If net neutrality goes, so will your privacy, say experts

Net neutrality is not only about making certain information and services available for free and paying for others but also universal and equal access to information. Breaking net neutrality puts that at risk, say industry experts and netizens.

If Internet Service Providers (ISPs) are allowed to discriminate between information they could potentially break the free and open nature of the internet.

"The concept of net neutrality builds on the view that information on the internet should be transmitted impartially, without regard to content, destination or source. By looking into users' internet communications, ISPs may breach the existing rules on the confidentiality of communications, which is a fundamental right that must be carefully preserved. To ensure smooth functioning and safeguarding user's data, there should be 'satisfactory policy' that ensures ISPs do not violate privacy rights through activity monitoring," Sharda Tickoo, product marketing manager, Trend Micro, a global security software company, told dna.

The inspection practices must be legitimate and, in some cases, should require user consent, she said, adding that data protection safeguards, such as purpose limitation and data security standards, will need to be determined.

Ritesh Agarwal CEO, OYO Rooms, an e-commerce website that deals with budget hotels, told dna, 'Net neutrality is absolutely essential for a free and competitive market especially now since there is a start- up boom in the country particularly in the online sector. Most importantly internet was created to break boundaries, and as concerned industry players we should maintain that. We support net neutrality and will do all needed to build this further."

The EFF, one of the world's most respected nonprofit organisation devoted to protecting civil liberties and free expression in technology, law, policy and standards, had several interesting points when it comes to the net neutrality debate.

"The central goal of the net neutrality movement is to prevent ISPs from discriminating against lawful content on the internet," said Jennifer Granick, civil liberties director, EFF, said in a release.

"The internet is an unprecedented global platform for free expression, commerce, and communications of all kinds. We can't let a few powerful companies throttle it," said Jeremy Gillula, Staff Technologist, EFF.

"Without net neutrality, internet providers may interfere with access to privacy protecting services and websites or encrypted traffic. We have the right to encrypt our communications because privacy is a human right. Yet, in the past we saw Comcast blocking encrypted traffic to BitTorrent. And in Canada, the broadband provider Rogers Hi-Speed Internet blocked and throttled all encrypted file transfers over their network for five years. Use of encrypted browsing prevents internet providers from injecting ads into the pages you view and prevents them from logging your activities to sell to marketers, so they have an economic incentive to keep it easy to spy on you.

Without net neutrality, there's no telling what privacy-enabling tools will become unusable at the whim of Internet providers." wrote April Glaser, in the EFF blog.

"An increasing trend in privacy-conscious products is the move to technologies where sensitive data is self hosted, hosted by friends, or resides on an anonymous decentralised network instead of on the servers of a company that law enforcement can easily compel to turn over your data without telling you first. But many ISPs have rules against people running 'servers' at home, prohibiting people from making use of the upstream bandwidth they've paid for. If all bits were treated equally, then it wouldn't matter whether the traffic originated with a server. In other words, if users pay for their bandwidth, then they should be able to use it however they want.

Without good net neutrality protections, we fear that privacy conscious services will be significantly affected, not only because small companies and free software communities most likely won't be able to afford fast-lane access, but also because internet providers may degrade such services for their own business reasons." she said.

"An open, neutral, and fast internet has sparked an explosion of innovation in everything from shopping to the way we exchange ideas and debate potential political change," said Corynne McSherry, intellectual property director, EFF in a release. "But it's founding principles are now under threat. It's time for users to take action to protect our internet."