- Home
- Politics
- Entertainment
- Sports
- Health
- Religion
- Society
- Tech
- Money
- People
- Science
- Galleries
Net Neutrality is the Internet's First Amendment
Consumers
take it for granted that every Web site and application on the Internet is
treated equally. That’s because it had been that way for much of the Internet's
early history. Until 2005 we had fundamental protections in the law that
guarantee nondiscrimination on the Internet. But that has changed.
Nondiscrimination is a basic obligation of all network operators under Title II
of the Communications Act. Almost 40 years ago, the Federal Communications
Commission was confronted with the question of how to handle the transmission
of data over telecommunications networks.
In a series of proceedings beginning in 1968 known as the Computer Inquiries, the FCC
decided that the companies providing communications services would not be
allowed to interfere with or discriminate against information services.
When a federal court broke up Ma Bell in 1982, it required the
Baby Bells to provide nondiscriminatory interconnection and access to their
networks. These decisions
to require the communications network to treat information service in a
nondiscriminatory manner was the key building block of the Internet -- it's
First Amendment.
Under these protections, the physical wires over which data and information
flow were treated differently than the data and information themselves. When network
owners can’t mess with the content, the content market remains free and vigorously
competitive. This separation of the physical communications layer from the
content and applications layers was a cornerstone of telecommunications law--putting
control of the Internet in the hands of the users at the edges but in the
summer of 2005 -- under intense pressure from phone and cable lobbyists -- the
FCC removed this cornerstone.
In the years since then, these network owners have openly declared that they
intend to build business models based on discrimination, extorting money from online
content and applications providers and favoring the Web sites and services that
they own or with whom they strike special deals. This plan violates the
fundamental principle of nondiscrimination that has been law for generations,
and which gave us a free-flowing Internet that allows the best ideas to emerge
on their own merits.
Advocates of Net Neutrality are not promoting new regulations. We are attempting
to restore tried and tested consumer protections and network operating
principles that made the Internet a great engine for free speech and innovation.
By passing Net Neutrality legislation we're restoring under law the open Internet's
most fundamental principle.
Comments
The internet was intended to be used freely since it's inception.
The internet began as a connection between research computers both in Europe and the US. Much of the infrastructure was created and regulated by the government and research organizations. When these resources were originally opened to the public it was with the understanding that Net Neutrality would be observed (although the specific term had not yet been invented). The World Wide Web, which many people think of when speaking of the internet was also intended to be free since its inception. All of this was to facilitate the free and easy transfer of ideas and information.
For a corporation to charge based on the content or origin or a piece of information is to go against everything that the internet was intended. Many research organizations that were instrumental in the development of the internet still depend on its openness and ease of use. For example the LHC at CERN, birthplace of the World Wide Web, will generate 15 Petabytes of data annually that will then be sent out to about dozen other sites, which will then be divided into smaller pieces and then sent to 140 more locations, from which end users will then pull the data needed. If that data was slowed or charged based on not being in the preferred network their analysis would be impossible.
Disabling scientific discourse and innovation in this manner would be a terrible disservice to the world and in most cases would seem unethical since many ISPs and telecoms use these government and research networks to pass their information. Since so much of all traffic passes though federally funded and operated networks (many research networks fall under government jurisdiction) it would seem more than reasonable for the government to mandate that traffic not be filtered or slowed.
If these government and research networks were to turn around and suddenly start doing what is being proposed by some of the corporations, the corporations would be outraged. In either case (the government or a corporation) discrimination of information would be severely detrimental to the way the internet currently works.
Net Neutrality is an attempt at legalized looting
The Internet is not a public resource. The networks, machines and know how that make all of it possible are privately owned. By forcing an ISP to run their networks a certain way you are violating their rights of ownership. You chatter on about your rights to be able to see a certain web site a certain way. You have no rights in this respect. There can be no right to a good or service that must be created by another.
If you don't like the policies of your ISP you are free to start your own, or use another one. To use a few analogies:
A mall owner can eject you from his property if he chooses, this does not violate your rights or the rights of the stores who pay him rent. The mall owner can choose to charge a cover to enter his property if he wishes, he is not violating your rights nor the rights of the store owners. A privately owned road can, and do, charge tolls. Using the road means you can access certain stores on the other side of the road faster than taking the long way around. This does not violate anyone's rights. If, however, in any of the analogies above the government, under penalty of force, requires the owners of property to allow you to remain or not charge a cover or not collect tolls. The rights of the owner are most definitely violated.
If for some reason all the ISPs in the world go totally irrational and decide to break the Internet as in your doomsday, strawman, arguments, that would be unfortunate. But any one of us is free to raise the money to create a new internet that has whatever policies we wish. The internet is not an entity in and of itself. It is an emergent phenomenon based on contractual peering services and circuits that are bought and paid for by every participant. Every one of them has the right to try and maximize their profit in the relationship. But this profit motive is exactly what would keep your so-called "neutrality" safe. For every ISP that would try and squeeze some undue profit by altering the paths, three more will rise up and compete with them because they will open the door of opportunity for a "free" internet.
You claim you have a right to a free internet, but you intentionally blank out the fact that the internet is created by individuals who own the pieces. They have rights. You have whatever contractual rights that have been agreed to in your user agreement. None of those is the right to point a gun at the ISP and force them to do your bidding.
Every one of these issues is an issue of contract. When you sign up for an ISP you enter into a contract, if you are able you can convince the ISPs to write into their contract some type of equal treatment of traffic clause, then that is how to handle this. You don't go running to the nanny (government) to force the ISP to give you some of their toys to play with.
What happens when the looting doesn't exist?
When the internet is completely used for legal things, and then companies AGAIN start doing the same things? This is why your argument is flawed.
Public Resource?
Actually the Internet IS a public resource. The underlying structure that was the phone companies and later the fiber optic backbones were actually paid for by the taxpayer giving money to these telecommunications and cable companies to make the infrastructure. Also it must cross vast distances of public land which I doubt they have bought and/or pay rent for so in a way taxpayers are still subsidizing the ISPs.
A mall owner can eject you from their property only if you do something to warrant it. If there is a general public invitation to entry. If he decides to charge a cover then it might infringe on the rights of the stores that pay him rent. After all he is changing the rules mid-lease.
Also what about all those government issued monopolies. You know the kind of internet area where you ONLY have Comcast or only have AT&T or maybe a duopoly of one DSL provider and one Cable provider. When they enter into back room deals the customer is the only one left to get screwed.
Nice try, but...
No one forced the companies into hosting the internet. You need to realize that when the FCC allocated the internet territories, it was a public resource. Just like the airwaves are a public resource. Your arguement is broken as there are many companies willing to provide services. If Comcast wants to go home and take their routers and cable connections with them, then more power to them. It is one tear I would not shed.
You are not free to start your own ISP as you imply. There are many regulatory territories divvied out as exclusives by the FCC. The problems are that companies such as Comcast refuse to play nice in their zones exclusive control. Customers are their exclusive resource to do with as they please, and it hasn't been a nice experience for the customers. The Comcast mantra is to rely on customers not being aware of other communities around their exclusive territories.
The Internet is a Public Infrastructure
Before Al Gore invented the Internet, it was called DARPAnet. It was not "created by individuals," if by that you mean private entities without government assistance. This fact is conveniently omitted by NN opponents, who like to paint the Internet as some sort of libertarian utopia where rugged individuals made the sandbox ("created by individuals who own the pieces,") we just play in it ("You have whatever contractual rights that been agreed to in your user agreement,") and the gubmint is the stupid dumb playground supervisor who tries to ruin the fun for everyone ("running to the nanny (government) to force the ISP to give you some of their toys to play with.")
For more fun with analogies, consider McLazarus' hypothetical mall. What if the mall received a gigantic public subsidy to be built, and continues to receive favorable tax treatment that costs taxpayers millions of dollars a year? As a resident of the Twin Cities, home of the Mall of America, this is a reality that I am familiar with. "Owners" of malls (and Internet business, I might add) are happy to paint themselves as providing a public service, or even a public space in the case of malls, when it suits their interest in courting taxpayer subsidies. But when the public insists on the rights of equal access or even some access to that space for the purpose of exercising their free speech rights, the owner will claim to have a property right to exclude speech that they don't like.
As the media landscape is increasingly transformed by the meta-medium of the Internet, we should pay close attention to those who wish to obscure this, since the public backbone of the Internet is something that is akin to the public ownership of the airwaves in broadcasting. The ginormous initial subsidy that created the Internet's backbone (Al Gore notwithstanding) is relevant to this discussion.
NO!
No government tampering with the net and the data-flow is the Internet's first ammendment!!!
Are you kidding me?
The government has already tipped the scale away from net neutrality, by granting "exclusive" territories to Comcast and other companies that choose not to give the consumer fair services for the fees charged. You are obviously NOT a customer of Comcast, unless you are a Comcast marketing employee.
I for one resent having 6-8Mb download speeds being paraded as the fiber optic level of service Comcast chooses to parade in their advertising. The upload speeds are a joke as well. There is no reason upload speeds should be any less than download speeds. This garbage hearkens back to the days that the ISP's were blocking people from hosting their own web sites. The dynamic IP addresses are actually an increase in the ISP's work to provide services. It allows them to charge twice the going rates to the business customers. The result is that no user will be allowed to host their own blog or web site. This is allowed to happen by dint of regulation.
Hate to say it, but we are already the victims of Government (FCC) regulation.
Upload/Download Disparity
I agree that Comcast has a HORRIBLE track record when it comes to things like Customer Service and other things.
However, it is a very common in the broadband industry to have a download to upload speed disparity. This is because people download almost 10 times as much as they upload. In reality only those operating servers and such require equal amounts of bandwidth for upload and download. Partly because your download pipe is so much larger than your upload pipe is why when you download big files like say a Linux .iso (600mb-4gb) it comes to you so quickly.
Everything else is scummy though including not allowing people to run their own servers. As long as they are paying for the connection and their machine hasnt been turned into a Zombie and attacking other machines then it should be fine.
Huh?
"Partly because your download pipe is so much larger than your upload pipe"
There is one pipe. The upload limit is artificially imposed.
True...
"There is one pipe. The upload limit is artificially imposed. "
While this is technically true. It is also true that the bandwidth in general is artificially imposed as well. In any case that is the reason you get more download than upload unless you're a server or datacenter generally.
Typical usage of a broadband connection by the end user is to download more than upload.