Net neutrality is the principle that "Internet service providers and governments should treat all data on the Internet equally, not discriminating or charging differentially by user, content, site, platform, application, type of attached equipment, and modes of communication." In other words, all of my Internet data is treated the same, whether it's from Netflix, Skype, Baidu, your personal website, or a startup nobody's heard of. If I'm competing with Netflix, I can't pay your access provider to have my movies stream faster than theirs.

When net neutrality rules were adopted in the US by the FCC in 2010, the conservative Wall Street Journal columnist John Fund disingenuously painted it as follows:

The Federal Communications Commission's new "net neutrality" rules, passed on a partisan 3-2 vote yesterday, represent a huge win for a slick lobbying campaign run by liberal activist groups and foundations. The losers are likely to be consumers who will see innovation and investment chilled by regulations that treat the Internet like a public utility.

These rules were themselves a compromise, which neither pleased conservatives like Fund, nor net neutrality advocates. However, it did ensure that Internet traffic saw some protection.

Fund was flat-out wrong. The Internet should be a public utility; whereas some have tried to paint net neutrality as being a set of anti-business principles, they in fact protect the Internet as an open marketplace for innovation. The rules ensure that businesses will not be penalized on the network for being new, and allow new technologies and approaches to flourish. Removing these rules allows ISPs to control the market, whereas a utility Internet ensures that free trade is possible.

Verizon, the US telco formerly known as Bell Atlantic, had been fighting to overturn the FCC ruling for commercial reasons:

And in court last Monday, Verizon lawyer Helgi Walker made the company's intentions all too clear, saying the company wants to prioritize those websites and services that are willing to shell out for better access.

She also admitted that the company would like to block online content from those companies or individuals that don't pay Verizon's tolls.

On January 14th, Verizon won.

The implications are that net neutrality is dead and buried, and that carriers can begin to charge the fees for access that Verizon referred to. In turn, this may open the floodgates for unequal access to the Internet everywhere; although the FCC only has jurisdiction over communications in the United States, enough of the Internet is transmitted over the domestic backbone to make a difference.

Not only does that affect the quality of the Internet and the ability for new Internet businesses to operate - it also, together with last year's extensive NSA revelations, disproportionately affects American Internet businesses. One of the founding principles of the Internet's architecture is that traffic can be re-routed; why wouldn't other nations begin to work around the United States's compromised network?

All is not necessarily lost. Michael Copps, a former FCC commissioner, recently wrote that broadband should be reclassified as "telecommunications".

On Wednesday, Copps wrote a blog post titled, "The Buck Stops At The FCC," calling upon the commission to "reclassify broadband as 'telecommunications' under Title II of the Communications Act." The effect of that move would be to designate Internet service providers as "common carriers," making them subject to increased FCC regulation.

Common carriers "transport goods or people for any person or company and [are] responsible for any possible loss of the goods during transport" - as opposed to contract or private carriers, which may refuse to carry anyone else's goods. This would effectively turn the Internet into the utility John Fund was so afraid of.

Copps continues:

Without this step, we are playing fast-and-loose with the most opportunity-creating technology in all of communications history. Without this step, we are guaranteeing an Internet future of toll-booths, gatekeepers, and preferential carriage. Without this step, we stifle innovation, put consumers under the thumb of special interests, and pull the props from under the kind of rich civic dialogue that only open and non-discriminatory communications can provide.

Lest we think it's as simple as this, the EFF recently released its opinion that the FCC can't - and shouldn't - save net neutrality. Granting the organization power over the Internet itself gives it too much power to regulate what has been, traditionally, an open, international medium:

Internet users should be wary of any suggestion that there is an easy path to network neutrality. It’s a hard problem, and building solutions to resolve it is going to remain challenging. But here is one guiding principle: any effort to defend net neutrality should use the lightest touch possible, encourage a competitive marketplace, and focus on preventing discriminatory conduct by ISPs, rather than issuing broad mandatory obligations that are vulnerable to perverse consequences and likely to be outdated as soon as they take effect.

The Internet is a marketplace; there can be no doubt about that. I think that the incumbent businesses coming out against net neutrality tend to be ones deeply entrenched in old technologies: after all, both telephone and broadcasting are effectively technology businesses. They just happen to be ones whose underlying technologies are obsolete. Their businesses are hurting because something better has come along, which is meeting the needs of consumers in a more efficient way, and they're struggling to adapt.

Too bad. The Internet will win, and with it, consumers. There is nothing to be gained by restricting it; certainly not in the long term. Net neutrality will create wealth, it will create jobs, and it will set the stage for innovation for decades to come.