Network neutrality

From Free Talk Live

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Network neutrality

Network neutrality is essentially government regulation that forces Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to provide their customers equal access to any and all content on the internet. For example, without Net Neutrality, Company X could pay ISP Y to connect to its website faster than it connects to X's competitors. There has been a large outcry against deregulating the internet, even from self-proclaimed libertarians. Advocates for Net Neutraliy (like many statists) wrongly believe that internet access is a right -- as if someone has a right to make another provide a bridge for him so that he can cross a river.

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Merged article

This was merged from another article on network neutrality on the FTL wiki. It should be integrated into this article.

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Introduction

From SaveTheInternet.com:

Congress is pushing a law that would abandon the Internet's First Amendment -- a principle called Network Neutrality that prevents companies like AT&T, Verizon and Comcast from deciding which Web sites work best for you (tiered Internet) -- based on what site pays them the most. If the public doesn't speak up now, our elected officials will cave to a multi-million dollar lobbying campaign.

Supporters of "Network Neutrality" claim that having a tiered Internet would put large, established Websites at an unfair advantage. They also suggest that this could be covertly used to “censor” Websites with unpopular messages. They point to isolated incidents of small telecommunications companies blocking broadband telephone services, although all of the said incidents were quickly resolved. Currently, a bill is in Congress that would prevent the telecommunication companies from developing a tiered Internet.

The simplest argument for allowing a two-tiered Internet comes from private property rights. The regional monopolies granted to the various Bell companies were supposedly revoked by the Telecommunication Act of 1996, meaning that telecommunications operations are no longer subject to the oversight of the public sector. To tell these companies how they should run their businesses essentially amounts to eminent domain.

Telecommunications is no different from any other private sector industry. In a free market economy, the means of production are privately held, and the government does not have the authority to set consumer prices. Rather, those prices are resolved by market competition.

The focal point of opposition to tiered Internet is SaveTheInternet.com, which includes left-wing groups, right-wing groups, small businesses, not-so-small businesses, and a host of others. The telecommunication industry has responded with its own advocacy site, HandsOffTheInternet.com.

"Network Neutrality" advocates talk as if they are the ones fighting for the little guy. In reality, it is Microsoft, Google, eBay, Amazon.com, and other “big players” on the Internet who are lobbying for Network Neutrality. This is not surprising; after all, small websites will likely be unaffected by the changes. If anything, the increased revenue from sites like Amazon will allow Web hosts to charge less to smaller sites (or rather, competitive pressure will force them to). Indeed, it the hight of hypocrisy for large online vendors to call for more government intervention into the telecommunication industry when they themselves operate virtually tax-free.

It is easy to understand why the left wing would be against a tiered Internet. Modern liberals typically believe in equalizing the distribution of wealth as much as possible within society. They also believe that there are certain things – education, health care, and now apparently Internet hosting – that are all too important to be subject to the mere whims of the marketplace. At the very bottom, this type of thinking amounts to nothing less than an attack on the monetary exchange economy in which we find ourselves. For if the free market cannot be trusted when it comes to Internet hosting, then surely it cannot be trusted when it comes to our more important subsistence needs.

The opposition from such right-wing groups as Gun Owners of America and the Christian Coalition is a bit more difficult to understand. The most probable explanation is that these fringe groups tend to hold very paranoid and conspiratorial views of the world, which causes them to believe that they are to be somehow “censored” by the new system. Furthermore, simply because they share conservative views when it comes to gun control or social issues does not mean they they share them when it comes to economics (and indeed, if the current administration's protectionism, nation-building, and out-of-control spending on the welfare-warfare state represent the “conservative view,” then one could hardly blame them).

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