Choosing Sides in Net Neutrality Battle

Here's an entry in my bizspeak-to-English dictionary: When executives in certain industries talk about needing to be rid of regulation so they can foster “better customer service," they're really talking about safeguarding their income.

Case in point: the cable and telecommunications industry, and the concept of network neutrality.

Net neutrality, broadly speaking, is the principle that any Internet service provider, such as your cable or phone company, should be largely blind to whatever data flow to your computer from the websites you access--your service provider shouldn't interfere with your Web searches, say, by giving Google preferential routing (and thus faster speed to you) over Yahoo.

The net neutrality issue scuttled back into the headlines last week with a ruling by a federal appeals court that appeared to nullify the Federal Communications Commission's jurisdiction over Internet providers' behavior. Not surprisingly, the decision has freaked out a lot of people concerned with keeping the Internet a widely accessible utility.

“Without an about-face, the commission's policies are in tremendous doubt now," says S. Derek Turner, research director for Free Press, a Washington nonprofit in the forefront of the fight for an open Internet. More than net neutrality is at stake, he told me. The court decision undermines the commission's plans to “bring broadband to every corner of America, to protect consumer privacy, to get disabled people equal access."