January 14, 2014
Net Neutrality is gone. But Net Neutrality could come back for real this time
The experts I follow on the topic of Net Neutrality were pretty convinced that the FCC’s tepid NN policy would be struck down for just the reasons that it was. I have a few reactions:
1. Ack! The access providers (who have confused themselves with the Internet itself) are now free to block what they want and to charge sites what they want for “premium service.” But we can trust the unregulated market to do what’s best because capitalism. Yup. Unbridled greed never goes wrong.
2. Now the FCC has an opportunity to get it right. I’m about to run for a plane, so if I try to explain this without checking some sources ‘n’ sites, I’ll just get it wrong. But google yourself some “Net Neutrality” and “Title II” and you’ll find someone who can explain it better than I could even if I were given infinite leisure.
3. I have friends who are deep experts, who love the Open Internet, and who think Net Neutrality is a bad concept because it can’t be defined perfectly, and because the Net always discriminates among packets in various ways: routers decide which packets go into which queues, anda t the other end of the stack Content Delivery Networks let big companies pay to get their content closer to you, etc. Yeah yeah. So, take the list of depredations we customers will now be subject to, and imagine the policy that prevents them. That’s Net Neutrality at the policy level.If you prefer to call it an Anti-Plundering Policy, I won’t argue with you.
[Some random sources quickly scooped up:
Gotta go. Long live the open Internet…but only if we make it so.
