23 April 2015

Web of deception

By: Sudhir Sitapati
April 23, 2015

If an ISP blocks a major website, slows down another or arbitrarily prices some content higher, you can be sure of a major competitor attack, a consumer exodus and long-term brand erosion.

Words are funny things. In Yes, Prime Minister, Humphrey Appleby asks a foreign ministry official whether East Yemen is a democracy. “Its full name is the Peoples’ Democratic Republic of East Yemen,” replies the official. “Ah I see,” says Sir Humphrey, “so it is a communist dictatorship.”

Net neutrality has to be the most deceptive neologism of our times. The phrase itself kills debate; after all, who would not want to be “neutral”? But what exactly does the phrase mean?

No comments: