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Criticism Of Net Neutrality In Burger King

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Hi Mrs. Swanson,

I also saw the Burger King commercial trending last week and thought it was a surprising take on net neutrality. Some of the actors' acting made me laugh out loud - but I think the commercial does try to make a valid criticism of net neutrality, even if it's somewhat misconstrued. Since I spent time learning about this topic in my class on social issues, I'd be glad to help explain it!

Net neutrality is best understood if you think of the internet like a highway. In this highway, companies and users are always driving from one place to another, representing different parties who request and send information (like articles, pictures or videos). Internet Service Providers, or ISPs, are the companies that manage these highways: …show more content…

ISPs would be able to do the same things, while also having the capability to charge parties different amounts depending on what kind of information they are sending or receiving, or whom they are sending it to (or receiving it from). The concern from many consumers is that by doing this, it's very easy for ISPs to restrict what websites or apps you can visit, and possibly charge you extra depending on which services you want to use. For example, under net neutrality, "Verizon was not allowed to favor Yahoo and AOL, which it owns, by blocking Google or charging the search giant extra fees to connect to customers. Under the new rules, that type of behavior would be legal, as long as Verizon disclosed it" …show more content…

Since it costs companies the same price to reach different consumers (in terms of internet speeds), if a new website comes along which offers similar or better services than an existing website, the new website will always just be one click away. In other words, it's not possible for the new website to be throttled, or "slowed down," by the ISP. Without net neutrality, it's possible that companies like Google could never have grown to what they are today because of exclusive deals made between Yahoo and ISPs to make their search engine load faster than Google's, placing Google at an unfair

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