In addition, those who challenge net neutrality must fight the issue of the American citizen’s right of privacy. By giving all the control to the ISPs they will obtain the right to basically spy on our every move on the internet. This would be violating the Fourth Amendment, which states “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized”.
Those in favor of abolishing net neutrality could argue that the ISP’s right to privacy is at stake as well. By the government forcing the ISPs to allow access to everything to the public is intruding on their right to protect their information from the public. We need to sustain Net Neutrality and not eliminate it. Without Net Neutrality, ISPs would be able to block content and speech they don’t approve, reject ads that compete with their own, and prioritize Web traffic, reserving the fastest loading speeds for the highest bidders and leaving everyone else with the slowest.
With net neutrality there will be an increase of of ISP competition, leading to a greater economy. Paul Misener, vice president of global public policy for Amazon. com has stated that “For the free market to work, there needs to be healthy competition from multiple providers” (Gross). Network neutrality will create a fair playing field for all companies, but will also leave room for the already successful ones to grow, at the same time make room for new competition.
Tom Price has shown that after the latest rules on net neutrality went into play on February 25, 2015 that “google dominates online searches in Europe, controlling 90 percent of the market there, compared with two-thirds in the United States. Google called the European charges “wide of the mark,” contending that consumers have many online choices and that its rivals are thriving.
The huge, multifaceted corporation also can be seen as increasing competition with its ventures into mobile communications and Internet access” Price also adds to his research that he has found that “cable TV companies and producers of television programs face growing competition from companies that stream programs online, such as Netflix, HBO Now and Amazon Prime. At the same time, streaming services and television production companies depend on cable companies and Internet service providers to deliver their product” (Price).
Without net neutrality, the larger ISPs would wipe out the smaller companies. By the bigger companies being able to charge whatever they feel like to these smaller companies will eventually put them out of business. Sean Cavanagh from Education Week writes “If net neutrality were to be diminished, OpenCurriculum would not be able to pay fees that telecommunications providers might charge for faster Internet access, Varun Arora, the organization’s CEO, said in comments to the FCC. Larger companies would be able to deliver content at “blazing speeds,” he added, while his access to audiences would suffer.
Big media companies would be “given an advantage on the only medium for us to reach and serve [our] customers — the Internet,” wrote Mr. Arora (Cavanagh). However, opponents of net neutrality may state that “according to the National Broadband Plan, 5 percent of the U. S. population still doesn’t have access to any wireless broadband provider. In many parts of the country only two providers are available, and in others the offered speeds of alternatives vary greatly, leaving users without high-speed alternatives” (Clemmitt). That leaves 95 percent who have a broadband provider, almost all of the U.
S. population. Plus, with time those parts in our country will consist of more alternatives with the advantages of net neutrality going to smaller business. Once these small businesses get their feet under them, they will look to expand into areas where they see there is little or no competition. Along with growing competition, net neutrality promotes innovation, entrepreneurship, and job creation in the united states. Robert McDowell, one of the FCC agency’s commissioners—a Republican initially appointed by President George W.
Bush (R, 2001–09) and reappointed by Obama—has argued “that imposing regulations mandating net neutrality could end up making the Internet less free by restricting the products that companies can offer and making them hesitant to enter the broadband arena if they think their profits will be restricted” (Net Neutrality). By having a free and fair internet for everyone will encourage more people to be innovators and entrepreneurs. They recognize that they will not be twisted over by the larger companies putting regulations on them.
Tom Price brings up that “advocates credit net neutrality with spurring innovation by banning barriers to new online services. “If the next Facebook has to pay for an Internet fast lane, the next Mark Zuckerberg [Facebook’s creator] might go into investment banking instead of creating the next big new thing on the Internet,” three dozen university professors wrote to the FCC as it considered the issue” (Price). With innovative companies being created by entrepreneurs means more jobs for others, in addition to decreasing poverty.
Those against net neutrality “argue that government regulation has led to bumbling and intrusive bureaucracies that waste taxpayer funds while imposing convoluted networks of rules that stifle free-market innovation and enterprise” (Government Regulation). By having the ISPs take the free-market will only allow the large named ISPs to control the smaller ISPs, limiting the interest from entrepreneurs to become involved. This would only leave a few ISPs, therefore giving them the ability to raise their prices. Another debate surrounding net neutrality is the people’s privacy.
By giving control over to the ISPs, they would have the right to violate the Fourth Amendment. Even with net neutrality in place, several ISPs have been caught already going behind the law and violating consumer’s privacy. One example of this is “Verizon’s use of “Supercookies” drew fire because it has allowed third parties to track users without any consumer control over what and when information is kept about their online activity” (Verizon’s). This would only grow further out of hand if we completely abolish net neutrality.
Josh Steimle, a Forbes writer, who stands against net neutrality states that “the U. S. government has been shown to be unworthy of guarding the privacy of its citizens. Only the latest revelation of many, Glenn Greenwald’s new book No Place To Hide reveals that the U. S. government tampers with Internet routers during the manufacturing process to aid it’s spying programs. Is this the organization we trust to take even more control of the Internet? Should we believe that under Net Neutrality the government will trust the telecoms to police themselves? ” (Steimle). It seems that one question stands on the privacy debate.
Do we allow the government access to our information or allow the Internet Service Providers access to our information? No one will ever know who is looking at their personal information on the internet, be it the government or their ISP. Although the foremost reason why the government “spies” on us is to uphold our safety from terrorism. What would the ISPs be spying on us for? A way to obtain more money out of us due to our habits? Another argument brought up by those against net neutrality is that letting the ISPs take control of the internet would allow them to bring in additional revenue by charging businesses more money for ads.
Possibly dropping prices for families and individuals for internet. Alan Joch states “These search firms can insert relevant ads into the pages that display query results and charge advertisers a premium for delivering their messages to a highly targeted audience. Various types of analytical applications could give broadband providers an efficient way to slice and dice their customers’ usage data, and thus gives ISPs an opportunity to argue that they’re able to place ads as precisely tuned to individual users’ interests as those inserted by search companies.
Clark notes that modeling is already happening thanks to companies such as Phorm, which feed ISPs analyses of consumer behavior on the Web” (Joch). By letting these search engines see and track our actions on the web, they can place ads on our computers to our interest. This would then provide the ISPs the ability to charge higher rates for the ads to be placed, since they recognize that we will be more likely to click on the ad since it’s in our interest area. Causing extra revenue for the ISPs, eventually leading to lower prices for the consumers.
However, this is all at the cost of giving up our privacy on the internet and getting pounded with ads, more than usual every time we access the internet. In conclusion, net neutrality is needed for us to have a safe and fair internet. Without it the internet would consist of ISPs dictating everything that we view on the internet and control over our personal data. Having an equal playing field for all means an increase in overall competition between ISPs and growth in innovation. Ultimately leading to a stronger economy.