Net neutrality and OER

[]¹So, an interesting question around the [net neutrality]² principle.  Net neutrality is basically the principle that it should not be legal to differentially charge/discount/throttle/fast-lane for web access dependent on the content being delivered. So in practice, this principle is broken where service ‘a’ (Netflix say) is delivered to the user faster than service ‘b’ (Notflix say) because Netflix and the ISP have a deal. It would also be broken where access to ‘a’ is delivered at a cheaper rate than ‘b’. This is a problem because it privileges access, and breaks the ‘neutrality’ of the web. The most prominent example in OER is the incredible [Wikipedia Zero]³ project, giving free access to the content of (but not editing on, I think) Wikipedia. So here’re some questions, aside from the fact this (I think) only gives access but not editing access (so no Open Educational Practices for me please): 1. Is this a compromise we’re willing to make? 2. Is this different from the commercial cases? 3. Does ‘net neutrality’ need a more nuanced definition to deal with this case? Some good links on this below (bold are key) 1. [https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/EU_policy/Monitor/Net_Neutrality]⁴ 2. **** 3. **** 4. **** 5. 6. 7.

Footnotes

1. /static/2014/05/wikipedia_globe_in_a_keychain.jpg ↩

2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality ↩

3. http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Zero ↩

4. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/EU_policy/Monitor/Net_Neutrality ↩