For a long time now, net neutrality has been a significant issue throughout the blogosphere. There is fear that the Internet will become tiered, much like cable is. Essentially you would pay a little for access to some sites and pay more for access to bigger/better sites. Another approach that ISPs could take is throttle traffic. This is already happening in Canada and is coming to a crescendo with the recent trouble Bell has gotten in. Essentially, it means that an ISP could throttle traffic it doesn’t like (P2P, torrents, etc…) giving priority to other types of traffic. While that may not seem like a big deal to the layperson, it actually is a big deal because of the techniques used and the ultimate implications.
The technique used to accomplish this requires deep packet inspection of some sort. That means they have to look really closely at each piece of data that you’re transferring. Even though they’re only interested in a few bits and pieces, they have to look at the whole thing. Think of it as security guards at a hospital having full access to your medical record so that they can just confirm that you are a patient there. Makes you a little uncomfortable doesn’t it.
The other major problem is the ultimate implication. Aside from watching everything you’re doing, they’re going to influence what you do by deciding what requests move quickly, slowly, or might just disappear… The Internet is so very influential in so many ways that this could put a great deal of influence in the hands of a handful of private companies. It would be a very short time before other companies would be held hostage by the ISPs. They would be forced to pay so that their websites get the best speed available. What about political parties? A party that the ISPs don’t like could easily have it’s traffic altered to make it very difficult for anyone to get to their website let alone use it in any meaningful way.
So when is this all going to happen? Well it already is, as clearly demonstrated by Bell Canada. The only questions that remain are how deep rooted is it and can we influence our government to make these practices illegal.
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15 responses so far ↓
1 hank // Jul 25, 2008 at 7:04 pm
I agree - it’s freedom of speech they’d be taking away! Well, digital freedom of speech - have you been to savetheinternet.com?
2 air conditioner repair // Jul 25, 2008 at 9:35 pm
I lean toward net nuetraility but i also think its somewhat of a business decision (in some cases)
3 Ling // Jul 26, 2008 at 12:37 am
Well, situation’s not hopeless. Companies like Google are fighting to find a way out, like free wi-fi citywide. If they succeed, we could end up with an even faster and freeer internet.
4 Gareth - Design // Jul 28, 2008 at 3:47 am
The internet is organic. It is pretty much self governing. I think in 10 years time it will be presented to us differently as in we wont have keyboards an mice as we know them. A faster and freeer internet is something that will definitively happen in the next 10 years.
5 ViSwiss // Jul 29, 2008 at 9:39 am
The opportunity, as you touched on, is just to great for abuse. Skype and video on demand immediately come to mind. I would not want my Telco ISP to interfere with my Skype performance because they would prefer I use there long distance service instead. There needs to be independent oversight when there is a such a clear case of conflict of interest.
-Vi
6 Free Site Listing // Jul 31, 2008 at 10:06 am
The Internet is a happy accident of the 20th century. But law professor Jonathan Zittrain wonders whether the net can survive in a culture of freedom and innovation. Andrea Seabrook talks to Zittrain about his new book “The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It.”
7 Adva // Aug 2, 2008 at 6:30 pm
Cuil would be great as ompetition for Google unfortunately from my experience it is very slow and not very good - I typed in “Roger Federer” tennis and it said ‘no responses’ !
8 CEM Sales and Service // Aug 4, 2008 at 1:00 pm
I have been following this closely and the idea of internet becoming like cable TV scares me and upsets me. A lot of people won’t be able or won’t be willing to buy bigger packages. This will hurt online businesses of all kinds and cause mass frustration in buyers and sellers of products and services.
It will be interesting to see how it plays out.
9 Monavie // Aug 5, 2008 at 6:31 pm
That would really suck if that did happen…No way am I going to keep paying for internet if they do make it that way. I didn’t know they would influence what we search by slowing certain things down, but isn’t that what they’re trying to do to just by making it packaged? I think they would make less money with packaged deals than they are with unlimited access. They already have things like high speed, broadband, dial-up…What do you think would happen to those?
10 Gareth - Design // Aug 13, 2008 at 3:50 am
I just typed in rog fed and it said 259,242,471 results for roger federer tennis!!!
11 Transformers // Aug 19, 2008 at 7:20 pm
I hope this doesn’t happen. If it does then internet traffic will drop like a rock. Corporations would be hurt financially so I’m not sure they would allow this to happen. We’ll have to wait and see.
12 Gossip // Aug 30, 2008 at 1:49 am
I agree but I hope it can last long,
13 Mike // Sep 5, 2008 at 5:08 pm
Don’t worry, the internet will be around for a very long time. It will never go away.
14 Jordans // Sep 9, 2008 at 1:42 am
With more power given to these companies to spy on us, the more it makes me realize I dont want to be a part of it.
15 tee shirt designs // Sep 17, 2008 at 10:01 am
There has been enough push back on this that it is likely we won’t see tiered packages for a while.