Net Neutrality and You

This site was unavailable for more than two hours today, which was very frustrating. As the host has just come back, and it looks like they are still running around the data center trying to recover, I don't yet know what happened. Even though I knew that I would eventually get my stuff back online, it was infuriating to be unable to connect with all sorts of other sites, but not the ones I wanted.

Which was merely a glimpse into what life could be like for everyone, if Congress passes ridiculous legislation that is currently in committee. The issue goes by the sadly wonkish name "Net Neutrality". In a nutshell, very large corporations that control access to and transmission of information over the Internet would like the ability to give preferential treatment to some data, or some sources.

Until recently, carriers treated all bits equally, and it was thought the Internet was protected in this regard in the same way telephone communication is. But recently, it occurred to the very large telecommunications corporations that maybe the law governing telephone traffic didn't apply to the Internet, and they got the FCC to agree. What if, asked the companies, since we own the pipes, we get to control what passes through them?

They began imagining. "We could offer "premium services", like routing some bits faster than others (for a fee, of course), and just think how well we could leverage our entertainment holdings by forcing all our home Internet subscribers toward our offerings!"

There is legislation under consideration that would establish this model into law. While it may seem unimportant, imagine this: Your home ISP (Comcast, in my case), could enter into an exclusive arrangement with, say, Yahoo Search, or MSN Search. Suddenly, when you want to Google something, you can't. When you try to connect to google.com, your browser just sits there forever doing nothing, or maybe, politely, tells you it "can't find" Google. Hey, it's corporate synergy, baby! I'm sure you'll be able to quickly connect to the page where they tell you how they are providing you the best in online search experiences, through their new corporate partnership.

Not enough to get you interested? How about this? Maybe, since the people who run your ISPs corporate board support a particular candidate, it suddenly starts taking a few seconds longer to connect to the website of their opponent? Is that something to worry about? Imagine if the reason you couldn't connect to this blog earlier was because your ISP didn't like it, and had a deal with Fox News to only carry their political blogs?

The amazing power of the Internet is in its ability to be what each user wants it to be, which is fundamentally based on this concept of net neutrality. It's not something we want to change. However, there are influential people who have large financial interest in changing it, and a Congress occupied by a lot of not-super-tech-saavy folks who may not understand the details, nor why they should care.

That's where you come in. If people contact their representatives in Washington, it will send the message that this is something they should care about, and be on top of. I'm linking to an informative post at the blog MyDD, which you can use to get more details, and I recommend this online video for a short, simple explanation of the concepts.

Then, be glad your ISP still lets you connect to the House website, to contact your Congressperson.