The Internet Service Providers Are Not Allowed Discriminate Against Specific Websites

Imagine getting online, only to find out that you can 't access your favorite website. It could be Instagram, Tumblr, or even Youtube, a website for uploading videos. After getting off the phone with your internet provider, they tell you that you need to pay to access your favorite website. Internet providers want it to be set up that way. Their has been an ongoing debate about net neutrality between the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) and internet providers. Net neutrality is fighting again internet providers blocking content.

Attention Getter: When you go online you have certain expectations. You expect to be connected to whatever website you want. You expect that your cable or phone company isn’t messing with the data and is connecting you to all websites, applications and content you choose. You expect to be in control of your internet experience. When you use the internet you expect Net Neutrality.

Without net neutrality, companies can charge the customer for how much data they use rather than a flat price. Most every other business practice is like this. If someone goes to get fast food and only wants a sandwich but has no other choice but to get the full meal, that is the same concept. This is very appealing to lots of people who may not use as much data as most internet users and feel that they are paying too much. Internet Service Providers are very against net neutrality because it costs them more money.

Throughout the span of 2008-2010, another net neutrality bill was introduced in congress regarding Comcast blocking files but, Comcast sued the FCC saying that the FCC has no authority over their internet service. . The FCC attempted to apply a cease and desist order against Comcast but eventually they canceled it. The outcome of this dispute created an Open Internet Order by Democrat Julius Genachowski (Reardon, 2015). This is very significant because this is what made the net neutrality rules official in the FCC regulation. This order explains that people can access content to the Internet without experiencing blocking or slowing down. In addition, broadband providers have to be clear about their management networks and practices.

the August of 2005, the F.C.C. adopted a very important policy statement regarding net neutrality. This policy statement protects several things that are essential to anyone who frequently uses the Internet. It gives consumers the freedom to access any content and to use any application within the law. In early December, 2017, the F.C.C. voted to repeal it. However, just over half of the US states have made attempts to pass legislation that reinforces net neutrality. Net Neutrality protects American “internet freedom”, ensuring that the people can make full use of the internet and prevents Internet Service Providers from having too much control.

Back in 2006, Aaron Weiss, a technology writer and web developer, noted that, “The real fight over network neutrality isn’t between the telecoms and their end users—it’s with the major content providers, who now hold the largest bankrolls” (Weiss 25). Today, that is truer than ever. Content providers that have become immensely popular over the last decade, like Netflix and Google, want immunity from bandwidth restrictions and fees, because users want fast accessibility to these sites. The idea of no bandwidth restrictions is appealing to them because when they “can charge consumers directly, the only regulation that results in a change in their payoffs is strong net neutrality. Thus, moving from any other regime to strong net neutrality, increases the profits of the content provider that attracts consumer attention…By contrast, in the absence of strong net neutrality, that marginal surplus is appropriated by the ISP” (Gans

Facts: The FCC, respondent, established The Open Internet Order in 2010, which put into place new rules regarding network neutrality. The order made it so broadband service providers had to be transparent with consumers, and could not practice anti-blocking, or discrimination with their services. The first order details that providers must “publicly disclose accurate information regarding the network management practices, performances, and commercial terms of [their] broadband Internet access.” The second order prohibits “block[ing] lawful content, applications, services, or non-harmful devices, subject to reasonable network management,” “applications that compete with the provider’s voice or video telephony services, subject to reasonable

Many neutrality proponents contend that failing to develop and enforce net neutrality will lead to the ability of ISPs to block access to content. Currently, there is a freedom of choice in that ISPs are unable to obstruct certain sites or contents over others but that hasn’t always been the case. There have been several cases over the last few years where ISPs have moved to block internet content. Comcast is probably the best known culprit. In the early-to-mid 2000’s, Comcast monitored network traffic patterns and began blocking certain websites (Ammori, 2014). The sites that were targeted were those that are known as peer-to-peer. Peer-to-peer (P2P) sites utilize technology that allow users to share data without having a centralized server. There have been instances where illegal data has been shared but it would be impossible for an ISP to determine that simply from traffic patterns.

With an internet that does not practice net neutrality, the internet service providers can swindle other’s websites by throttling people’s connection to them unless they pay a premium price. People are more likely to go to the website that takes one second to load, not twenty. This problem would be incredibly relevant for streaming websites such as YouTube and Netflix. Nobody wants to wait what seems like an hour for a single

The FCC and the President of the United States is for net neutrality. The FCC adopted the open internet rules in February 2015 to ensure internet providers could not limit, restrict or cause internet degradation. Consumers and many businesses are also in favor of net neutrality. Entrepreneurs are another group in favor of neutrality of the internet. Limiting content, could prevent new internet businesses from succeeding. It could limit their advertising base and lead to an unsuccessful business venture. (Hoffert, 2014)

With the increased access for individuals to allow their messages and ideas to be heard on a larger scale (e.g. Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, etc.), more and more individuals are becoming more aware of the major events and milestones behind Network Neutrality. Large companies have invested a lot of money on the infrastructure that makes up the basis of what we know to be as the internet, and it makes sense that they should have some sort of say in what goes on. With the complexity and vastness of the internet, it is hard to create legislation that effectively protects the internet in what it is today, and not offend others in the process. The events in the most recent years have brought forth an increased amount of public and media attention on the subject, and has been the center of a large number of debates. Throughout all of these debates, the general public opinion has been that “Public opinion was overwhelming pro net neutrality” (KnightFoundation, 5). What this meant was that the general public was beginning to catch onto the general idea of Network Neutrality, and were starting to side with those much more for rather than

Net neutrality is a principle that has defended American citizens from internet service providers such as AT&T and Verizon from corrupting individuals internet access. For instance, the principle prevents the speeding up, slowing down or the blockage of any content in applications or websites and charging customers extra fees for high-speed internet. However, that principle is currently being discussed by the F.C.C. whether to repeal Net Neutrality or continue with the principle. The F.C.C. chairman, Ajit Pai proposed the idea and while big internet services such as the ones mentioned agree with the removal of net neutrality since it will give them more leverage over the income they will receive. Yet, others such as Google, Facebook and Amazon

To understand why this issue is important, we need to have a basic knowledge of how data is transmitted, and what Net Neutrality does to protect it. The internet can be imagined as a highway with many lanes. Without Net Neutrality, companies and websites must pay high rates for their data to be put into the “fast lane,” and the person who owns the highway can exclude certain people from using the highway at all. With Net Neutrality, all lanes are free to access by anyone, and there is equal opportunity for people who may not have been able to pay to be in the “fast lane.” Essentially, it is the set of rules that ensure that internet service providers (ISPs) leave all transmitted data uninhibited, no matter where it came from.

Yet at the same time, these two sets of companies compete for customers, creating a glaring conflict of interest. Whilst these issues seemed to be resolved by the middle of the twentieth century, the advent of the internet introduced a whole new set of problems. The term net neutrality, first coined by Tim Wu, Professor of the Columbia University Law School in 2003, came to represent a question that had long been perceived as being of relatively little concern – is unfettered access to the internet a right, or a privilege? (Cheng and Bandyopadhay 2011: 60) (Greenstein 2007: 61, 85) The debate around internet regulation and net neutrality first gained traction in 2002, when the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC) controversially ruled that broadband internet was to be classed as an information service rather as a telecommunications service, and thus made it exempt from a considerable range of content and conduct regulations that it would otherwise have been subject to. For those Americans, as exemplified by organizations such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation, who saw the internet as a space of uninhibited free expression that needed to be protected from the influence of corporate meddling, this decision was very frustrating. As promoted by Wu and others, net neutrality came to represent the belief that ‘internet data packets should move nondiscriminatorily’ – that is, the data (‘packets’ essentially being a technical

Throughout the last decade, the idea of Net Neutrality has been the topic of many debates. Net Neutrality is the idea that Internet service providers should not be allowed to block their users from any content regardless of its source. The Debate is still continuing in 2017 with the F.C.C planning to repeal Net Neutrality and allow internet providers to completely regulate what their users can see and charge the users extra for “luxuries” such as social media, messaging, email, and music. There are two sides of this argument, one side believes that Net Neutrality should be taken away, while others believe that it is unfair for the Internet providers to have the right to take away the access to any content. Internet providers should not be allowed to control what content one can view when surfing the internet.