‘Net Neutrality’ Principle
Let’s push for Open Document Format the way Massachusetts does.
February 16, 2006
The egalitarian world of the Internet is inclined for a new challenge when AOL and Yahoo, two of the world’s largest email service providers, recently proposed to charge a fee for the delivery of spam-free emails along the originating and destination route.
According to media reports, AOL and Yahoo will introduce a system that would guarantee speedier delivery to companies that pay between 0.25 and one US cent for each message. While AOL and Yahoo would still accept email from senders who do not pay for preferential treatment, the business bias is that the paid messages would bypass spam filters and other barriers which strip off pictures and other images, enabling the emails to land more quickly in in-boxes.
Are we seeing the prospect of a two-tier Internet from now? Notably, AOL and Yahoo’s proposed new business model came in the wake of intensifying debates on the future of the web as the US Congress prepares to institute the first major update of telecommunications legislation since the birth of the Internet.
The centre of debates is on the principles of Internet Neutrality. It is the principles that had been followed through over the last decade of commercial Internet, under which data has been disseminated without discrimination or preference ever since the birth of the World Wide Web.