Net Neutrality

I was looking for a way to do a response to someone on blogger in a youtube stylie, but couldn't find anything, so this will have to do. This is a blog response to Tall Guy Pete's posts about net neutrality.

This basically involves ISPs blocking their users from accessing certain information on the internet. This has happened to users of a Swedish ISP very recently, who blocked anyone from accessing allofmp3.com (a site of dubious legality). This has now backfired (Progmatic, 2006), and has resulted in other web sites (such as the Pirate Bay) blocking users of that ISP from accessing their content. This has caused anyone using that ISP to get pretty frustrated about not having the freedom they want, and will inevitably result in people finding an ISP with their users freedom in mind.

It seems that the ISP in question has now realised the fact that restricting their users from parts of the internet will be bad for business, so they have lifted their ban (Piratbyrån, 2006) on allofmp3.com after receiving a lot of criticism and confused customers about it. Whether they were morally right to ban them in the first place due to the legality of the site is another matter. What I'm concerned about here is the freedom (or lack of) to which people are able to use the internet, and what happens when that freedom is taken away. So far it looks like normal internet users are very much in control of the situation, and will take matters into their own hands if restrictions are placed upon them.

Although large companies can (and probably will) block us from using what they don't want us to see on the internet, we must remember that it is actually us (the users) who have the power. These companies work for us, therefore, if we don't like their policies, there's always another solution to simply accepting what is forced on us.


(boh3m3, 2006)

boh3m3 (2006) Save the Internet! [internet], youtube. Available from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhBzPV9FOgA [Accessed 29 December 2006].
Progmatic (2006) Piratebay blocks Swedish ISP [internet], Available from: http://www.infocider.com/blogs/index.php/programatic/?title=piratebay_blocks_swedish_isp&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1 [Accessed 29 December 2006].
Piratbyrån (2006) Blockade removed! [internet], Available from: http://propiracy.org/article/15 [Accessed 29 December 2006].