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Net Neutrality
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Autor: anton • November 11, 2010 • 680 Words (3 Pages) • 326 Views

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As someone who has had some sort of web presence for over ten years , I am completely and unequivocally in favor of net neutrality. Google defines net neutrality as "the principle that Internet users should be in control of what content they view and what applications they use on the Internet. " What net neutrality means to me, is that the content I have to share (however mundane it may be) has an equal opportunity of reaching any Internet user as any other content on any other web site. There are some interesting videos on You Tube discussing this topic most notably Robin Miller's video which talks about how net neutrality benefits individuals like you and me. However, the threat to net neutrality impacts everyone--small businesses, large businesses, and individuals .

If we lose the battle to maintain net neutrality it could stifle competition amongst businesses online with the only companies remaining being the ones who can afford to pay premiums to broadband service providers for prioritization. Technologies like packet shaping (not necessarily a bad technology depending on what it is used for) are paving the way for such discrimination. Small businesses will find it more difficult to compete, as the lack of net neutrality will pose as yet another barrier to entry that they must overcome. Large businesses will be impacted also. Broadband service providers could favor one business over another. In some cases, if the broadband service provider offers a similar service they will have the ability to prevent competitors from reaching potential consumers. Even well established businesses aren't safe. Not only are we hurt as individual content providers ourselves (forget sharing your own videos, podcasts, other content); worse is the damage to us as consumers. You and I will no longer be able to choose what content we view and what applications we use on Internet. Our broadband service providers will be making these choices for us.

In most cases lack of regulation is a good thing because more often than not the government just makes life more complicated for all of us. However, in the case of net neutrality it is increasingly important for Congress to step in. We clearly need to do something in order to prevent broadband service providers from obliterating our Internet freedom. We need to bring the Internet back to the way it was and should be--open to everyone, without regard to who you are or the size of your business.

Opponents of net neutrality argue that anti-trust laws and other legislation already exist to prevent unfair discrimination between businesses and to protect consumers. However, it is increasing difficult to prove that violations are taking place because the Internet is a whole new playing field--one that didn't exist when most of these laws were first introduced. We need something that specifically addresses and protects net neutrality.Net neutrality
Net neutrality (also network neutrality, Internet neutrality, or net equality) is the principle that Internet service providers and governments should treat all data on the Internet equally, not discriminating or charging differentially by user, content, site, platform, application, type of attached equipment, or mode of communication. The term was coined by Columbia University media law professor Tim Wu in 2003, as an extension of the longstanding concept of a common carrier.[1][2][3][4]

An example of a violation of net neutrality principles was the Internet service provider Comcast intentionally slowing uploads from peer-to-peer file sharing applications.[5] And in 2007, Plusnet was using deep packet inspection to implement limits and differential charges for peer-to-peer, file transfer protocol, and online game traffic.[6] Research suggests that a combination of policy instruments will help realize the range of valued political and economic objectives central to the network neutrality debate.[7]

Definition and related principles
By issue
Legal aspects
By country
Arguments for net neutrality
Proponents of net neutrality include consumer advocates, human rights organizations such as Article 19,[72] online companies and some technology companies.[73] Many major Internet application companies are advocates of neutrality. Yahoo!, Vonage,[74] eBay, Amazon,[75] IAC/InterActiveCorp. Microsoft, Twitter, Tumblr, Etsy, Daily Kos, Greenpeace, along with many other companies and organizations, have also taken a stance in support of net neutrality.[76][77] Cogent Communications, an international Internet service provider, has made an announcement in favor of certain net neutrality policies.[78] In 2008, Google published a statement speaking out against letting broadband providers abuse their market power to affect access to competing applications or content. They further equated the situation to that of the telephony market, where telephone companies are not allowed to control who their customers call or what those customers are allowed to say.[4] However, Google's support of net neutrality was called into question in 2014.[79] Several civil rights groups, such as the ACLU, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Free Press, and Fight for the Future support net neutrality.[80]

Individuals who support net neutrality include Tim Berners-Lee,[81] Vinton Cerf,[82][83] Lawrence Lessig,[84] Robert W. McChesney, Steve Wozniak, Susan P. Crawford, Marvin Ammori, Ben Scott, David Reed,[85] and U.S. President Barack Obama.[86][87] On 10 November 2014, U.S. President Barack Obama recommended that the FCC reclassify broadband Internet service as a telecommunications service in order to preserve net neutrality.[88][89][90] On 12 November 2014, AT&T stopped build-out of their fiber network until it has "solid net neutrality rules to follow".[91] On 31 January 2015, AP News reported that the FCC will present the notion of applying ("with some caveats") Title II (common carrier) of the Communications Act of 1934 to the Internet in a vote expected on 26 February 2015.[92][93][94][95][96]

dy data delivery... to create advantages for their own searchontrol of data
Supporters of network neutrality want to designate cable companies as common carriers, which would require them to allow Internet service providers (ISPs) free access to cable lines, the model used for dial-up Internet. They want to ensure that cable companies cannot screen, interrupt or filter Internet content without court order.[97] Common carrier status would give the FCC the power to enforce net neutrality rules.[98]

SaveTheInternet.com accuses cable and telecommunications companies of wanting the role of gatekeepers, being able to control which websites load quickly, load slowly, or don't load at all. According to SaveTheInternet.com these companies want to charge content providers who require guaranteed speedy data delivery... to create advantages for their own search engines, Internet phone services, and streaming video services – and slowing access or blocking access to those of competitors.[99] Vinton Cerf, a co-inventor of the Internet Protocol and current vice president of Google argues that the Internet was designed without any authorities controlling access to new content or new services.[100] He concludes that the principles responsible for making the Internet such a success would be fundamentally undermined were broadband carriers given the ability to affect what people see and do online.[82]

Digital rights and freedoms
Lawrence Lessig and Robert W. McChesney argue that net neutrality ensures that the Internet remains a free and open technology, fostering democratic communication. Lessig and McChesney go on to argue that the monopolization of the Internet would stifle the diversity of independent news sources and the generation of innovative and novel web content.[84]

User intolerance for slow-loading sites

Users with faster Internet connectivity (e.g., fiber) abandon a slow-loading video at a faster rate than users with slower Internet connectivity (e.g., cable or mobile).[101] A "fast lane" in the Internet can irrevocably decrease the user's tolerance to the relative slowness of the "slow lane".
Proponents of net neutrality invoke the human psychological process of adaptation where when people get used to something better, they would not ever want to go back to something worse. In the context of the Internet, the proponents argue that a user who gets used to the "fast lane" on the Internet would find the "slow lane" intolerable in comparison, greatly disadvantaging any provider who is unable to pay for the "fast lane". Video providers Netflix[102] and Vimeo[103] in their comments to FCC in favor of net neutrality use the research[101] of S.S. Krishnan and Ramesh Sitaraman that provides the first quantitative evidence of adaptation to speed among online video users. Their research studied the patience level of millions of Internet video users who waited for a slow-loading video to start playing. Users who had a faster Internet connectivity, such as fiber-to-the-home, demonstrated less patience and abandoned their videos sooner than similar users with slower Internet connectivity. The results demonstrate how users can get used to faster Internet connectivity, leading to higher expectation of Internet speed, and lower tolerance for any delay that occurs. Author Nicholas Carr[104] and other social commentators[105][106] have written about the habituation phenomenon by stating that a faster flow of information on the Internet can make people less patient.

Competition and innovation
Net neutrality advocates argue that allowing cable companies the right to demand a toll to guarantee quality or premium delivery would create an exploitative business model based on the ISPs position as gatekeepers.[107] Advocates warn that by charging websites for access, network owners may be able to block competitor Web sites and services, as well as refuse access to those unable to pay.[84] According to Tim Wu, cable companies plan to reserve bandwidth for their own television services, and charge companies a toAccording to Tim Wu, cable companies plan to reserve bandwidth for their own television services, and charge companies a toll for priority service.[108]

Proponents of net neutrality argue that allowing for preferential treatment of Internet traffic, or tiered service, would put newer online companies at a disadvantage and slow innovation in online services.[73] Tim Wu argues that, without network neutrality, the Internet will undergo a transformation from a market ruled by innovation to one ruled by deal-making.[108] SaveTheInternet.com argues that net neutrality puts everyone on equal terms, which helps drive innovation. They claim it is a preservation of the way the internet has always operated, where the quality of websites and services determined whether they succeeded or failed, rather than deals with ISPs.[99] Lawrence Lessig and Robert W. McChesney argue that eliminating net neutrality would lead to the Internet resembling the world of cable TV, so that access to and distribution of content would be managed by a handful of massive companies. These companies would then control what is seen as well as how much it costs to see it. Speedy and secure Internet use for such industries as health care, finance, retailing, and gambling could be subject to large fees charged by these companies. They further explain that a majority of the great innovators in the history of the Internet started with little capital in their garages, inspired by great ideas. This was possible because the protections of net neutrality ensured limited control by owners of the networks, maximal competition in this space, and permitted innovators from outside access to the network. Internet content was guaranteed a free and highly competitive space by the existence of net neutrality.[84]

Preserving Internet standards
Network neutrality advocates have sponsored legislation claiming that authorizing incumbent network providers to override transport and application layer separation on the Internet would signal the decline of fundamental Internet standards and international consensus authority. Further, the legislation asserts that bit-shaping the transport of application data will undermine the transport layer's designed flexibility.[109]

Preventing pseudo-services
Alok Bhardwaj, founder of Epic Privacy Browser, argues that any violations to network neutrality, realistically speaking, will not involve genuine investment but rather payoffs for unnecessary and dubious services. He believes that it is unlikely that new investment will be made to lay special networks for particular websites to reach end-users faster. Rather, he believes that non-net neutrality will involve leveraging quality of service to extract remuneration from websites that want to avoid being slowed down.[110][111]

End-to-end principle
Main article: End-to-end principle
Some advocates say network neutrality is needed in order to maintain the end-to-end principle. According to Lawrence Lessig and Robert W. McChesney, all content must be treated the same and must move at the same speed in order for net neutrality to be true. They say that it is this simple but brilliant end-to-end aspect that has allowed the Internet to act as a powerful force for economic and social good.[84] Under this principle, a neutral network is a dumb network, merely passing packets regardless of the applications they support. This point of view was expressed by David S. Isenberg in his paper, "The Rise of the Stupid Network". He states that the vision of an intelligent network is being replaced by a new network philosophy and architecture in which the network is designed for always-on use, not intermittence and scarcity. Rather than intelligence being designed into the network itself, the intelligence would be pushed out to the end-user's device; and the network would be designed simply to deliver bits without fancy network routing or smart number translation. The data would be in control, telling the network
Contrary to this idea, the research paper titled End-to-end arguments in system design by Saltzer, Reed, and Clark[113] argues that network intelligence doesn't relieve end systems of the requirement to check inbound data for errors and to rate-limit the sender, nor for a wholesale removal of intelligence from the network core.

Arguments against net neutrality
Opponents of net neutrality regulations include AT&T, Verizon, IBM, Intel, Cisco, Nokia, Qualcomm, Broadcom, Juniper, dLink, Wintel, Alcatel-Lucent, Corning, Panasonic, Ericsson, and others.[59][116][117] Notable technologists who oppose net neutrality include Marc Andreessen, Scott McNealy, Peter Thiel, David Farber, Nicholas Negroponte, Rajeev Suri, Jeff Pulver, John Perry Barlow, and Bob Kahn.[118][119][120][121][122][123][124][125][126][127]

Nobel Prize-winning economist Gary Becker's paper titled, "Net Neutrality and Consumer Welfare", published by the Journal of Competition Law & Economics, alleges that claims by net neutrality proponents "do not provide a compelling rationale for regulation" because there is "significant and growing competition" among broadband access providers.[128][119]

Google Chairman Eric Schmidt states that, while Google views that similar data types should not be discriminated against, it is okay to discriminate across different data types—a position that both Google and Verizon generally agree on, according to Schmidt.[129][130] According to the Journal, when President Barack Obama announced his support for strong net neutrality rules late in 2014, Schmidt told a top White House official the president was making a mistake.[130]

Several civil rights groups, such as the National Urban League, Jesse Jackson's Rainbow/PUSH, and League of United Latin American Citizens, also oppose Title II net neutrality regulations,[131] who said that the call to regulate broadband Internet service as a utility would harm minority communities by stifling investment in underserved areas.[132][133]

A number of other opponents created Hands Off The Internet,[134] a website created in 2006 to promote arguments against internet regulation. Principal financial support for the website came from AT&T, and members included BellSouth, Alcatel, Cingular, and Citizens Against Government Waste.[135][136][137][138][139]

Robert Pepper, a senior managing director, global advanced technology policy, at Cisco Systems, and is the former FCC chief of policy development, says: "The supporters of net neutrality regulation believe that more rules are necessary. In their view, without greater regulation, service providers might parcel out bandwidth or services, creating a bifurcated world in which the wealthy enjoy first-class Internet access, while everyone else is left with slow connections and degraded content. That scenario, however, is a false paradigm. Such an all-or-nothing world doesn't exist today, nor will it exist in the future. Without additional regulation, service providers are likely to continue doing what they are doing. They will continue to offer a variety of broadband service plans at a variety of price points to suit every type of consumer".[140] Computer scientist Bob Kahn [125] has said net neutrality is a slogan that would freeze innovation in the core of the Internet.[118]

Farber has written and spoken strongly in favor of continued research and development on core Internet protocols. He joined academic colleagues Michael Katz, Christopher Yoo, and Gerald Faulhaber in an op-ed for the Washington Post strongly critical of network neutrality, essentially stating that while the Internet is in need of remodeling, congressional action aimed at protecting the best parts of the current Internet could interfere with efforts to build a replacement.[141]

Reduction in innovation and investments
According to a letter to key Congressional and FCC leaders sent by 60 major ISP technology suppliers including IBM, Intel, Qualcomm, and Cisco, Title II regulation of the internet "means that instead of billions of broadband investment driving other sectors of the economy forward, any reduction in this spending will stifle growth across the entire economy. This is not idle speculation or fear mongering...Title II is going to lead to a slowdown, if not a hold, in broadband build out, because if you