This is a short and quick writeup about a few things I have thought about regarding Net, or Web neutrality.

Internet Neutrality is a myth. It has never existed, and I cannot foresee that it ever will.

Here’s why.

The debate regarding Net Neutrality is VERY complicated. There are a myriad of facets and issues under the microscope. Things like Common Carriage Agreements for broadband providers where the local loop belongs to all ISP’s to provide access to their users, allowing the delivery of all kinds of content at the highest speeds allowed by the network, unrestricted access to data, and so on.

These are all noble goals, and I agree with many (most) of them, but most arguments against Net Neutrality grow from the mistaken belief that something that has existed needs protection.

The truth is we have never had a completely neutral and accessible web, and I am going to use the behavior of content owners and governments as examples.

Net Neutrality Has Never Existed

There has never been such a thing as a completely open and accessible Internet where all available content is accessible by anyone. Take YouTube as a good example. It is owned by Google, a staunch supporter of Net Neutrality. It allows anyone to upload and publish video content – from your mom to National Geographic and EMI and so on who have channels to publish some of their content.

You can access a whole lot of content on YouTube through these channels – previews to Documentaries, Music Videos, even whole TV series in some cases.

If you are in the publisher’s preferred territories, that is.

Living in Africa I often get a notification that a certain video is not available in my territory. Even in the US users sometimes run into this barrier that is decidedly NOT net neutral. And it is publisher driven.

Content owners and creators who invest money in projects to create new content such as the Documentaries and Music Videos in my examples above have a right to how that content is distributed. I might take issue with how they choose to exercise those rights, but in general the argument – in it’s simplest form, holds true.

1. Content Producers can choose to ask a fee to view their content.
   I agree with this. If you pay money to produce high quality material such as a documentary you have the fullest right to sell it to networks to broadcast, or, to make it available to viewers directly for a fee. In some cases this is taken a step too far and backfires – Pay Walls on on-line news services have in general been less than successful up till now.
2. Content Producers can decide where they want to make their products available.
   In principle I agree with this. I think that managing the distribution of on-line content is a tricky business. While a Music Producer might want to delay the showing of a Music Video in a country or territory pending the official release of a new album or an exclusive airing of this music video on prime-time television, delaying this for too long will be detrimental to the publisher. A smart publisher might even leak some content ahead of time to cause hype preceding a product’s release.

Governments Also have a Say

Governments today engage in practices that go directly against what many proponents of net neutrality propose. Whether you like it or not, governments have laws regarding the dissemination and access of certain content. In some cases these laws are abused – take China and other oppressive regimes and the way they restrict access to content that does not line up with how they want the world to work.

Other governments have laws that aim to protect children – South Africa has been pussyfooting around with proposed pornography legislation for years now – or even to remove content deemed illegal or damaging to society.

The Internet, and the on-line community (large as it is – larger than the total population of many countries!), have no right to dictate to sovereign governments what they may or may not allow in those parts of the Internet that is accessible to their populace.

Another South African example is the restrictions on advertising of on-line gambling websites such as On-line Poker Services. Arguments about the validity of such restrictions are ongoing world-wide, but the reality is that the sovereignty of governments and their efforts to protect (and sadly in some cases to control) their populace trumps that of the efforts of those who are pro net neutrality to make all content equally accessible and available to the whole world.

Summary

I am pro Net Neutrality – with some caveats. Some of the Net Neutrality proposals will be damaging to many companies and content providers that make a living off of providing services and fresh content to on-line consumers. Other proposals will simply be illegal in some countries and thus never be allowed in those countries.

The net should remain neutral, thus allowing content providers to do what they want with their content, and allowing governments to make available what they deem fit without the on-line world and proponents of Net Neutrality to act in a distinctly biased manner by attempting to interfere these manners.

I looked at a very tiny portion of the Net Neutrality issue. There are many angles to this that I have not touched, mostly because I really agree and support those notions and efforts.

The truth is, there is no truly neutral web, and there never will be.

No related posts.