Summary Of The Illusion Of Net Neutrality

It is this line of thinking that has the Internet Service Providers fighting tooth and nail to challenge or overturn anything that associated with the concept of Net Neutrality. The flagrent manner in which the industry is willing to spend money to hinder the momentum of the industry is discussed in the book, The Illusion of Net Neutrality by Bob and Eva Zelnick. “Going back to 2005 the principle's biggest opponents Verizon, AT&T, Comcast and their allies have lobbied against net neutrality about three times as hard as the biggest proponents of neutrality” (Zelnick and Zelnick 93). With the amount of money being spent to fight theses change equal to GDP of a small country it begs the question. Why are these factions so concerned? Well, at its

The most efficient way to go about this is by disseminating information to support your view via the media. In making bold statements and using freighting language to push consumers into a corner and have no choice but to believe the claims they are generating. How might Telecom go about doing this? It’s a four-phase process; that starts with a show of force, achieved by taking on the aggressor who is threatening to change the regulations. The book Digital Crossroads provides us with some of the descriptive vocabulary used in the Telecoms address to the FCC in open session hearings. Top Telecom Companies and ISP’s addressed the FCC in Federal Court saying, “It will cause irreparable damage, immense burdens, causing serious and substantial harm to service providers and consumers” (Nuechterlein and Weiser 182). This idea allows the rhetoric a chance to settle and fester in the minds of consumers. Phase two, make the public think that the Federal government's meddling will hurt their bank accounts. This idea is presented to the consumer by telling them that anything the Federal Government wants to get involved in is for the purpose of taxation. Consequently, Internet Service Providers have begun releasing statements that the government’s plans are to tax them in every way imaginable for us if the internet (charging per stream, per email, per download). When people start to do the math, it is

But if consumers want to be truly informed they must take the initiative and find the truth. With some effort and research into claims from the Internet Service Providers their thinly veiled arguments begin to give way to information that directly refutes the concerns they raised. If it were up to them, the consumer would be so overwhelmed by their words and actions they wouldn’t have the resourcefulness to look into the validity of their claims. In considering the possibility of increased taxes on internet usage, a small insight provides much needed clarity. The Internet Tax Freedom Act is a law that has been in place since 1998 and restricted the taxation of the internet by both the Federal Government and Service Providers themselves. While it is true that the law was in moratorium, (meaning: in practice but with an expiration date). Randolph J. May describes this idea in greater detail in his book, Communications Law and Policy in the Digital Age. “The House finally approved H.R. 235, the Permanent Internet Tax Freedom Act, which amends the Internet Tax Freedom Act to make permanent the ban on state and local taxation of Internet access and on multiple or discriminatory taxes on electronic commerce” (May 59). Further investigation also turned up information disclosed by