Our Internet Usage Is At Risk
We have all heard about net neutrality. Some of us are wondering why we are talking so much about it and some of us are desperate and fearing that our internet freedom may be at risk.
Net neutrality was introduced in 2002 by Tim Wu, a law professor at Columbia University and means the prohibition of internet providers such as AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile and Comcast from showing favoritism toward certain applications, websites, and browsers. It also protects users’ online information, which includes what websites were accessed, from being sold to private advertising companies.
Net neutrality became part of our legal system back in 2005 after a small company started preventing its clients from calling others from an internet application known as Vonage.
The Federal Communications Commission will be voting on changes to net neutrality on Dec. 14. It’s extremely likely that these changes will occur because FCC has three out of five chairs held by Republicans, who are known to be supporters of the changes and are backed up by internet provider companies.
With net neutrality rolled back, it’s likely that other countries will pay attention to our decisions. A Portuguese internet provider, Meo, shows different packages that users can buy based on the apps they want to use and the kind of data they want. Customers pay $4.99 per month to use social applications such as Facebook and Instagram and another $4.99 for messaging apps such as Imessage, WhatsApp and Facetime. Meo also charges users extra fees to use music and email apps.
Without net neutrality, only the big apps will be used and the upstart apps will be out of the way, because big companies can pay internet providers to show favoritism to their apps.
It’s hard to say what will happen if new net neutrality laws pass, but I do know that it will give more power to companies to control what we can and cannot see on the internet. Our online freedom may be living its last days.
