The Digital Revolution, Defining the Consumer Victory and Defending the Public Interest in the 21st Century: Network Neutrality, Digital Downloading, and Privacy in Online Advertising

The digital revolution has empowered consumers and scrambled business models across a wide range of media and communications sectors, yet the consumer gains are under constant pressure from network operators and copyright holders, who seek to reassert control over consumers and the Internet. On the other side, some public interest advocates are alarmed by the dramatic growth of online advertising with its threat to privacy and its tendency toward concentration in the hands of a small number of providers. A clear understanding of how the consumers' gains were made and what the threats are is crucial to defining the public and consumer interest in the 21st century.