Internet Neutrality, or more affectionately, Net Neutrality, has appeared lately as a subject of much debate among the technocrati and the key-clickers of angry blogs, yet has captured little attention by the mainstream media.
You may have heard recent web chattering, or bypassed a marginalized sub-story on the topic. Yet, as a country, we are in the midst of what one senator has called, "THE free speech issue of our time."
Net neutrality allows equal access for all parties interacting with the internet. It simply states that all internet traffic, regardless of source, affiliation, hardware or content, should travel to its destination with equivalent merit, without obstruction and at the same speed.
It's a simple notion; everybody gets an equal share of the information super-highway. Most people assume the Internet is already a neutral place. CNN loads as fast as local news sites. All sites are available to all people, save for a few obscenity bans. There are no current restrictions based on content or source, right?
Yes and no.
Although the Internet is fairly neutral in practice, there are currently no laws in effect that guarantee it'll stay that way. In fact, the open and neutral aspects of the Internet which we've enjoyed thus far have already begun to unravel.
In 2008, Comcast attempted to deliberately impede traffic to the BitTorrent file-sharing site, claiming that the site was responsible for utilizing more bandwidth than was reasonable. Their concern was understandable. Most Internet Service Providers (ISPs) will tell you that 1 percent of users utilize 20 percent of the network bandwidth, and Comcast was merely attempting to indoctrinate some checks and balances.
The FCC quickly responded, declaring such action to be unlawful. Their concern was also understandable. Once an ISP throttles the traffic from one site, who’s to say they won't throttle other sites? Who decides which sites should and should not be impeded? What if bandwidth usage wasn't the only criteria used to justify such a practice? What if religious, political or community affiliations where considered antagonistic to an ISP's agenda or bottom-line? Would it be fair to regulate network traffic from those sites?
The FCC didn't think so. Unfortunately, a federal appeals court rebuked the FCC ruling, stating that the FCC didn't have the authority to rule against Comcast. Why? As an internet service provider, Comcast is listed as a provider of "Information Services." In order to regulate the Internet as a neutral entity, the Internet would need to be classified as a "common carrier," such as a telecom company. This distinction was enough to overturn the FCC's ruling, and thereby limit its future ability to regulate a fair and open Internet.
Since this ruling, the internet has remained in a largely neutral state, despite the FCC's limited regulatory ability. Yet, the issue is currently teetering on a dangerous edge with staggering implications.
We are in the midst of a standoff between ISPs and the FCC. Both sides are waiting for the other to make a move, and most likely, this is an issue that will be resolved by congress. Only congress can re-classify ISPs under a common carrier protection, and thereby subject them to the same regulatory authority as telecommunication companies.
Rather than wait for the whims of congress, Google and Verizon have attempted to accelerate the debate in their favor with a recently published proposal on how Net Neutrality should be handled. The proposal makes several statements that would seem to support the widespread goal of a neutral internet, but also contain some glaring exceptions which raised serious concerns with the proposal. Notably, the Google/Verizon proposal designates wireless and mobile devices to be outside any neutrality legislation.
The exemption of wireless communications is particularly troubling since computing as a whole is moving to a wireless platform. By excluding wireless communications from the net neutrality framework, the future of the neutral internet is threatened.
The Google/Verizon proposal also includes an exemption for "Additional Online Services," which use the internet, but are distinctly different from typical broadband internet use. The term additional is very subjective — who would decide what is additional and what is not? Allowing for exemptions in neutrality would invariably open the door for lobbying efforts to classify nearly any application as additional.
While parts of the proposal are in favor of some core principles of neutrality, it is arguable that these exemptions are designed to favor large corporate entities. The internet has become the sole equalizing agent for news and information and is potentially the last piece of infrastructure that can offer an even playing field to all people, regardless of economic status. While it’s too soon to tell how the net neutrality issue will play out, it is clear the outcome will impact all of us.