The last thing in the world we need to happen is for the internet to become a ‘public utility.’ The Marxists wanted that for radio in the twenties, but were thwarted by commercial interests who wanted to advertise. If the Marxists had their way, we would today be listening to nothing but NPR and watching nothing but PBS.
What comes with being a public utility is a legal term called “Universal Service”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_service
With universal service comes the accompanying regulations.
And since when did internet access become a civil right?
If information is that precious, why weren’t newspaper subscriptions and TV sets handed out along with the welfare check?
Talking about utilities does bring in some fun things. I’m not talking about universal service, as that’s not related to net neutrality.
I’m talking about common carrier. Right now the telephone company is not responsible for anything you do over its lines. You can commit wire fraud, send death threats or commit any number of crimes over the phones, and the phone company cannot be touched because it is a common carrier. The key to this is that they don’t know what you’re doing on the phone. They can’t responsible if they don’t know, but they also can’t interfere if they don’t know. If they want to interfere, then they have to know, and that means they can be held responsible because they allowed it to happen.
This directly applies to the ISPs. Do they want to be common carriers or not? If Comcast can degrade certain streaming video or P2P, then they can know when various illegal acts are being committed, which makes them accomplices. So I say go ahead, let them interfere with the Internet all they want. After the first few CEOs go to jail, they’ll be begging for common carrier certification.