The problem with the “Information Highway” metaphor for the internet is that people seem to think that highways are the right way – in fact, the only way – to move all goods and people.
In fact, we have an inter-modal transportation system, including rail and highways on land, shipping by sea and air. Some parts regulated as common carrier. Some unregulated. Some scheduled with public access. Some private.
It seems to me that the entire transportation system, including the way disparate systems – transportation networks – integrate could be a better model to examine for policies on how we move information.
Sometimes shipping by sea makes sense. Other times shipping by air is needed. There aren’t rules that mandate that all goods and people must travel equally. So we need to carefully examine why our bits should be any different.
The Green Party of Canada’s election platform includes a section called “Supporting the free flow of information” found on page 153 of its 156 page party platform document.
Its position seems to reflect a view that appears to be based on incorrect premises:
The Internet has become an essential tool in knowledge storage and the free flow of information between citizens. It is playing a critical role in democratizing communications and society as a whole. There are corporations that want to control the content of information on the internet and alter the free flow of information by giving preferential treatment to those who pay extra for faster service.
Our Vision
The Green Party of Canada is committed to the original design principle of the internet – network neutrality: the idea that a maximally useful public information network treats all content, sites, and platforms equally, thus allowing the network to carry every form of information and support every kind of application.Green Solution
Green Party MPs will:
- Pass legislation granting the Internet in Canada the status of Common Carrier – prohibiting Internet Service Providers from discriminating due to content while freeing them from liability for content transmitted through their systems.
Whenever I look at the logo for the Green Party of Canada, I think of an old Harry Chapin song called Flowers are Red. The logo of the political party depicts a flower with green petals.
The Green Party strikes me as being willing to look at issues differently. I think such diversity of views can be healthy.
That said, I don’t accept the Green Party premise that a network that treats all content equally is maximally useful. I think that certain applications and certain types of secure or priority information cannot be supported by a network that treats all content, sites, and platforms equally.
Would a ‘democratic’ network limit the ability to fully converge some application specific networks, by prohibiting measures and assurances that protect voice and priority or secure data?
Why limit the degrees of freedom for companies and users to leverage efficiencies that could be offered by network providers? Sometimes, shipping by sea makes more sense. Other times, it absolutely, positively has to be there overnight. So we have priority courier service.
Chapin’s song celebrates the eccentricity of a child’s painting and mourns a teacher’s success in instilling uniformity:
There are so many colors in the rainbow
So many colors in the morning sun
So many colors in the flower and I see every one
Beige, that most neutral of colours, can be pretty boring. We have all seen apartments and homes that celebrate neutrality. For many, those beige walls enable tenants to add the colour themselves – furniture, art – the applications of their choice. But should the government mandate a world where nobody gets to have colour, even if they want to distinguish themselves?
The creativity in internet application development to date has occurred without specific net neutrality laws. Some might say the creativity has happened because of light touch regulation enabling flexible business models to emerge.
For some content and applications, beige may be the right background. My question is whether we should be legislating beige when there are so many colours in the rainbow?
The better approach for party platforms would be to adopt the language – the complete language – of recommendation 6-5 from the Telecom Policy Review Panel report on Net Neutrality.
The Telecommunications Act should be amended to confirm the right of Canadian consumers to access publicly available Internet applications and content of their choice by means of all public telecommunications networks providing access to the Internet. This amendment should
- authorize the CRTC to administer and enforce these consumer access rights,
- take into account any reasonable technical constraints and efficiency considerations related to providing such access, and
- be subject to legal constraints on such access, such as those established in criminal, copyright and broadcasting laws.