whether net neutrality controls are weakened,ISPs will settle what we can read – and what we can’tImagine whether the government had restored ownership of Britain’s roads to the private trusts that used to run them. Imagine they were allowed to charge companies different amounts to use them, so that companies with enough cash could pay for exclusive use of fast lanes, or leaving their smaller competitors consigned to lag behind on late,badly maintained roads. Sounds outrageously anti-competitive, doesnt it?Yet that is precisely what internet service providers (ISPs) want to be able to accomplish. A war has been raging in the United States over “net neutrality”: the principle that ISPs should not be allowed to charge companies more to get faster access to consumers or – the flipside – charge consumers differentially to access data from different content providers (for example, or bundles that include “all-you-can-consume” data only for specific apps such as Netflix).
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Source: theguardian.com