This is news to me! I hope their not serious

Okay, I didn't read the whole article, but I can tell you it's a pile of crap. I work for Pacific Bell/SBC/AT&T and I'll tell ya what, NO ONE, especially people in management are smart enough to create, impliment, and maintain any sort of system like that. And the quote taken from Ed Whitacre, my CEO, about other people "using his pipes" that's taken out of context and is directed at our competitors who, under FCC imposed regulations, were leasing the network that our company built for less money that it took us to maintain them. Many of these regulations have been loosened, and a lot of the fly-by-night competitors found that they weren't making "enough" profit in the telecom biz once that happened.

I am of course, saying this strictly as an individual. These are my thoughts/opinions/views/interpretations/etc. and I don't mean to speak on behalf of the company in any way (the fuckers don't pay me enough :P)

Either this is some poorly informed hack reporting, or someone's just trying to stir the shit up. I wouldn't worry about it if I were any of you.

This gets me so hot under the collar, I don't know where to begin.
Yes "They" have plans to "monetize" the web for their own profit, unless we take action. All we need to look at is history and the current situation we're in.
Right now Five media conglomerates .. Viacom, Disney, Time Warner, News Corp. and NBC/GE own almost every media outlet. They fear the lack of control they have over the internet. Not only has increased compedition (the only fair playing field left), but it's also created this annoying grassroots activism: awareness of things like corporate consolidation.
In the constitution it states, we citizens own the airwaves, meaning tv and radio broadcasts. But slowly over the years, our government and the FCC sold it to corporations. Somehow tv went from being free with commercials (network) to paid without commercials (cable) to paid with commercials. How can corporations charge us for something we own?
Unless we stop it the is the route the internet will go.
We need to demand our government do it's job and force these corporations to serve the public interests.
Have you ever heard the term "net neutrality" ? this is the movement to stop this trend.

entertaining video on net neutrality:
www.youtube.com/watch

moyer's on america "the net at risk"
www.youtube.com/watch

links:
www.stopbigmedia.com/
www.freepress.net/