Why should the poor be left in the internet slow lane? | Sonia Sodha

If net neutrality controls are weakened, ISPs will decide what we can read – and what we can’tImagine if the government had restored ownership of Britain’s roads to the private trusts that used to run them. Imagine they were allowed to charge companies different amounts to use them, so that companies with enough cash could pay for exclusive use of fast lanes, leaving their smaller competitors consigned to lag behind on slow, badly maintained roads. Sounds outrageously anti-competitive, doesn’t it?Yet that is exactly what internet service providers (ISPs) want to be able to do. A war has been raging in the United States over “net neutrality”: the principle that ISPs should not be allowed to charge companies more to get faster access to consumers or – the flipside – charge consumers differentially to access data from different content providers (for example, bundles that include “all-you-can-consume” data only for specific apps such as Netflix). Continue reading…
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