Net Neutrality - It's Time to Pay Attention

As a rule, we aggressively protect your time by never covering political or legal issues. Our goal is to tell you what's happening within the online business world, how it affects you and how you can leverage this information to make more money online. So, even the mention of Net Neutrality on our site seems like we're breaking our #1 rule.

Unfortunately, the harsh reality surrounding Net Neutrality is that it's anything but neutral. This is an issue that is happening right now and can have some very serious ramifications for your business long term. To quote the petition sitting on the official White House Web site in regards to the latest court ruling:

"This ruling allows ISPs to charge companies for access to its users and charge users for access to certain services. Fewer companies will be able to afford access for innovative ideas and products."

Yes, this seemingly endless battle between the FCC and big corporations (like Verizon) really can have long term effects on your Web site as well as the ability for your customers to find you online. We'll explain this issue based on the facts and let you decide to get involved or not.

"At its simplest, net neutrality holds that just as phone companies can’t check who’s on the line and selectively block or degrade the service of callers, everyone on the internet should start on roughly the same footing: ISPs shouldn’t slow down services, block legal content, or let companies pay for their data to get to customers faster than a competitor’s."

January 14th, 2014, the Washington DC Circuit court ruled against the legislation put in place by the FCC that said broadband providers were not able to slow or block legal content. The reason the court struck down the Net Neutrality legislation is because in 2002, The FCC classified broadband Internet providers as a Title I (information service providers) instead of Title II