Yes, the Internet is a “public good” – The World

Editorial of the “World” Beyond its technical intricacies and its colossal financial stakes, it is an eminently political decision just taken by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the Telecommunication regulator – and therefore of the Internet – in the United States. In addition, given the weight of US giants of the digital economy, it is a decision that will directly influence in Europe and in the world, playing between service providers, content providers and services, and citizen-consumers of the Net.

The economic battle, political and judicial raged across the Atlantic for months, even years. On one hand, the Republican Party and major US carriers, Verizon or Comcast, argued that net neutrality – that is to say, equal access to telephone networks of all content PROVIDERS, Netflix YouTube through the most modest websites – constitute an unacceptable state interference in the operation of private companies. In their view, such a straitjacket would restrain or prevent the investment needed to develop new infrastructure.

In front of them, part of the Democrats, large groups of Web and Internet advocacy groups retorted that, in the absence of a minimum framework, the Web as we know it is doomed to disappear, undermined by prohibitive tariffs, huge obstacles to innovation and risk for freedom of expression. These advocates of “neutrality” mobilized exceptionally in recent months, four million citizens have responded to the call for contributions from the FCC. In addition, they received in November 2014 determining reinforcement of President Barack Obama, who called the FCC to make the Internet a public good.

The decision adopted on 26 February by the federal regulator US agreed with them. The FCC has taken a firm position in favor of net neutrality in the United States, by enacting a series of rules governing the activities of operators and prevent them in the future, to favor certain content providers into paying more expensive access better. This is a clear victory for advocates of this principle that all content flowing in the same way and at the same speed over the network, without privileges or “fast lanes” for this or that, which would agree to pay the price .

This decision goes in the right direction. First intervention of the US state in the history of the Internet, it shows that government can not leave the ubiquitous digital revolution regulate itself outside of a minimum of common rules, fair and democratic. However, the FCC has defended want to regulate the Internet. In fact, everyone knows that its decision will face multiple appeal and protest on the part of his opponents.

It will nevertheless a highly symbolic. It shows that the US Federal State can not stay away from the Internet: as the First Amendment of the US Constitution protects freedom of expression, Net neutrality needed a legal recognition. It is hoped that Europe, mired in differences between Member States and hampered by the lobbying of telecommunications operators, will be inspired.