by Desislava Stankova | Jan 5, 2016 | Liability and the Internet, News and Events
What is Net Neutrality? Network Neutrality is usually defined as the principle that internet service providers (ISPs) should treat all online content equally without blocking or slowing down specific websites on purpose or allowing companies to pay for preferential treatment. Translated into non-lawyers language it means that your internet connection should treat all websites and services the same – e.g. you should not be charged more for accessing your email and less for Facebook and if you refuse to pay more to access your email, such access should not be throttled or blocked just based on such different treatment. Same applies to the company providing such service – they should not be charged more for the provision of access to their services and probably blocked or slowed down. In addition, Network Neutrality extends further to prevent different treatment based on user, platform, content, application, mode of communication, etc. The term “network neutrality” was first used by the Columbia Law School professor Tim Wu in 2003. Everybody agrees however, that there must be certain exceptions and some internet traffic may be filtered and discriminated against in cases of network congestion, spam, for legal purposes, etc. An Example Prominent example of non-net neutrality involved the US ISP Comcast which has been accused of slowing down competitors’ services such as Netflix and giving preference to its own similar services. in 2007 Comcast, according to the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC), “deployed equipment throughout its network to monitor the content of its customers’ Internet connections and selectively block specific types of connections known as peer-to-peer connections. It was brought to light by Comcast...
