Those of you who spend a lot of time on the Internet may have heard the term before, and those of you who follow politics relentlessly may also have heard the term. The rest of you, in all probability, are thinking to yourselves: “What the heck is Net Neutrality?” or “The guy who writes this column is a total nutcase.”

Net Neutrality (Which is ‘shorthand’ for Network Neutrality, saving a whole lot of effort) is, in essence, the very founding principle of the Internet most of us have come to know and, well, have a love-hate relationship with. According to Google, “Network neutrality is the principle that Internet users should be in control of what content they view and what applications they use on the Internet.” Which, to most of us, is something that is widely taken for granted. Firefox users especially take advantage of this by giving the boot to large corporate based web browsers (take that, Microsoft) and using open-source third party software, whereas almost everyone goes to whatever websites they feel like without a second thought. What most users aren’t aware of, however, is how fragile Net Neutrality actually is. There is no legislation on the books, state or federal, that protects a user’s right to view whatever sites they like using whatever application they like. And who might take advantage of this loophole in the system?

Essentially, Internet service providers. The ISPs. The ones you scream at in utter futility when your YouTube video takes an hour and a half to buffer (Okay, sometimes it’s the school’s network we scream at, see next week’s article).

As it stands, there is absolutely nothing to prevent a company such as Charter Communications from blocking sites from their service, meaning anyone who gets their service from that company will be unable to access; essentially, anything the company does not want them to. There is also nothing to prevent a company denying access to a different browser (such as Firefox, which is utterly superior. Forgive the shameless plugging. www.mozilla.com. Seriously.) While this has not yet become a serious issue, in this rampant age of pop up advertising and other lightly underhanded methods of grabbing the customers attention, it isn’t exactly a stretch to see the possibility looming menacingly over the horizon. A resolution to modify the current telecommunications bill (which, as in previous iterations, does nothing to defend the freedom of the internet) was not passed by the US Senate committee, though it tied 11-11. The bill moves on to the senate at large soon, though a date has not yet been set. In the meantime, a group of Internet companies (Google prime among them) have formed a coalition of their own to support Net Neutrality. Finally! Lobbyists with morals! (We hope).

To learn more about Network Neutrality and the ongoing fight against corporate terrorism of the online variety, visit www.openinternetcoalition.org.

Fight the power.

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