Threatened net neutrality

The arrival of the Internet brought democracy, allowing the technology private sector to develop and users to access a universe of information that, under equal conditions of distribution, competes for their attention.

This successful strategy known as “net neutrality” first came under threat because of a court ruling in January. Now, it is threatened by the new rules that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is considering. In an attempt to adjust its policies to the ruling, the FCC is proposing a fast, special route for content providers who pay additional fees to service providers in order to have priority over other content.

This change, if made, would hurt users, who would no longer get to decide what their priority information interests are. AT&T or Verizon, for example, would decide which content gets transmitted faster, giving preference to those who pay more. This would also hurt start-up technology companies, who do not have money to compete with established ones.

In addition to the above, this change would be detrimental to Latinos because the new rule would treat home broadband service differently from mobile service, which is the main way that our community connects.

In reality, it is very easy to adjust the current rules to the court ruling. All the FCC needs to do is reclassify broadband as a “telecommunications service” instead of its current classification as an “information service,” which would completely change the regulation. However, the industry and its powerful lobby oppose this change, since they would be the winners with the new policy that the FCC is considering.

The Internet’s freedom is being threatened by those who seek to make money by replacing users’ free access to information with corporate decisions.