Net Neutrality Kicked out of the House: What's Next and Why Should You Care?

If you've been paying attention, you know that the U.S. House of Representatives defeated a net neutrality bill last week.

Ellen, at Rowhouse Logic, reminded me to take a peek at Philly Future's search results on net neutrality, while also pointing to other related articles of interest.

Owen, at Asymptomatic, also carries an opinion on network neutrality and why you should care about it:

To bloggers, network neutrality is the idea that makes your opinion on any topic just as easy to obtain as the paid authors from the media and industry.

Imagine if access to your blog was throttled back in favor of some other person who had “paid” for better distribution of their higher opinions of the policies or opinions of an ISP. That’s just part of what we’re talking about. ... (full text)

Owen acknowledges that there have been tech industry arguments against enforcing net neutrality (here and here, to mention two), but he doesn't agree with them. Neither do I.

Also worth a look is a fresh piece from today's Inquirer on the importance of network neutrality. This piece argues, appropriately I think, for the preservation of "the democratic openness of the Internet" as "a key to its world-changing power":

As you sit at your home computer, the issue may seem arcane, the concern overstated. Your broadband connection is working just fine, so what's the problem?

One way to think through the issue is to jot a list of the killer applications the Internet has spawned, such as Google's search engine, eBay's online auction, or the various Weblog programs.

Did any of them emerge from the bowels of a phone or cable company? Nope, they were innovations that started small, but found huge publics thanks to the Internet's openness. (full text)

So now it's up to the Senate. And to you, if you care. And if you're a blogger, or anyone who benefits from the wide open nature of this second home so many of us share, it shouldn't be hard to understand why you should care. Let your Senators know where you stand on net neutrality.

(For more on the issue, feel free to browse the search results on net neturality at Philly Future, or at Technorati.)