Net Neutrality
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Introduction:
Net Neutrality principle has been in the center of debate around policy issues concerned with internet regulation. Although the problem is only about six years old it has managed to draw attention of the media, the congress, federal courts, as well as many foundations and public interest groups. There are several definitions of Net Neutrality slightly differing in their wording of the description. Overall, the principle states that Internet users should be able to access any web-site they wish as well as use any application without restrictions or limitations from the service providers they use (Joch, 2009). Currently public enjoys this kind of freedom in surfing the internet. However, there is a chance that ISPs will start massive discrimination of the traffic favoring the information from those content providers who pay additional fees while slowing or completely blocking others. So far there are few occasions of this scenario actually taking place, but Net Neutrality advocates argue that if a law is not passed prohibiting such actions consumers’ interests will suffer while ISPs will be enjoying all the commercial gains (“Sen. Franken's Speech,” 2010). However, people against enacting this law have shown equal resistance and provided multiple arguments against institutionalizing the Net Neutrality principle. This paper explores the points made on both sides of the issue and provides an overview of legal, ethical, and social consequences that might develop.
Social and Ethical Issues:
During his speech in August 19, 2010, Minnesota senator Al Franken made connection between the Net Neutrality and the First Amendment of the US constitution: “Net Neutrality is the First Amendment issue of our time. Today, a blog can load as fast as the Wall Street Journal — and, if the blog is good, it can get more traffic than any media conglomerate.
But if bigger companies can pay for faster, priority Internet access, that blogger no longer has a shot” (“Sen. Franken’s Speech,” 2010).
Many university professors are deeply concerned as well. Columbia University law professor Tim Wu who specializes in copyrights and communications says that the outcome of the Net Neutrality debate can have a profound influence on the whole American Culture. He fears that internet ruled by ISP’s pursuing financial gains and offering discriminatory services will undermine entertainment and the political diversity, as well as threaten the innovation and experimentation. He uses Wikipedia as an example: “In an internet that [ISPs] can control, why would you put Wikipedia on it? It does not make sense because it doesn’t make money” (Joch, 2009).
Some, on the other hand, do not see any barriers to innovation. According to Robert Pepper, the vice president of global technology policy for Cisco Systems, the current status-quo which does not include any laws about Net Neutrality actually promotes advancement of new technologies. He cites the increasing investment in fiber-optics networks for broadband services and does not see any failure to innovate in the current competitive marketplace (Joch, 2009).
Meanwhile, Net Neutrality proponents talk about the threats of behavioral advertising. If ISPs are able to analyze the data that customers view throughout the day, they could use this information for commercial gain by putting out relevant advertisement targeting audiences by their interests. “[ISPs] can completely model you based on your behavior by doing deep-packet inspection” says David Clark, a senior research scientist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who is especially concerned with consumer privacy aspect of the Net Neutrality principle (Joch, 2009). However, in 1986 Congress passed a network privacy law, The Electronic Communications Privacy Act according to which unjustified interception of information on a computer network can cause serious civil liability and possible criminal punishment to the violators (Ohm, 2010). Congress did built exceptions around this, in order to let providers monitor the network to “protect rights of property” and for the “rendition of service” with the consent of their users. However, behavioral advertising would require much deeper scrutiny of the traffic, and thus would go out of the boundaries of those two exceptions to the ECPA (Ohm, 2010).
Unfortunately, according to Paul Ohm, an associate professor in Law of Telecommunications at the University of Colorado, this problem is much more complex than it seems. In his article When Net Neutrality Met Privacy he states that “ECPA overlaps only incompletely” with the ideals of Net Neutrality proponents (2010). ISPs can still handle the traffic without scrutinizing it, thus avoiding the ECPA while discriminating among the communications for financial purposes and violating the Net Neutrality: “Scrutiny without handling does not violate Net neutrality and handling without scrutiny does not necessarily implicate privacy” says Ohm (2010). He suggests that congress should get rid of exceptions to the ECPA, which would not allow ISPs any interference with communications for whatever reason, and erase any prospect for discriminating the internet traffic: “In fact, doing this might serve as a substitute for mandating Net neutrality, because Net non-scrutiny might serve as an acceptable compromise solution, perhaps striking a balance that gives Net neutrality’s advocated much of what they desire while giving providers the freedom to manage their networks” (2010).
Security of the Development:
However, it stays unclear to this day exactly where the line should be drawn to ensure proper privacy for the customers as well as adequate freedom for secure management of networks. Net Neutrality opponents fear that a law prohibiting any access to the traffic will not allow service providers to adequately manage their networks, and would pose a serious threat to internet safety (Joch, 2009). According to David Farber, a professor of computer science and public policy at Carnegie Mellon University, such actions will jeopardize the security of networks: “If I can’t do deep packet inspections I have no way as a carrier of handling denial-of-service attacks” (Joch, 2009). ISPs will not be able to identify viruses, spams, and bandwidth-draining applications in order to provide quality service (Ohm, 2010).
Legal Issues:
The search for a solution raises a question of who gets to decide whether the ISPs should discriminate or not, the government or the marketplace (Weiss, 2006). The Council for Citizens against Government Waste (CCAGW) and The Center for Individual Freedom (CFIF) have both protested the enactment of Net Neutrality laws by the government, pointing out that market forces will be able to resolve the issue perfectly. In response to the Internet Freedom Preservation Act, a Net Neutrality bill proposed in 2008, CFIF President Jeffery Mazzella said: "This legislation won't preserve Internet freedom. Rather, it will cripple a free and open market that continues to encourage unprecedented innovation and benefits consumers" (“Internet Freedom Jeopardized,” 2008). CCAGW President Tom Schatz claimed that the Act “would impede the evolution of the Internet and the innovation it encourages. This kind of aggressive law-making hurts taxpayers, violates common sense, and impedes the principles of the free market” (“CCAGW: Protect Internet from Net Neutrality,” 2008). On the other hand, some Net Neutrality advocates do not believe that broadband enjoys or can enjoy a true marketplace (Weiss, 2006). Because of natural monopolies broadband providers are scarce, customer choice is limited, and many communities do not even have the luxury of choosing between two (Weiss, 2006).
Meanwhile, the search for the solution seems to be taking place in the trial and error mode. In 2007 much controversy was stirred up by Comcast when it was revealed that it deliberately slowed down and throttled the traffic for customers using BitTorrent (Ohm, 2010). A year later the Federal Communications Commission ruled this action unlawful and disciplined Comcast for unreasonable network management (Ohm, 2010). However, the story did not end there. FCC’s decision was appealed by Comcast, and in the April of 2010 United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled that the agency actually lacked any authority for such regulations (Kang, 2010).
On Dec. 21, 2010, the FCC approved a semi-neutral compromise blocking any “unreasonable discrimination” of communications by fixed-line broadband ISPs, but leaving more room for regulating the wireless services (Net Neutrality, 2010). However, recent days have shown some efforts being made for reversing this decision. It was on March 4th when the Subcommittee on Communications and Technology House Commerce Committee was supposed to vote on a resolution for disapproval of the FCC’s decision. The meeting has been postponed for March 9th (Treacy, 2011).
Conclusion:
Net Neutrality remains a highly debated issue. Many call it “a solution looking for an issue” while others believe it’s crucial for innovation and even equate it to the constitutional rights (Broache, 2006; “Sen. Franken’s Speech,” 2010). Net Neutrality law has met a fierce opposition in congress while being largely supported by Democrats including Barack Obama (Kang, 2011). Neither side has been able to present their argument convincingly enough to silent the other, and the underlying issue of who gets to decide the internet regulation remains unsolved as well. Should the government intervene and enact a neutrality law, or will the free market forces guided by consumers’ choice be able to handle the problem? Perhaps we need to turn to our history, examine similar problems and will find some kind of an answer as to who is more competent in resolving issues like this.
References:
Broache, A. 2006. Tech manufacturers rally against Net neutrality. http://news.cnet.com/Tech-manufacturers-rally-against-Net-neutrality/2100-1028_3-6117241.html Date Accessed: March 5th, 2011.
Cnet News is a technology news web-site which offers reviews of new technology products as well as latest developments in the field.
Treacy, A. 2011. How do you feel about Net Neutrality? http://www.tcdailyplanet.net/blog/ann-treacy/how-do-you-feel-about-net-neutrality Date Accessed: March 5th, 2011.
Daily Planet is an online publication, a project of Twin Cities Media Alliance which is a nonprofit organization dedicated to closing the digital divide and helping citizens empower themselves with media. It offers daily updates about technology news.
Kang, C. 2010. Court rules for Comcast over FCC in 'net neutrality' case. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/06/AR2010040600742.html Date Accessed: March 5th, 2011.
Washington Post is a respected news online magazine and Cecilia Kang is a Staff Writer who has covered the issue of Net Neutrality extensively.
Kang, C. 2011. House lawmakers face uphill battle in overturning FCC net neutrality rules. http://voices.washingtonpost.com/posttech/2011/03/house_lawmakers_will_examine_t.html Date Accessed: March 5th, 2011.
Washington Post is a respected news online magazine and Cecilia Kang is a Staff Writer who has covered the issue of Net Neutrality extensively.
Center for Individual Freedom; Internet Freedom Jeopardized by Proposal Calling for Unnecessary and Burdensome Regulations. (2008, February). Computers, Networks & Communications,752. Retrieved March 6, 2011, from Sciences Module. (Document ID: 1535035741). Accessed through Proquest Research Library on March 5th, 2011.
Computers, Networks & Communications is a periodical offering information about telecommunications industry and relevant political issues and legislations.
Council for Citizens Against Government Waste CCAGW; CCAGW: Protect Internet from Net Neutrality. (2008, May). Telecommunications Weekly,43. Retrieved March 6, 2011, from ProQuest Telecommunications. (Document ID: 1514908071).
Telecommunications Weekly is a periodical published by the Citizens Against Government Waste.
Joch, A. (2009). Debating Net Neutrality. Communications of the ACM, 52(10), 14-15. Retrieved from EBSCOhost. March 5th, 2011.
Communications of the ACM is an academic journal published by Association for Computing Machinery. It focuses around the topics of Computer Science.
Net Neutrality. 2010. http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/subjects/n/net_neutrality/index.html Date Accessed: March 5th, 2011.
New York Times is a famous and respected online news magazine.
Ohm, P. (2010). Viewpoint: When Network Neutrality Met Privacy. Communications of the ACM, 53(4), 30-32. Retrieved from EBSCOhost. March 5th, 2011.
Communications of the ACM is an academic journal published by Association for Computing Machinery. It focuses around the topics of Computer Science.
Sen. Franken's Speech to Free Press Group in Minneapolis. 2010. http://”Sen. Franken’s Speech,” 2010/?p=news&id=1044 Date Accessed: March 5th, 2011.
Franken.senate.gov is the official web-site of Sen. Franken, US senator for Minnesota.
Weiss, A. (2006). Net neutrality?: there's nothing neutral about it. NetWorker, 10(2), 18. Retrieved from EBSCOhost. March 5th, 2011.
Aaron Weiss is a technology writer and Web developer in upstate New York.
