such as Yahoo! and MSN duck criticism that they are complicit with the Chinese authorities.

Meanwhile in America
For Google, taking the higher road happens to also be a way to differentiate its service. This month America’s Department of Justice went to court to force Google to comply with a subpoena seeking more than 1m web addresses and a weeks’ worth of all users’ searches (down from an original demand of every web address it holds and two months of searches), albeit without any information that would identify individual users. The government wants the data in order to examine the effectiveness of software filters to block pornography, for a case involving a law prohibiting the content, which the Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional.

The government requested, and received, information from Yahoo!, MSN and AOL—all of which initially stonewalled about whether they disclosed the data. Yet Google resisted, arguing that “acceding to the request would suggest it is willing to reveal information about those who use its services. This is not a perception that Google can accept.” The day the subpoena was made public, Google’s shares dropped almost 9%, its largest single-day decline since it began trading in 2004.

Google’s stance could put commercial pressure on its rivals to adopt more customer-friendly policies, and may serve as a warning to other internet firms to treat customers’ data with more care. Yet such high-mindedness will be tested as Google enters China. Keeping its options open, the company is not shutting down the Chinese-language version of Google.com. It will remain available, for those willing to wait a bit longer for their uncensored search results.