FCC Rules: Net Neutrality Stays

The FCC voted yesterday to support practices that would enforce what is known as "net neutrality."  From the FCC's ruling, ISP's (Internet Service Providers) are required to disclose their traffic management methods, and are restrained from blocking certain websites and services, such as how Skype was not allowed to be on AT&T's iPhone for some time, or how my ISP has thus far refused to support ESPN3 on my Xbox 360.  Bastards.

The bill further restricts ISP's from "unreasonable discrimination" in traffic management, which I suppose is vague enough to mean QoS (Quality of Service) is no longer an acceptable practice for an ISP.  This also takes out a practice known as "paid prioritization," which allowed businesses to pay a premium so that their sites would load faster than their competitors' sites.

I'm going to break away from the libertarian herd on this issue, though not completely.  There are both wins and losses to be had in this regulation.  My heart is pretty torn on the issue.  (I'm thinking about writing an emo song about it later.)

Wins:

• Visibility.  This new regulation should bring more insight into your ISP's traffic management, which so far has been purposely kept dark.  From this, if you have the convenience of being able to select your ISP in your city, you can compare and contrast to make more informed decisions as a consumer.  This holds the company accountable.  The best company will win, the lesser will lose.
• Freedom.  Your ISP is no longer able to block certain websites.  This is great for the Internet as a whole.  Not only does this take a policing role away from your ISP, but it also prevents fragmentation of service.  If every ISP had a different list of sites that it allowed and disallowed, a consumer would have to buy from multiple parties to receive the entirety of the Internet.  It reminds me of when AOL, Prodigy, CompuServe, and GEnie all ran competing "online services," each being completely separate from the other, and none offering true ISP service until the mid-90's.  (It should be noted that in the 80's, the founder of AOL wanted to start an on-demand digital music marketplace - an idea that was struck down by Warner Bros. Records. lol.)
• Integrity.  Quality of Service has, at least for now, come to an end.  That is excellent - QoS in my mind is only one shade of grey away from censorship.

Losses:

• FCC oversight on the Internet.  This is the biggie.  I've already argued in previous posts that one of the great things about the Internet was its lack of regulatory oversight.  While the FCC has done consumers many favors by enforcing net neutrality, it has also established itself as a regulatory agency for the Internet.  I don't like that aspect one bit.  This could potentially be the beginning of a slippery slope toward government censorship of the Internet.  It would be the beginning of the end of Internet freedom if there were any "decency" regulations passed that prohibited "obscene, indecent, and profane" material.
• Paid prioritization ban.  In a way, paid prioritization the inverse of QoS, which I've already argued against.  I'm not sure how I feel about the ban on paid prioritization though.  The argument could be made that it is a form of advertisement, and that businesses should be allowed to pay a premium price for a premium service.  However, doing away with paid prioritization levels the playing field for everyone on the internet.  Win some, lose some.

Normally, this is where I would naturally say the free market should rule.  ISPs that censor would be naturally avoided by consumers.  The more open networks would win out over more closed networks in the free market.

However, it is not quite that simple.  Many ISP's enjoy the benefit of being a natural monopoly, as the Internet is the newest form of a consumer utility.  Because of that, many towns and cities only have one single ISP.  The market has no choice to make in this situation, and thus cannot choose a winner or loser.  Therefore, if Comcast or Time Warner decided to enact QoS to limit Skype because it competes with their digital phone service, or blocked ESPN3 because it competes with their sports pay-per-view service, many consumers would have no recourse to avoid these decisions.

Ultimately, this issue boils down to this question:  would you rather have corporations with profit motives censoring your Internet, or government with self-interested regulatory motives censoring your Internet?

I don't have a definitive answer for this issue.  The FCC has already ruled, so time will tell as to how that impacts us all.  We must keep a watchful eye on continuing FCC regulations for the Internet, and must be vigilant if anything begins to threaten its freedom.

Edit:  PLEASE READ: A PERSONAL APPEAL FROM ALYSON HANNIGAN (NSFW)