LSP backs net neutrality, rejects move for preferential treatment to ‘partner’ sites

Clearly and openly backing the concept of ‘net neutrality’, the Loksatta Party said on Friday that the role of internet service providers should only be to provide access to data irrespective of the source.

Weighing in on the raging debate sparked by the demand by some telecom giants to be allowed to charge for internet access based on usage, Pallav Pradyumn Narang of the LSP’s Delhi unit said such an approach would impinge upon the freedom of speech and expression of users.

Opposing the plan of some ISPs to tie up with internet companies to provide preferential access to their sites and services, Narang said such a move, too, would impinge upon freedom of speech and expression, not to mention the fact that it would be detrimental to one and all.

The role of the internet in advancing human learning and capacity has been beyond expectation, he said. The Net has allowed an unprecedented interchange of information across borders, opening our eyes to the world at large, helping to create and foster communities, and enriching our lives. A United Nations report had gone so far as to declare unrestricted access to the internet a human right.

Any move, under any pretext, to provide preferential access, based upon business deals, to one stream of data over another would sound the death-knell of freedom of information as we know it today, he said.