FCC Says No Web Content Rules Needed Yet
from the why-bother? dept
I had no idea this was a big issue, but apparently, a number of tech companies have been lobbying the FCC to declare that ISPs could not be allowed to block off content from sites they don’t have a business relationship with. The FCC has said they don’t see a need to do so, and I agree with them. Right now, an ISP would be crazy to only let people surf to a specific subset of sites. It might appeal to niche audiences, but they would lose the majority of their customers to an ISP that let content flow. While some ISPs (like AOL) are experimenting with “walled garden” strategies to block off some content so that only their customers can see it – I haven’t heard of any ISPs that have any interest in going the other way, and telling their customers they can’t surf outside the garden.