SEO Blog

Earlier today, I agreed to sit on the Net Neutrality panel at the Search Engine Strategies Conference in San Jose in mid August. Net Neutrality is a difficult topic to fully understand. It covers a number of issues, traditions and fundamental assumptions about the culture of the Internet and about the nature of business.

Proponents of Net Neutrality maintain that all data, regardless of source or file type, should be treated as equal by Internet Service Providers as well as by telecommunications providers such as AOL, AT&T, Comcast and Verizon. That means that no service provider can block, filter, over-charge for, or bandwidth-throttle content carried on other networks from its subscribers.

Most commentators in the search marketing industry tend to support the concept of Net Neutrality, as do the major search engines and an enormous number of web-based workers. Understanding the nature of business, most people working on the web wish to protect the free-data culture of the Internet.

Opponents of Net Neutrality look at the issue from a completly different angle. They want to stick with the status quo. Data carriers and Internet Service Providers, along with a number of professional content creation organizations want to see no new laws passed that they say will effectively strangle innovation and the growth of the Internet.

A real time example is currently playing out. Late last week, the chair of the Federal Communications Commission announced that he had concluded Comcast improperly blocked certain file transfers. He then suggested the commission could punish Comcast, order it to cease filtering file transfers, compel it to disclose how often it does filter files, and force it to inform its subscribers about future plans for “network management”.

The pro Net Neutrality group Free Press said about the announcement, “The F.C.C. now appears ready to take action on behalf of consumers. This is an historic test for whether the law will protect the open Internet. If the commission decisively rules against Comcast, it will be a remarkable victory for organized people over organized money.”

At the same time, opponents of Net Neutrality suggest that the volume and file-size of Internet activity is growing faster than current networks can handle and that they need the ability to either charge premium pricing or throttle back the bandwidth on certain types of files.

As the Internet evolves and further becomes a critical part of our commercial infrastructure, the debate about net neutrality is certain to deepen. Though this is an election year, the Net Neutrality debate is surprisingly non-partisan. While people from both sides of the political spectrum are found on both sides of the issue, the two presidential campaigns have both supported the concept of Net Neutrality.

Both sides make compelling arguments. It should prove to be an interesting intellectual minefield of a session.