A few years ago, the Federal government decided that Americans had the right to choose which company delivered their electricity. Unfortunately, this decision received the misleading title of energy deregulation its exactly the opposite. It empowered people to choose an electricity provider other than the incumbent utility company that supplied power to their home, such as New Yorks NYSEG or Pennsylvanias PPL.
To put this decision another way, the deregulation helped capitalism work properly in a market that had previously been dominated by monopolies.
Today, American consumers are facing a similar battle whether they know it or not. 2015 was the year the FCC decided to step up to the plate on behalf of average Americans and put forth sweeping new regulations with Internet customers best interests in mind. The movement is called Net Neutrality, and its going to fundamentally change the Internet for the better.
Heres how.
What Is Net Neutrality?
Telecommunications incumbents like Comcast, Verizon and Time Warner have a vested interest in defeating Net Neutrality, so it surprised no one that they came out swinging. Under the FCCs new rules, carriers would be bound by basic rules of conduct rules that these companies would already be failing miserably by todays standards. For example, the FCC would impose penalties on companies found to be throttling their customers web traffic and on companies that block legitimate traffic of any kind.
Net Neutrality would fight injustices. Netflix is already paying Comcast protection money so that peoples Netflix streams arent slowed down when Comcast gives network priority to their first-party video streaming options.
But Net Neutrality would also pave the way for increased competition and innovation in the marketplace, just as energy deregulation did for home electricity a few years ago, and just as phone companies Common Carrier status gave people more choice in phone providers. Under the rules that Comcast and Verizon now play by, they can actively prevent up-and-coming Internet providers from invading their turf. John Oliver has compared modern telecoms to cartels, and rightly so.
Lets fold cybersecurity into the debate here. Major carriers like AT&T and Verizon record their customers personal data on a regular basis. With Net Neutrality provisions in place, the free market will soon deliver third-party Internet providers, and many of them would likely take customer security a great deal more seriously than our current telecom giants.
Already we hear the popular narrative that government regulation is the root of all evil, and that increased regulation would stifle innovation falling apart. The truth is that innovation has been dead for years now. The FCC wants to bring it back to life.
Net Neutrality and Privacy: Whats the Story?
At this point in time, the question is not, How does net neutrality affect privacy and cybersecurity. Weve seen already that it would protect both of these. The question is, How will the Senates new cybersecurity bill affect Net Neutrality?
The tech community has been in an uproar for many months now, and round after round of petitions and letters to Senators have staved off the inevitable for a long time. If acronyms like CISA and CISPA mean anything to you, then congratulations: You are an Informed Techie! Unfortunately, thanks to a budget the Senate pushed through at the eleventh hour, the government has managed to keep its doors open for another year but bipartisan negotiations meant a lot of anti-Net Neutrality provisions got Trojan-horsed into the law.
In a more thorough explanation than I have time for here, VICE explained that this most recent cybersecurity law preserves the governments ability to collect Americans personal information in bulk, and also includes language that could be used to justify an NSA backdoor into modern encryption standards. This is all bad news for privacy advocates and anyone who cares about cyber security.
Net Neutrality factors heavily into the freedom-versus-security debate here, as well. A major provision in the FCCs Net Neutrality rules is called Title II. Under Title II, which ISPs have never before adhered to, carriers would be bound by new consumer privacy standards including basic protections of confidentiality and proprietary information protections that do not currently exist under U.S. law, and which have been leveraged by the less disciplined corners of government to justify mass surveillance and a weakening of encryption standards. Encryption is used for a wide variety of privacy applications like video encryption and keeping our personal photos under wraps.
This Is Important
Hopefully two things are now clear:
- Internet-related legislation ranks among the most important issues of our time. If youre not writing to your representatives to show support for a free and open Internet, youre not doing your part.
- Although Net Neutrality isnt that catchphrase-worthy, it would do for the Internet what energy deregulation did for electric customers and what Common Carrier rules did for home phone subscribers.
Again, AT&T and other major ISPs are actively suing the FCC over Net Neutrality. They worry for their monopolies. Thankfully, it sounds like they dont have much legal ground to stand on.
If you want our Internet to remain open, find out where your representatives stand on the issue or consider donating to a consumer advocacy group like the Save the Internet campaign.
