Chaos Magnet

Net neutrality fails in the House

Net neutrality, in case you haven't heard, is the concept that all traffic on the web should be treated fairly and equally. In other words, companies should not have the ability to give content from some providers special treatment while degrading (ie slowing down) traffic from other providers. Now Intel backs 'Net Neutrality'. According to this Wired article:

The House Committee on Energy and Commerce on Wednesday voted down an "net neutrality" amendment to a telecommunications bill.

With the defeat in the House, attention on the issue is expected to shift to the Senate, where Sens. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) and Byron Dorgan (D-North Dakota) plan to introduce a net neutrality bill.

Telephone and cable companies have argued that the internet should remain free from regulation, and that tiered service would provide a fair way of funding their build-out of internet capacity to accommodate streaming video and other high-bandwidth traffic. They have emphasized that they don't intend to block any website or degrade any internet service.

I say bull. If you didn't intend to do it, you wouldn't be fighting so hard for the right to do it. We're not talking about personal freedoms, here, where you stand on principle. We're talking about big companies using political capital to get what they want. And they don't do that without a reason.

Technorati tags: net neutrality | Intel | Congress | legislation | Senate | House |

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