The Federal Government Lends Support To Net Neutrality

The Obama administration released the federal guidelines for how the $7.2 billion stimulus package should be used for broadband development. These guidelines require that companies may not deliberately block or slow internet traffic of their networks. Phone companies and cable operators have fought hard against such rulings--seeking to gain more control over the content of internet traffic as well as gain the right to be more discriminatory regarding companies that use the internet for business. Net Neutrality proponents say that such control by private companies would hurt competition, enable the growth of monopolies, deride privacy and freedom of speech and not be in the public interest.