Why the Open Internet Is Worth Saving

Passing Through

Why the Open Internet Is Worth Saving



Barbara van Schewick, Internet Architecture and Innovation

MIT Press, $45 (cloth)



Tim Wu, The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires

Knopf, $27.95 (cloth)

Evgeny Morozov



In 2003 Tim Wu, a professor at Columbia Law School, published an article on the once-sleepy subject of telecommunications policy. In it, he coined the term “net neutrality” to capture the idea that network operators—the Comcasts and Verizons of the world—should not be in the business of regulating the information traffic that passes through their networks. The term took hold, and the article launched Wu to cyber-rock-star status.



Net neutrality is a simple idea with powerful implications. A neutral net would, for example, prevent cable providers from slowing down their customers’ connections or, worse, banning them from running certain services. That is good for customers, who get equal treatment whether they are streaming movies on Netflix, chatting on Skype, or shopping on Amazon. And it is also good for Netflix, Skype, and other companies that have grown using an Internet infrastructure they do not own and have been able to innovate without worrying about shifting rules of the road.

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