Digital Single Market And Net Neutrality In Europe

Principles of Net Neutrality in Europe

Question:

Discuss about the Digital Single Market and Net Neutrality in EU.

The chosen topic for the assignment is “Digital Single Market” which is related to net neutrality in all the countries across Europe. Net neutrality is a topic which is related to usage of the internet by the service users according to their freedom and the internet providers should not block the access to some site and should not block data from those sites in order to support the topic of net neutrality (Cheng et al., 2011). This article focuses towards the initiative of European Union to ensure net neutrality across entire Europe in all the countries. There should be no blocking of data and also no throttling and discrimination of data related to online applications, content and services (Monti, 2010).

The article focuses on towards attaining net neutrality across Europe and all the service providers across every countries of Europe should look after the same and provide high access internet to all the users to whom they are providing their services. There will only be three exceptions to this rule and blocking, discrimination and throttling of data can be done by the servers when the networks are integrated, when the situations are temporary and when there is no agreement with legal responsibility (Krämer et al., 2013)).

All the traffic that is there in the internet should be provided to the end users equally according to the principles of net neutrality. This will also require daily management of the traffic according to the technological needs and wants. The main focus of the net neutrality is to concentrate on the service providers so that they may not choose any site’s traffic over traffic of another site. But, the neutrality of the internet can sometimes also affect the cyber security of the internet and accessing the sites on the internet which are harmful can affect the security of the user’s computer and access the data of the user over the network and steal data from those computers which can be in many ways harmful for the users. Sometimes cyber crimes are also done with the help of taking the advantage of the neutrality of the internet. When the service users access the sites with the same speed on the internet due to net neutrality, the hackers can hack the personal information of the users over the network and use them for their own benefits (Economides, 2008).

There are also various regulators of the net neutrality who will play various roles in these circumstances and they are mentioned below:

NRA: National Regulatory Authorities or NRA should take a look on the market regarding the development that is taking place in the European Union. Traffic management will be open to them so that they can check about the access of the internet by the users. It should also be ensured form the side of NRA that IAS should be able to reflect the advancement made in the technology.

Now depending upon the situation, the neutrality of the internet can be good as well as bad or neutral to the service users. It can be the case that between the two stakeholders of the internet there can be neutral relationship that can exist, while to the other stakeholders, it can be an issue related to their ethics (Cheng and Wang, 2010). While continuing to implement the process of net neutrality throughout all the regions of European Union across all the countries, it should be kept in mind the net neutrality should not just be a factor that can gain advantage for two stakeholders but also should not affect the end users of all internet service users in different countries of under European Union. The neutrality of the internet should be taken advantage of, but in a way which should not hurt the others using the internet.

Exceptions to Net Neutrality

The net neutrality should be used in such a way that the interest of the stakeholders are fully satisfied and also the rules and regulations of the net neutrality that are there which exists can be sufficed with the help of this process and following the issues related to the ethics. With the help of the internet neutrality, the stakeholders should make most of the diversity using the information that are available in the internet and also diversity will help in the procedure of innovation, evolution as well as competition which in turn can help the stakeholders to use the internet in a way that there is continuous flow of information.

The ethics of the net neutrality also states that the internet should not be used in a way by the users of the service so that it violates the guidelines of the internet as well as the provider of the service (Becker et al., 2010). There are many giant companies in the Information Technology market like Facebook and Google which stood by the side of net neutrality, while other companies like the cable and the wire companies opposed the idea of internet neutrality wholly. Now the internet neutrality and its ethical issues will be discussed form the point of view of utilitarianism, virtue, deontology and contract:

With the help of following the utilitarian approach related to the ethics while considering this particular problem is a very tough work (Meinrath and Pickard, 2008). While protecting of the neutrality of the internet to all the users of the internet services will provide a benefit for a very short time, while making the internet free of data blockage and providing free internet to all the users with free access to all the sites throughout the internet is a same speed can make the users of the internet happy by providing them a free internet space and also helping them to all the sites in the internet.

The ethics that are related to the virtue is mainly Aristotle’s view which states that individual should be able to do well in their life and help himself to develop and grow in his life. So, according to the virtue ethics those are related to the neutrality of the internet, an individual should be able to sue the net neutrality in a way that helps him to grow in future and also should not use those sites or use net neutrality as advice for cyber crime or break the cyber safety of other internet sites (Quail and Larabie, 2010).

The theory of deontology states that, human should act to that point when he can do well to others and not hurt their sentiments. Humanity should be the law before talking every steps in life and so according to the neutrality of the internet if it occurs throughout all the countries of European Union, people should not share contents or use such languages over the internet which can hurt the sentiment of other internet users and also the action so of the individuals over the internet should be able to do moral good to other persons.

The social contract approach sates that there should be ethics and decency in every action of all the people over the internet after they gain free access to all the sites and data due to the neutrality of the internet and for that reason, they should help each other over the internet so that they can have mutual gain (Blevins and Shade, 2010). Also, there should be principles followed in the actions and behaviours of the individual over the internet.

Conclusion:

In the conclusion from the above discussion, it can be said that in order to achieve net neutrality over the internet, the people of European should follow the ethics related to the internet and should also not share illegitimate content over the website which can hurt the sentiment of other people and also should not access unlawful sites to follow the ethics that are there related to the internet.

References:

Cheng, H. K., Bandyopadhyay, S., & Guo, H. (2011). The debate on net neutrality: A policy perspective. Information systems research, 22(1), 60-82.

Krämer, J., Wiewiorra, L. and Weinhardt, C., 2013. Net neutrality: A progress report. Telecommunications Policy, 37(9), pp.794-813.

Economides, N., 2008. Net neutrality, non-discrimination and digital distribution of content through the internet. ISJLP, 4, p.209.

Cheng, A.S., Fleischmann, K.R., Wang, P., Ishita, E. and Oard, D.W., 2010, January. Values of stakeholders in the Net neutrality debate: Applying content analysis to telecommunications policy. In System Sciences (HICSS), 2010 43rd Hawaii International Conference on (pp. 1-10). IEEE.

Becker, G.S., Carlton, D.W. and Sider, H.S., 2010. Net neutrality and consumer welfare. Journal of Competition Law and Economics, 6(3), pp.497-519.

Meinrath, S. and Pickard, V., 2008. Transcending net neutrality: Ten steps toward an open Internet. Education Week Commentary, 12(6), pp.1-12.

Quail, C. and Larabie, C., 2010. Net neutrality: Media discourses and public perception. Global Media Journal, 3(1), p.31.

Blevins, J. and Shade, L., 2010. International perspectives on network neutrality. Global Media Journal, 3(1), pp.1-8.

Monti, M., 2010. A new strategy for the single market. Report to the President of the European Commission José Manuel Barroso, May, 10.