Fight for Internet Freedom!
I still can’t get my head completely wrapped around the whole net neutrality debate. I did a search on Google and found plenty of sites on the topic. According to Wikipedia there are three definitions of Network Neutrality: absolute non-discrimination, limited discrimination without QoS tiering, and limited discrimination and tiering. Under the absolute non-discrimination definition of net neutrality Columbia Law School professor Tim Wu offers the following definition: "Network neutrality is best defined as a network design principle. The idea is that a maximally useful public information network aspires to treat all content, sites, and platforms equally." The Google Help Center describes net neutrality as “an issue that will shape the future of the internet.�
If I understand this debate correctly phone and cable companies want to change companies, such as MySpace, for using bandwidth. Maybe I’m ignorant on the situation, but I know how much I have to pay for high speed internet. I feel that my internet service provider should be responsible for providing me what I pay for. I pay to have a fast connection to whatever sites I want to go to, no matter what amount of bandwidth they use. Whether these internet service providers charge extra fees to the individual web site or the consumer directly, ultimately it will be the consumer that pays for these new policies. It is the norm for prices to rise on every consumer good and service, but for internet service providers to discriminate against certain websites and customers using these websites for no other purpose than to scare up additional revenue is fairly unscrupulous. The internet is a service based on principals of equality and freedom of speech. If such policies of inequality and discrimination are enacted, they will set precedent that will change the very principals that the internet was developed upon and set trends that will detract from the level of service quality that the internet has been known for.