This Net Neutrality thing is a big deal. It’s a lovely term and sounds all fuzzy and warm, but what it’s about is controlling the Internet.

Right now, the Internet is pretty open and free. That’s how it was designed. An agency more-or-less in charge of the Internet is the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, ICANN. But, like the name says, they only regulate Internet names and numbers: domains and IP addresses, that sort of thing. Net Neutrality is about more.

Big corporations, especially big media, Web giants like Yahoo and Google, and communications companies, are moving to set up a different type of Internet. They want to use the power of Government to set up a service that they can control and regulate. They fear the very nature of the Internet: its freedom. Well, specifically, the free part of freedom.As the speed of Internet access increases (bandwidth), the ability for regular folks to download free books, songs, and videos increases. According to New York Times columnist David Pogue, it’s becoming more acceptable — especially for younger folks —to steal copyrighted material on-line. The next generation may not even harbor a moral concept of intellectual property rights.

For a writer like myself, someone who has no respect for my work and steals my stuff by downloading a “free” e-book is a nuisance. (And I had such a person come forth in my former on-line forums.) But imagine the impact to a big company like Time-Warner. They control a lot of the Internet’s fat pipes. Will they allow file sharing to run along unabated on the Internet while they stand to lose billions of dollars?

That, my friends, is what Net Neutrality is all about.

Relevant Links Dept. Here are the links for ICANN, David Pogue’s column on file sharing, and a cool link to Hands Off the Internet.

This Very Dept. I’m working on a way for you to add comments to my stories. It’s going to take some doing, as I’m going to have to modify existing software to get just what I want. So be patient!