Net neutrality - The Good, Bad, and Mostly UGLY

It’s crucial to keep this thinking alive and active, 90 days after its publication The Buzz Report: Net neutrality: bring it on Molly Wood wrote:”You know, I wasn’t really sure that Net neutrality legislation was such a good idea. Regulation of the Internet in any form seems scary, a bit hasty, and potentially dangerous. So I was holding out for a hero–maybe the FCC (PDF link), or just a groundswell of grassroots activism. But I can’t wait any longer. I’ve decided to set aside my misgivings about overregulation. I now believe that we must have legislation to protect the open and equal nature of the Internet, or, sadly, the Internet must be regulated as a utility, just like the highways and the water pipes–and we must have one or the other right away. Why? Because I really believe that the telcos and the cable companies pushing for a tiered Internet will cheerfully turn the Internet into a lopsided disaster of have and have-not traffic that just happens to be filled with perfectly accessible content created by those very same telcos and cable companies. Basically, there’s a pile of money on the table, and these folks are proving every day that they cannot be trusted.”

And that’s the plain, ugly truth, whether we like it or not. We simply cannot afford to indulge our Denial and Avoidance issues on this one. For additional history of this crucial issue, see Molly’s May 13, 2006 article, “Is the end of the Internet upon us?”

metavalent, net neutrality, internet