Summary
Organizations like MoveOn.org, the American Civil Liberties Union, and a number of liberal bloggers have come out in favor of such legislation, for example, but former Clinton White House press secretary Mike McCurry is co-chairman of the Hands OfF the Internet Coalition, which opposes it. On the contrary, it could be a means of enhancing services to broadband customers, providing revenue for ISPs to invest in accommodating increasing demand for bandwidth-intensive and delay-sensitive applications and making further improvements to data delivery, and of increasing fairness by ensuring that content providers responsible for the most Internet congestion pay the higher costs of assuring a high quality of service for Internet users.
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Extract
Net Neutrality or Government Brutality?
Over the past six years or so, network neutrality, or "net neutrality," has risen from an obscure techie buzz phrase to a bona fide political issue and rallying cry for some strange political bedfellows. The current debate comprises competing views on economics, regulation, free speech, property rights, and even the supposed rights of individuals and businesses to a certain Internet experience. Would a net-neutrality mandate protect the rights of some or merely trample the fundamental rights of others and stifle competition and innovation?
Much of the perplexity surrounding net neutrality stems from ambiguity and confusion over the very definition of the term. The concept concerns how information is transmitted over the Internet. Data are moved in "packets" through networks of computers and routers. Currently, these data are processed with little regard to what kind of information they are-be they important medical data, streaming video, or spam.Generally speaking, net neutrality is ...See the full content of this document
