The Telegraph Article on Net Neutrality

This article from The Telegraph gives a more solid opinion on net neutrality, as Barry Diller believes that net neutrality enables the consumers to have a fair right to access the same internet speed to everyone else. By not having net neutrality, consumers are 'held to ransom' by internet service providers and are not allowed to have the full broadband speed which was offered to them by their ISP. Diller feels that like any other utility, consumers should be given the right to get what they pay for- the required speed of broadband.


Net neutrality should be law, says media tycoon

Key points from article

Barry Diller, the chairman of IAC, which owns a host of internet companies, including Ask.com, Vimeo and The Daily Beast, has called for net neutrality to be enshrined in US law.

Speaking at South By Southwest in Austin, Texas, Diller said: “We need an unambiguous rule - a law - that nobody will step between the publisher and the consumer, full stop.”

"... without net neutrality, which guarantees that all internet traffic will be treated equally, regardless of its type, a small number of companies would be able to hold consumers “to ransom”.

Diller said that '.... internet access should be a utility, like electricity, and that service providers demands to be allowed to charge different amounts for different types of traffic was like “asking the toaster to pay for the electricity”.

“The internet is a miracle. It shouldn’t have happened [...] You push a button and you publish to the world.”

"... attempts to limit net neutrality were an attack on that freedom."

Diller echoed those views, saying that he had asked a cable company executive why he was against net neutrality, despite the inherent fairness of treating all traffic equally. The executive, who Diller did not name, told him: “Fairness has nothing to do with it. We get all the money right now. We don’t want anyone else to get the money and that’s why we’re against net neutrality.”

In Britain, the Government has refused to back net neutrality but Ed Vaizey, the Communications Minister, told the Telegraph last year that his priority was “an open internet”. He said: “Should the internet develop in a way that was detrimental to consumer interests we would seek to intervene.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/sxsw/8382431/Net-neutrality-should-be-law-says-media-tycoon.html