We are therefore we surf. That is, for now.
On Thursday, July 9, an “all-star” team of internet experts from Canada and the United States are to appear before the Canadian Radio and Television Commission (CRTC) in Gatineau, Quebec. And godspeed to them, for there they will make the case for net neutrality.
As ho-hum as it sounds, the question of net neutrality is practically an existential one for the internet age. On the internet, where speed is access. practices such as speed-throttling and data discrimination by ISPs threaten to alter the internet’s boundary-free cyber landscape by limiting mobility to the few willing and able to pay for it.
It’s odd to think of the data-filled world of the internet as sharing the same topographic features as the real physical world (fences, borders, roads), but this could very well be the case. A real information super-highway where those who can afford to, zoom around while others trod along its underpass the gated cyber community warmly lit by streaming television and video phone calls. Beyond the moat…
Of course, there will be surveillance. ISPs who throttle their customers’ internet speeds rely on the suspect method of DPI-deep packet inspection-to determine which stream of information to staunch and which to let course. DPI is useful for filtering out viruses and spam, but it could also be used for data mining and censorship. What Dave Caputo, CEO of Sandvine Inc., benignly calls gathering “intelligence” is nothing less than collection of personal information. He has said that identifying songs and movies is not an intent, that users are free to send and receive content of their choice as long as its legal (read: child pornography or illegal P2P.) But this power has been abused before, what guarantee do we have that it will not be abused again?
Just how important the internet has become in our daily lives is impossible to understate. But its importance is, ironically, probably most evidenced by our lack of notice. Like oxygen, the internet has become a ubiquitous but essential component of life because it is an enhanced way in which a person can communicate and contact with the greater world. As ISPs become content-providers, the potential for conflicts of interests grow too great to ignore. The CRTC would do well to recognize this danger and act accordingly.
[rssbreak]
