You may have assumed that the debate over the neutrality you can no longer expect when accessing the Internet was dead. Maybe it is. There was little mention of this issue in the runup to yesterday’s vote. Democrats might have hoped it would receive some attention as a way to have some independence of big business pressure. This Gizmodo post examines why the issue was likely ignored.
There is hope:
Under the Congressional Review Act (CRA), the U.S. Senate voted in May to reinstate the net neutrality protections the Federal Communications Commission’s Republican majority voted to overturn in December. Now, a vote in the House is required before the 115th Congress adjourns next month. For Democrats, the hope is that defeated Republicans, no longer restrained by party leadership, will vote to save net neutrality before leaving office if only to appease the constituents who sent them packing. (from Gizmodo)
Continuation of net neutrality is one of those issues continually supported in public polls but inconsistent with the financial aspirations of the companies that provide us with access to the Internet. A reminder, while important, companies providing access to the Internet are able to control how the Internet itself is used and typically have conflicts of interest. For example, your cable company sells you pay per view content and can control the speed at which you receive content from Amazon or Netflicks. Despite concerns that personal data are being harvested by Facebook, Google, and Twitter, the most complete record of what you do online is collected by your ISP and now can be sold as another ISP revenue stream.
I expect that data privacy issues will soon result in government regulation. What can be done with the data we generate when we engage in online activity will likely be regulated in some way. This will be interesting. Stored data is what funds the free services we all use. What will happen when the sale of these data are contested? How will the free services then be supported if the rules on targeted ads change? My hope is that what ISPs are allowed to do will be considered as part of the attention focused on service providers such as Google and Facebook.