Tech companies are uniting together to defend net neutrality in a July 12th protest against a rollback proposed by the FCC. Tens of thousands of websites around the world, notably Google, Facebook, Twitter, Amazon and others are banding together to oppose the end of net neutrality.
In 2015, the FCC voted to regulate internet service "to protect the open internet and ensure that Americans reap the economic, social, and civic benefits of an open internet today and into the future." Regulating here was to "prevent specific practices we know are harmful to Internet openness — blocking, throttling and paid prioritization — as well as a strong standard of conduct designed to prevent the deployment of new practices that would harm internet openness."
The vote passed 3 to 2 under then President Barack Obama's administration. Among the two no votes was Republican attorney Ajit Pai, who joined the FCC's board in 2012.
But when Pai was chosen by Trump to lead the FCC, he is moving to undo the previous rules.
In May, the FCC proposed restoring "the internet to a light-touch regulatory framework by classifying broadband internet access service as an information service", and for that it asked the public for comments.
Not just internet companies, organizations as well as government's politicians were also trying to protect net neutrality. They see that the end of net neutrality means an advantage to only some people, mainly ISPs and the government.
Comcast, Verizon and other big providers could put some websites into the fast lanes for a fee. This will limit internet speed for both download and upload.
Consumers on the slow lane, will see slower internet, slower loading pages and longer bufferings. People will abandon videos and services if they're not getting a good user experience. ISPs can also throttle some of their own services in favor of their own.
As a result, the end of net neutrality will reduce choice, increase cost and reduce innovations.
