The Death of Net Neutrality

The internet has opened many doors for small to medium size businesses, allowing them to have a presence and to better able to sell goods and services.  Search engine glitches notwithstanding the easier a business could deliver content and information the better chances they had to gain a following.  We have seen it with our clients and watched the explosion brand evangelists become publishers in their own right.  The open access to the World Wide Web has given many people the chance to create a revenue generating business and positively affect their own economy.The open internet we have all come to rely on may be changing and not necessarily for the good.  The recent ruling by the courts to stop net neutrality opens the doors to a two-tiered internet landscape with Service Providers controlling access to certain content.   Unlike the freedom of today’s internet with everyone having access to a broad range of websites and content, the tiered approach will charge a premium for some sites.  Large corporate entities such as Netflix, Hulu or Amazon would pay a premium price to broadband service providers to deliver their content to consumers faster.This approach has the potential to stifle the smaller content providers who just do not have the deep pockets of the corporate giants. This paves the way for Internet Service Providers to determine, essentially, whose content can be seen verses whose cannot.  This does not bode well for the myriad of small businesses already struggling with SEO algorithms, and page rankings.The best outcome would be for the FCC to reclassify the ISP’s as telecommunications service providers, bringing them back under the regulatory functions of the FCC and requiring them to keep the internet free to all.