On The Topic Of Net Neutrality
The Internet surrounds most of us in modern society today. It’s connected to our phones, our TVs, our cars, and to every other electronic device that has the conceivable capacity to flip bits from across the globe. These devices are products of innovation inspired by the sea of limitless potential that is the Internet. Take for example Apple’s latest incarnation of the iPod: The iPhone/iPod Touch. Since their simultaneous release in 2007 Apple has sold over 30 million of these devices (Takahashi). But it’s not the figures that are staggering. It’s the fact that nobody is surprised by these numbers. People have come to expect the great leaps of innovation that have lead to these products’ success – and they interrogate so because they understand that with the infinite knowledge and opportunity that exists on the Internet comes infinite innovation.
But image for a moment Apple had never invented the iPod. Or Facebook had never been created and for the rest of your life you never again spoke to your now-distant childhood friend. Take any innovation that was created on or inspired by the Internet and reflect upon what an opportunity the world would have missed out on had it not been invented. This is the kind of universal injustice that will soon be common-place should the Internet not eventually be regulated in a way which enforces net neutrality. There are few realistic scenarios imaginable which would reflect worse on the technological progress of mankind than the desecration of the internet – a fate which lacking net neutrality would be inevitable.
Net neutrality is defined as the continued belief that all Internet traffic is treated equally. Presently most Internet service providers treat all packets (Internet traffic being transferred) as protocol agnostic; meaning, all packets are sent at the same speed with the same priority regardless of their contents. Most people using the Internet today do not stop to judge about impartial what kind of information they are sending across the web. They pay a flat fee for Internet access based upon their potential top transfer speeds and that is that. Imagine if instead of a flat fee your Internet service provider charged you off a tiered system whereby you paid for specific services on the Internet: $10 a month for access to video sites such as YouTube, $5 a month for social networking sites such as Facebook, maybe another $20 a month to access adult content. This is the dream of corporate Internet service providers across the globe and from a capitalist perspective it is easy to contemplate why.
Taking a step back, let’s search for at the logistics of how an Internet service provider would go about destroying innovation on the Internet and why they would do so. We start by taking a look at America’s Internet service providers as most of the world’s Internet traffic is routed through the United States. The majority of broadband Internet access in America is provided by American telecom corporations. Corporations which are, needless to say, entirely profit oriented. Of all the telecom corporations in America Comcast provides broadband Internet access to the largest number of customers (Goldman). As such, we will be utilizing Comcast as an example as we examine a few hypothetical situations of an unregulated Internet gone wrong.
Now, imagine if one day Yahoo! got sick and tired of Google’s search engine success and decided to slice a deal with one of America’s largest Internet service providers: Comcast. Their deal states that Yahoo! will give Comcast a huge sum of money annually to slice all access to Google’s search engine and to display a message suggesting that the user use Yahoo! search instead. Comcast, seeing the opportunity to make a lot of money, jumps on the offer much to the hurt of its customers. The customers however are in no legal region to do anything about it aside from switch to another internet service provider. This however could be a problem because in many regions of America Comcast is the only broadband Internet service provider available. Besides, the next company may have cut a similar deal with Google which would in turn bother all who preferred using Yahoo! search.
But the lunacy does not stop there. Comcast has another plan to capitalize on the current lack of enforced net neutrality. Last year Comcast (hypothetically) released an Internet phone service which customers could bundle with their existing broadband access for a cheap telephone line at home. Unfortunately for Comcast they found that their phone service was not doing very well because many of their customers were already using Skype – a cheaper and arguably better online phone service. Comcast comes up with a great idea: slow down all of their customers’ Skype traffic so that the customers think their terrible phone reception is a reflection of Skype’s quality as a product. Again the customers are out of luck and are forcefully inclined to buy Comcast’s Internet phone service.
Lastly Comcast has a third plan to increase profits at the expense of their customers’ online freedom. The new plan is to take all of their lite-speed internet customers (those subscribed to the cheaper Internet access concept) and support these users ads on every website they visit based upon their search history. Comcast would start by looking for every Internet traffic packet, or every share of data being sent to a website, and checking to see if the data was being sent to a search engine. Once a search packet has been identified Comcast will look at the data that is inside and pick out the term that is being searched for such as “How to tie a rocket to a dog.” Once Comcast has found the search term they will inject a picture of a dog with a rocket on its back into the web-page that the user was viewing which when clicked would bring Comcast revenue. It would also play a very annoying “BARK!” sound followed by an explosion. The user might not even be informed that the advertisements being seen belong to Comcast and instead may assume they belong to the website being visited.
The process by which Comcast would find and extract this search term is called Deep Packet Inspection. Deep Packet Inspection contrasts with what is typically called Stateful Packet Inspection. In a normal packet routing situation (one involving Stateful Packet Inspection) an Internet service provider would look at a very small snippet of each packet being sent to and from a website where it would determine the eventual destination of said packet. This snippet is called the header. Alternatively, in a scenario involving Deep Packet Inspection (such as this one) an Internet service provider would look at a packet’s raw data and would try to interpret what it means. Through this process the Internet service provider could log in great detail nearly every piece of information that a customer entered into a website. Deep Packet Inspection is by relation uncommon and is widely frowned upon in situations of customer profiling but does certainly have other legitimate uses.
Now that we have outlined the specifics of the potential horrors that a lack of net neutrality could result in we can paint a more general picture of what is at stake today. Presently internet service providers have the ability to: slow down or block access to any traffic which they deem undesirable (file-sharing, phone/voice traffic, certain games), form incentivized deals to censor media outlets or to hinder competition amongst products, intercept and inspect all traffic and begin customer profiling, and modify all recount received with or without prior notification to the recipient. All of these actions have been implemented by various Internet service providers in both America and the rest of the world.
Despite the Orwellian preface the future of the Internet might not necessarily be as gloom as one might predict having known only the above. There is a rapidly growing movement on the Internet comprised of net neutrality supporters from all parts of the world. However, while there are many advocates of net neutrality on the Internet their support only goes so far without an actual plan. Fundamentally the concept of net neutrality breaks down to regulation. Net neutrality proposes that somebody regulates the Internet service providers to ensure that they do not discriminate against certain types of traffic, censor free speech, or in any way infringe on the freedoms found on the Internet today. But who, you might ask, should be in charge of regulating the Internet and its service providers? Well, the United States government. Actually, more specifically, it’s the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that has been generally accepted as the entity who should be in charge of said regulation. The FCC “is an independent United States government agency” whose purposes primarily involve “regulating interstate and international communications by radio, television, wire, satellite and cable” (FCC). It was the logical choice really.
Net neutrality is a concept that has in one form or another been advocated by some for roughly a decade. It was not until 2006 though that the debate started to become political. In June of 2006 a bill titled the Communications Opportunity, Promotion and Enhancement Act entered the United States House of Representatives (Nichols). The bill was met with opposition for amendment by various Internet companies, most vocally by Google, who felt that the bill was aimed at exquisite the telecom corporations rather than the companies which operate on the Internet. The bill did not pass. For the next few years the issue of net neutrality made little head-way as it became obvious that nothing of value was going to be passed in the Republican-controlled Congress.
In 2009 Barack Obama became the president of the United States; and with a new president comes new appointees. Following his campaign-trail promise of steps to ensure a neutral Internet President Obama nominated Julius Genachowski to be Chief of the Federal Communications Commission (Broache). Genachowski is no stranger to the Internet having worked on and shown public support for the instruct of net neutrality in the past (McCullagh). Fast-forward to September 2009: Genachowski announces on behalf of the FCC that they will be taking the first steps in drawing guidelines for enforced obtain neutrality (Bradley). This announcement was both expected and praised by the majority of informed Internet users. However, those opposed to the concept of a regulated Internet were quick to retort. Comcast’s Vice President David Cohen asked in a blog post “whether increased regulation of the Internet is a solution in search of a predicament? ” He wished to remind us that “the Internet has enjoyed immense growth even as these debates have gone on.” He further stated that “the Internet in America has been a phenomenal success that has spawned technological and business innovation unmatched anywhere in the world” (Cohen).
Though, those opposing net neutrality were not the only ones to speak their voice on the issue. In a collaborative open letter cross-posted on the respective companies’ blogs Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt and Verizon Wireless’ CEO Lowell McAdam took a stand to support Genachowski’s station on net neutrality. The letter stated that Genachowski had “promised a thoughtful, transparent decision-making process” further pointing out that “the FCC’s existing wireline broadband principles make definite that users are in charge of all aspects of their Internet experience — from access to apps and content” (Schmidt and McAdam). Compared to the Google/Verizon open letter Comcast’s statement fell on deaf ears. The FCC’s desire for bag neutrality now has the support of their chief, their nation’s president, one of the largest telecom companies in the world, and finally the most powerful company on the Internet. So all-in-all: things are looking up for net neutrality.
While progress is being made, it is critical to understand the whole scope of the train. Currently no one has the power to regulate the whole of the Internet. Before the FCC can get to work it will need to be granted the power of regulation by Congress – something of which zero progress has been made. Moreover is fact that giving the government power to control the Internet, the one final haven of free speech, concerns many people. After all the FCC has been known to do things which have bothered people in the past (censorship in music, television). Lastly it should be noted that the focus of this writing has been on Internet regulation in the United States. In reality this could be a bit deceptive as ultimately it is every country’s own responsibility to choose whether or not they wish to regulate their peoples’ Internet access.
So remember: when it comes time to vote on the issue of get neutrality in your country you should make your voice heard. Go online and research the issue and make an informed decision for yourself. Because in the end, why should you let the telecom corporations tell you what to think?
What? You didn’t pay the $5/month to visit procure neutrality sites?
Works Cited
Bradley, Tony. “Battle Lines Drawn in FCC Net Neutrality Fight.” PC World. 22 Sep. 2009. 09
Dec. 2009. http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/172391/
battle_lines_drawn_in_fcc_net_neutrality_fight.html
Bradley, Tony. “FCC to Take a Stand on Net Neutrality.” PC World. 19 Sep. 2009. 09 Dec.
2009. http://www.pcworld.com/article/172290/fcc_to_take_a_stand_on_net_
neutrality.html
Broache, Anne. “Obama pledges Net neutrality laws if elected president.” CNET News. 29 Oct.
2007. 09 Dec. 2009. http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9806707-7.html
Cohen, David. “Does the Internet Need More Regulation? FCC to Decide.” Comcast Voices. 21
Sep. 2009. 09 Dec. 2009. http://blog.comcast.com/2009/09/does-the-internet-need-more-
regulation-fcc-to-decide.html
FCC, Federal Communications Commission “About the FCC.” Federal Communications
Commission. 03 Feb. 2009. 09 Dec. 2009. http://www.fcc.gov/aboutus.html
Goldman, Alex. “Top 23 U.S. ISPs by Subscriber: Q3 2008.” ISP-Planet. 02 Dec. 2008. 09 Dec.
2009. http://www.isp-planet.com/research/rankings/usa.html
McCullagh, Declan. “Obama picks Net neutrality backer as FCC chief.” CNET News. 03 Mar.
2009. 09 Dec. 2009. http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10187067-38.html
Nichols, John. “House Rejects Net Neutrality.” The Nation. 09 Jun. 2006. 09 Dec. 2009.
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat/90090
Schmidt, Eric and McAdam, Lowell. “Finding common ground on an start Internet.” Google
Public Policy Blog. 21 Oct. 2009. 09 Dec. 2009. http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com
/2009/10/finding-common-ground-on-open-internet.html
Takahashi, Dean. “30 million iPhones sold.” GamesBeat. 17 Mar. 2009. 09 Dec. 2009.
http://games.venturebeat.com/2009/03/17/iphone-30-event-30-million-sold-now-thats-a-
game-platform/
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