There’s been a lot of talk about net neutrality in the news at the moment and while all the hoo-ha is going down in the US, it does have some far-reaching implications that could affect us here in Australia.
Before we get into that, let’s talk about what it is.
Yeah, what bloody is it?
Essentially, net neutrality is the idea that everything on the internet should be available to access by anyone. Internet service providers (ISPs) and governments must treat all data equally and not prioritise certain content based on things like partnership deals.
It ensures that all content, whether it’s from a massive corporation or just some bloke in his bedroom, competes on a level playing field. There are currently laws in place to protect net neutrality in the US that were championed by the Obama administration, but if these laws are changed, it could have massive implications for how we all use the internet.
For example, let’s say your ISP has an exclusive partnership with a particular news publishing website. Because of the aforementioned laws, that ISP needs to ensure that customers can access both its partnering news publisher and its competitors equally and at the same speeds.
If net neutrality laws are changed, it would allow ISPs to control your access to whatever they want. They can make the speed of accessing their partner website super fast, but slow down access to competing news outlets, or even force you to pay to access the content you want.
In other words, getting rid of net neutrality is good for nobody but the people who control the internet, and that’s what all the debate is about at the moment.
Wait, what are they trying to do?
So the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is currently trying to roll back the net neutrality laws that prevent ISPs from throttling access to the content they choose or putting it behind ridiculous paywalls.
Yesterday, FCC chairman Ajit Pai announced his plans to give ISPs the power to do exactly that. Supporters of the changes argues that it will strengthen consumer protection and boost broadband infrastructure investment, expansion and upgrades.
On the other hand, companies like Google, Uber, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft argue repealing net neutrality would lead to the “cable-isation” of the internet and allow ISPs free reign to, say, discriminate against startups by limiting public access to their websites.
The FCC is set to vote on the changes on December 14 and, unfortunately, it looks like those in favour of pissing all over net neutrality outnumber the rest.
So what does that mean for me?
Australia doesn’t have any laws protecting net neutrality, so our ISPs will probably be watching the outcome pretty closely. Whatever happens in the US will likely set a precedent for how other countries could follow suit.
In other words, we don’t really have anything to fall back on if our own internet providers decide that this is a hectic idea.
Fuck to the FCC. Just let us be.
