Net neutrality is the principle that says all information flowing across the Internet should be treated equally. But with more people streaming data-rich video and playing online games, the Internet faces congestion concerns. Should carriers be able to sell multi-tiered access to heavy users? Should sites that generate massive traffic -- like Google and Yahoo! -- pay extra fees? The U.S. Government is examining Net Neutrality and its financial, legal and social implications. Do we need federal intervention to ensure fairness, or is this an issue for the market to work out?
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Net Neutrality is the Internet's First Amendment
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.
- McLazarus
September 4, 2008 7:55AM
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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.
- TheK
September 8, 2008 6:53AM
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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.
- tomcat2200
September 14, 2008 12:17AM
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You're ignoring something simple...
The cables/infrastructure used by people to connect to the internet belong to Comcast. They're not modifying the internet itself, as you seem to make it out.
- pdethier
March 16, 2009 6:26PM
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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.
- Concerned Citizen
May 17, 2009 9:33PM
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