0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.
Virgin Media, one of the UK's largest ISPs, has agreed to forward British music industry nastygrams to subscribers suspected of illegal file-swapping. The move has proved hugely controversial already, generating charges of "spying on users" and even a BBC column on how Virgin could just go stuff itself into a trash can. But left undiscussed is the core question of why Virgin is whoring itself out like this; the law doesn't require it, and passing on letters from the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) won't make an ISP more dosh. Or will it? What ISPs want is a piece of the fat ad/content pie. Like Cassius, these companies have a "lean and hungry look" as they eye the porcine profits being raked in by other companies that sell both ads and goods using the very networks that the ISPs have built. Ed Whitacre's initial comment about charging companies like Google, that might want to reach customers faster, was a crude attempt at slicing out a piece of this pie; partnerships are the newer variety, and they have the great benefit of not coming across like an extortion racket.
