[governance] 'search neutrality' to go with net neutrality

[Parminder]

Roland Perry wrote:
> In message <F2011E85-3298-4E9F-9AA3-D46BD87B1DD9 at psg.com>, at 23:41:52 
> on Tue, 5 Jan 2010, Avri Doria <avri at psg.com> writes
>> to avoid confusion i think the Net Neutrality (NN) must be restricted
>> to issues of content, source or protocol port and not bandwidth.
>
> In other words, all that it means is "no blocking".
>
> While that's a valuable concept, why invent a [confusing] new name for 
> it? Most discussions of NN that I've seen embrace the concept that one 
> kind of content would merely be given priority over another (so 
> disdavantaged traffic is delivered slower, rather than delivered never).
>
> The way the end-user perceives such a disadvantage is indistingushable 
> from throttled bandwidth.
Not true. There is a world of difference between a user getting all her 
traffic slow, because of low bandwidth, and selective content coming to 
her slow or fast depending on whether the content provider pays extra or 
not. In the former case, all content gets treated (and presented to the 
user) equally, even if equally badly. In the latter case different 
content gets 'presented' to the user differently, and thus effects her 
choice. This becomes especially relevant when there are many competing 
possible sources of information etc that the user may seek.

Some may say again (as they said in the discussion on Google), the user 
should know and be able to select what source of information she wants, 
and if she is clear about it, A non-NN network is the same as less 
bandwidth for her (since even if the other source downloads faster and 
better she will not change her preference). But as Micheal has explained 
this is not the right reading of real human and social behavior, in its 
power-laden complexities.

parminder

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