The principle of Net neutrality restored in the United States

Abolished for six years in the United States, Net neutrality finally marks its return: the American telecommunications authority decided Thursday to reestablish this principle which guarantees equal access to the Internet.

Every consumer deserves fast, open and equitable Internet access.

These net neutrality rules ensure you can go where you want and do what you want online, without your provider making choices for youadded the president of the Federal Communications Agency (FCC) before going to the vote.

Since 2018, American telecommunications companies have reserved the right to ask their customers to pay for access to certain websites. They can also voluntarily modulate the connection speed, depending on the content.

This opened the door to Internet service providers favoring sites belonging to them, to the detriment of those of the competition, or to companies paying them to offer their customers faster access to their service. .

This may even have affected Internet users in Canada, due to web traffic which largely passes through the United States. However, Canada, like most countries in the world, adheres to this principle of Net neutrality. The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) had also seen fit to strengthen its commitment to this principle, when it was eradicated in the neighboring country.

But now the United States is going backwards: the FCC voted, by three votes (Democrats) to two (Republicans), to reinstate the regulations adopted under Barack Obama in 2015 on this principle of Internet network neutrality.

[Les nouvelles règles] clearly state that your Internet service provider should not have the right to block websites, slow down services or censor online contentsaid Jessica Rosenworcel.

A decision which caused a reaction

In 2017, under the government of Donald Trump, the FCC had spoken out in favor of the end of the principle of Net neutrality, ensuring that it harmed telecommunications investments in ultra-fast Internet networks.

At that time, the president of the agency believed that the rules on neutrality constituted an attempt to transform Internet access providers into public utilities, less willing, according to him, to invest.

This abolition has since been opposed by many States. California responded by adopting its own Net Neutrality Guarantee Law, which it then had to defend in court.

Tim Berners-Lee, the founder of the web, as well as Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple, criticized these changes in an open letter, signed by 21 people and sent to the subcommittee on communications, technology, innovation and the Internet.

Note that most major digital platforms are also opposed to this Internet two speed and defend the principle of equal access.

A welcomed decision

On Thursday, Evan Greer, who heads the digital rights organization Fight for the Futuresaid to himself FCC is finally resuming its responsibilities to protect consumers from the worst misdeeds of big telecommunications companies”,”text”:”delighted that the FCC is finally resuming its responsibilities to protect consumers from the worst misdeeds of big telecommunications companies “}}”>delighted that the FCC finally resumes its responsibilities to protect consumers from the worst misdeeds of large telecommunications companies.

Telecom giants, such as AT&T and Comcast, have spent millions on lobbying and dubious maneuvers to try to prevent the return of net neutrality. But they keep losing.

Ahead of the vote of the FCCL’NGO Electronic Frontier Foundation had however warned that reinstating the 2015 rules did not constitute a miracle solution.

Internet service providers need to be open about how traffic is managed on their networks so that everyone can know if there is a problem. Local authorities can also play a crucial role in supporting networks open to competitionhad detailed the organization.

With information from Agence France-Presse