Erik Marshall

F.C.C. Vote Sets Precedent on Unfettered Web Usage – NYTimes.com.

A happy day for those who advocate an egalitarian web, but it raises some questions for me. I agree that it is wrong for Comcast to single out and slow down particular types of network traffic, especially if they do not disclose the practice. I wonder, though, if they advertised a specific download speed that varied whether it was http or udp traffic, or streaming video vs bittorent, if they could get past this injuction.

I am working on a chapter on networks right now, and it’s interesting to see this practice, which treats different types of data differently, based not on content but on the protocol used to transfer the information. The freedom of the net, this makes clear,  extends only so far as government/corporate practices allow.

thanks to JD Lasica for linking to this NYTimes article.