Image via ItsOurNet.org
Democratic Senator Byron Dorgan of North Dakota and Republican Senator Olympia Snowe of Maine have announced plans to introduce a bipartisan bill addressing the controversial topic of net neutrality. The Internet Freedom Preservation Act, expected to be introduced in January 2009, will make it illegal for ISPs to block or slow down specific types of Internet traffic. Remember Comcast and their BitTorrent blocking debacle? Under this new law, their packet hijacking would be illegal, not just subject to some lame slap on the wrist by the FCC. This whole issue of Net neutrality will be rearing its ugly head again, pitting the ISP’s like AT&T and Verizon who claim they need to control content as part of their network management procedures against the content companies like Google and Microsoft who want their content delivered equally to everyone. We won’t even get into the whole issue of the ISPs double dipping by charging subscribers a monthly fee for their Internet connection and then charging content providers to have their content provided “faster” than those who don’t pay these extortion fees. The issue also divides the tech world with some saying “we can’t trust ISPs to deliver content freely so we need to enact legislation proactively” while others argue that “existing provisions already adequately handle the issue of net neutrality. If we enact a law too early, there may be unexpected negative consequences.” We will reserve judgment on this issue for now and turn it over to our readers. So what do you think, is net neutrality legislation a necessity at this point or is it better to wait until a clear threat to Internet freedom is present?
