I wonder what kind of weekend Andy Abramson had as he gets ready to moderate the bloggers panel at Fall VON? This morning finds him in full rant mode over broadband service providers and the growing danger of port blocking and filtering to target online services such as Skype and Bit Torrent. The way Andy sees it, carriers are selling "dumb pipe", which does not give the right to stipulate which Web sites or services you can or can't use. For the most part, Andy's on the mark because the power of access to the Web is accessing the full variety of content and services with few restrictions. When the pipe owners start to act as censors to "protect" the integrity of their networks, then the trouble begins because how do they draw the line. What content/services can legitimately can be blocked before questions arise about economic self interest? In other words, do revenue-hungry carriers have the right to establish themselves as middlemen simply because they want a cut of the action? Sadly, I think Andy's fears will become more apparent as broadband access comes with more onerous end-use license agreements. There's a lot of money in Web-based services and content, and the broadband carriers will want a cut whether they distribute/offer it directly or not.