The Cowl - v.82 -n.13 - Jan 18, 2018

The Cowl - student newspaper of Providence College. Volume 82, Number 13 - January 18, 2018. 24 pages

An Interdisciplinary Understanding of the Economic and Political Policies behind Network Neutrality in the United States

The focus of this paper is to explore the associative benefits to why network neutrality in the U.S. benefits the fundamental principles of freedom of speech and expression. While at the same time gaining a deeper understanding of why politics may incentivize or undermine data collection by billion-dollar conglomerate companies such as Tiktok and other internet service provider companies. In doing so, this paper will review internet privacy regulations on a federal level and examine the history of the FCC’s regulatory practices on ISPs over the last three decades. Lately, this paper will discuss the economics behind network neutrality and how they influence the everyday American consumer

Free Culture

Free Culture is a documentary short that aims to promote user-autonomy in the digital age, with a focus on culture proliferations. The film takes a look a critical stance against the Digital Millennium Copyright act, arguing it is unenforceable through either legislative or technical means. To support this viewpoint, interviews with Yochai Benkler of the Harvard Law School and Fred von Lohmann, Senior Copyright Council to Google, are provided. While threats to the DMCA, such as piracy, are often seen as illegal criminal action, they signify a changing environment. One man taking advantage of this is Benn Jordan, a.k.a. The Flashbulb, an established musician who has toured around the world and also composes tracks for film and television. Benn’s story is unique. In 2008, he discovered his music online, unaware and unpaid. After contacting Apple multiple times and sending them Cease and Desist letters, Benn pirated his own album. The response was overwhelming and his story went viral. Divorced from the industry, Benn harnessed the power of the internet to start his own label. In our conversation he mentioned that he makes more money now selling 3,000 albums than most artists make selling 25,000. Key to his success was free access to information. To explore the effects of this, I traveled to the Wilson Park community center in Syracuse, NY to see how a tech center in a poor community is changing the lives of children. This film created from found footage, interviews, and animations I created

Deep Packet Inspection and its Effects On Net Neutrality

Deep packet inspection (DPI) is becoming increasingly important as a means to classify and control Internet traffic based on the content, applications, and users. Rather than just using packet header information, Internet Service Providers are using DPI for traffic management, routing and security. But by being able to control traffic by content, a growing number of public policy makers and users fear ISPs may discriminately charge more for faster delivery of their data, slow down applications or even deny access. They cite such practices as endangering the principle of net neutrality; the premise that all data on the Internet should be treated equally. The existing literature on DPI and net neutrality is sizeable, but little exists on the relationship between DPI and net neutrality. This study examines the literature, develops a research methodology and presents results from a study on the challenges of DPI in regards to privacy and net neutrality. The findings show that although most users are unaware of DPI technology, they feel strongly that it places their privacy at risk

Comparative case studies in implementing net neutrality: a critical analysis of zero rating

This article critically examines the relatively few examples of regulatory implementation of network neutrality enforcement at national level. It draws on co-regulatory and self-regulatory theories of implementation and capture, and interdisciplinary studies into the real-world effect of regulatory threats to traffic management practices (TMP). Most academic and policy literature on net neutrality regulation has focussed on legislative proposals and economic or technological principles, rather than specific examples of comparative national implementation. This is in part due to the relatively few case studies of effective implementation of legislation. The article presents the results of fieldwork in South America, North America and Europe over an extended period (2003-2015). The countries studied are: Brazil, India, Chile, Norway, Netherlands, Slovenia, Canada, United States, European Union. Empirical interviews were conducted in-field with regulators, government officials, ISPs, content providers, academic experts, NGOs and other stakeholders from Chile, Brazil, United States, India, Canada, United Kingdom, Netherlands, Slovenia, Norway. It also explores the opaque practices of co-regulatory forums where governments or regulators have decided on partial private rather than public diplomacy with ISPs, notably in the US, Norway and UK. The article notes the limited political and administrative commitment to effective regulation thus far, and draws on that critical analysis to propose reasons for failure to implement effective regulation. Finally, it compares results of implementations and proposes a framework for a regulatory toolkit. The specific issue considered are the tolerance of zero rating practices, notably as deployed by mobile ISPs

[REVIEW OF] The Cabinet George Washington and the Creation of an American Institution by Lindsay M. Chervinsky

Non peer reviewe

Opening Bottlenecks: On Behalf of Mandated Network Neutrality

This Article calls for mandated network neutrality, which would require broadband service providers to treat all nondestructive data equitably. The Author argues that neutral networks are preferable because they better foster online innovation and provide a more equitable distribution of the power to communicate. Without mandated network neutrality, providers in highly concentrated regional broadband markets will likely begin charging content providers for the right to send data to end users at the fastest speeds available. The Author demonstrates that regional broadband competition and forthcoming transmission technologies are unlikely to prevent broadband discrimination, ad hoc regulation under current statutory authority is ineffective in dissuading even grossly anticompetitive network discrimination, and several providers\u27 executives have explicitly outlined their plans to begin discriminating. Additionally, the Author rebuts a congeries of arguments against network neutrality mandates, including appeals to management of network congestion, the call for multiple special-purpose networks, the suggestion to postpone regulation, and predictions of regulatory capture