The Federal Communications Commission is considering adding traffic non-discrimination to its principles on net neutrality. The move would not change the law, but could deter firms which attempt to slow access to particular types of Internet use such as peer-to-peer filesharing.

In and of themselves, the FCC principles are not legal requirements and there’s even some debate about the validity of the process by which they were developed. However, the principles can influence FCC decisions about whether firms are following wider laws on Internet provision. The principles may also influence attempts by politicians to introduce specific laws on the issue.

The existing principles set down by the FCC are:

• Consumers should be allowed to access any legal content online.
• Consumers should be allowed to use any services or applications to access the Internet
• Consumers should be allowed to use any devices as long as they don’t harm the relevant network.
• There should be competition between firms offering Internet access, Internet services and Internet content.

Now acting chairman Michael Copps says the time is approaching to add a long-debated fifth principle, most likely once a permanent appointment is made to the chairman post. The precise wording is not yet determined, but the idea would be to ban discrimination by providers between different types of Internet traffic.

The most prominent example of that is firms which throttle the connections of customers who are using peer-to-peer filesharing services. An FCC ruling against Comcast last August sparked debate about the legality of the non-discrimination policy and may have prompted the FCC’s move to set it down as a formal principle.

The principle wouldn’t affect firms which simply restrict overall Internet use, for example in applying daily or monthly download limits, as long as those limits applied to all types of data.

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Entry was posted on Monday, April 6th, 2009 at 12:49 pm under Legal.

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