Some weeks ago I posted a commentary on net neutrality (Verizon bellyaching about Google's "free lunch"), a group of issues that have to do with how much control your Internet Service Provider should have over the content that you choose to access on the Internet.

Today, a committee of the US House of Representatives voted down an amendment that would give the Federal Communications Commission the right to enforce principles of net neutrality on the big telecommunications and cable companies that own the fiber-optic and co-axial pipes on which the Internet is built.

This is bad news. If that previous posting interested you, then you might like to have a look at the following:

On Salon today, Andrew Leonard comments on the net neutrality issue.

And for a more comprehensive analysis of the problem, have a read of Farhad Manjoo's excellent Salon article about net neutrality from a couple of weeks ago.