May 31, 2008

Wired has an interesting article on the net neutrality debate, in which MIT computer scientist David Clark muses the debate “is really a reaction to a coming tectonic collision between the cable industry’s traditional business model, and the movement of television onto the internet.”

Clark and his colleague David Reed, both of whom spoke at the Computers, Freedom, and Privacy conference, has some interesting and incredibly nuanced ideas about net neutrality. For instance, Wired writes,

“There is good blocking and bad blocking,” Clark said. Providers already employ anti-spam measures, negotiate traffic peering arrangements between one another, and block some ports for network management reasons. “You have to understand that there is some discrimination going on on the good side of the line.”

An op-ed in last week’s Denver Post poses a question I never thought to ask and gives an answer I don’t much care for: What does net neutrality mean for Hispanics?

According to Gus West, the article’s author, net neutrality would deprive Hispanics of internet access. Passage of H.R. 5353, a net neutrality measure would

“raise costs for broadband network providers, drive up consumer rates, stymie expansion among economically distressed and ethnic minority communities and depress job creation when the country most needs to boost employment opportunities.”

Clearly, West doesn’t understand net neutrality. This is a measure that would stop the major telecoms from gouging customers and content providers, which would only increase access for low income individuals. The “ironically named Net Neutrality concept,” as he calls it, isn’t so ironic at all. When the net is neutral all people are given equal access, rather than just those who can afford to pay more for it– a point that would only benefit “economically distressed and ethnic minority communities.”

NDP MP Charlie Angus introduced a net neutrality bill (C-552) in the Canadian Parliament this week. The bill would

“prohibit network operators from engaging in network management practices that favour, degrade or prioritize any content, application or service transmitted over a broadband network based on its source, ownership or destination, subject to certain exceptions.”

It is not likely the bill will pass, especially since the Liberal Party and Bloc  Québécois have yet to get behind the net neutrality movement. The NDP would need the support of both parties to get it past Conservative Party opposition.