I’ve worked in technology for nearly thirty years, and was playing with it even before then. In my career, I’ve had the opportunity to work on some of the highest volume eCommerce sites in the world, and see bleeding edge technology in development. I’ve also worked with a lot of small companies and clients over the years, as well as my own projects and businesses.
In all of the changing political landscapes of the last few months, there is something I believe is one of the most critical issues that isn’t getting a lot of press coverage, and if I were conspiratorial, I’d say that was intentional.
It’s the push to eliminate Net Neutrality.
I don’t care what political ideology you align with, who you voted for, or even if you voted at all. This is an apolitical issue. This is ultimately about all of the technologies that drive our modern world, and the freedoms those technologies provide like have never been available before.
If you are unaware, Net Neutrality is in principle the idea that all traffic on the Internet is equal and access to that information is equal, regardless of the source, or where it’s flowing. Wikipedia provides a good article on the concept.
There has been a significant move against Net Neutrality for several years now.
For content providers, e-commerce businesses, and even personal websites and podcasts would potentially be affected by the end of the regulations concerning Net Neutrality. If you’re an end user consumer, you may be asking yourself why you care about this:
· One of the backbones companies are interested in would be creating “fast lanes” on the internet for companies that pay a premium, to ensure their traffic (page loads, streaming, etc. would receive priority and ultimately be faster than traffic for whom the content providers aren’t paying to speed it up. For most small companies, and solo businesses, they likely wouldn’t be able to afford or qualify for the fast lanes, and would have to potentially negotiate with each individual ISP (Internet Service Provider) for this access.
· A number of companies have already been engaged in legal actions in this arena. Netflix had to reach agreements with Comcast, and ultimately other ISP’s to end bandwidth slowdowns to guarantee service to their customers. In a world without Net Neutrality, an ISP could decide to slow down, or even make unavailable content from one provider favoring another. For example, Comcast could only make Hulu available and block Netflix. This being said, most of the large ISP’s have agreements in place to conform to Net Neutrality for One to Three more years
· An ISP could have the ability to restrict the technologies and protocols used on their platform, for example, restricting open source tools, or forcing people to use specific platforms for access. ISP’s could also favor or restrict users to using specific protocols, even proprietary ones, meaning if you move from one ISP or another, or travel with your laptop, other providers could limit your use from a hotel, or someone else’s home when away from your primary ISP.
Personally, one of my greatest concerns is what this could potentially mean to content providers themselves, whether a business, or just someone’s personal blog. In our current environment, outside of Terms of Use with the company hosting the website, all data is treated equally. Consider these scenarios in the world without Net Neutrality:
· ISP’s could decide to not permit certain types of content on their networks. Much like what has been well reported with a number of Social Media sites, an ISP could decide to give preference to the information displayed to their users. Or even block other content.
· Take for example the current rage around “fake news.” We see Social Media and search engines building smarter algorithms to filter out, or at a bare minimum flag any potential articles in this class. Sounds like it could be a good idea, right? Consider satire. In this world, Saturday Night Live could be blocked. Sounds extreme? A large news source this week used a picture of Alec Baldwin on SNL instead of a picture of President Trump in error.
· Websites could potentially be blocked as “offensive material.” Depending on the individual, offensive is relative. ISP’s may to decide to block controversial material from minority organizations in this guise.
· ISP’s could solicit material deemed as offensive from its users. In many areas, only a singular ISP is the option. If one person finds a particular content offensive, they may protest and have it blocked for all. This could even stretch to political parties.
· Your personal communications would be subject to an even greater level of scanning and scrutiny than it currently is, meaning more of your personal information sold to private companies.
Yes, some of these cases are going to the extreme, and I acknowledge that. In many ways, market forces will help temper many of these scenarios, but when a government or organization wishes to make changes, they frequently do so incidentally and in such a way that most people would never notice.
I believe the likely scenario is that the FCC is going to have its power stripped, and Net Neutrality will be a memory. For a short time, consumers may even see benefit from getting improved services from some of their largest providers, such as streaming services.
In the long run, it will erode choice because only the largest players will be able to survive, and we will see a repeat of the big box stores wiping out the small business. For the last twenty years, the Internet has been an environment encouraging entrepreneurship. Amazon started as a home business.
Even more concerning will be the erosion of freedom. Freedom of information. Freedom of access. Freedom of speech and communication.