Even the Internet play favorites! What is Net neutrality?

June 25, 2014

If you have ever had the feeling that your big brother was always better birthday present than you or noted that baseball coach putting always his first son in the batting order, you know that means game of favorites. Sometimes, it seems that life is a little more "fair" for some people than others.  Unfortunately, the favorite game is a part of life. It happens in your family. It happens at work. And now it is happening on the Internet.

Oh yes, the Internet plays favorites.

The overused term is net neutrality. No, it is not a system of fishing who catches an equal amount of all species of fish. Let me break it down for you.

Let's say you order a pair of tennis shoes warehouse shoes.  As you fast, you pay an extra $20 for express delivery.  Shoe warehouse packs your shoes and it pays the USPS to deliver to you.   Because you paid express delivery, the shoes arrive at you in a day or two.

In this story, the post office is a ' neutral '. In other words, that they do not have an opinion or a judgment on what they deliver.  As long as everyone follows the postal legislation and pay the right postage, they will deliver the package.  The USPS, it is just a package.  Shoes, cameras, no matter.  Makes no difference to them.

But what happens if the USPS decided suddenly that they do not like Shoe Warehouse?  What happens if they say Shoe Warehouse that they will now deliver their shoes last? Or, perhaps, they prefer unlimited shoes and decide to deliver all their packages first.  In other words, the USPS no longer considers each packet as equals.  They play now favorite.  They are more neutral.  Luckily for us, this happened to our postal service. However, this has happened on the Internet.

Use the Internet to be a neutral place - there were the net neutrality, but no more.

In 2010, the FCC ordered the ISPs such as Verizon, AT & T, Time Warner and Comcast to keep the Internet neutral.  But on May 15, 2014 the courts said that the FCC had the power to create or enforce this rule.  Thus, service providers Internet can monitor Internet and decide what information and how fast it is transmitted.  Quite simply, they now play favorites.

For consumers, the Internet is now a bit like the Wild West.  The absence of net neutrality is too recent to accurately predict what will happen. Perhaps one of them can allow HBO films broadcast more rapidly than films from Netflix.  Or (less likely) maybe you will be able to shop at online stores that have a relationship with your Internet service provider.  As the magic eight ball says, "cannot predict now." But keep an eye on the news: neutrality of the Net (or the lack of it) will start to shape the Internet in the near future.

Image credit: Jonathan Grossman

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