On April 6, 2010, the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) does not have the authority to regulate how Internet service providers manage web traffic to their customers. . This leaves the US without a governing body for the Internet.

In an industry in constant transition with market leaders transcending traditional models, what are the consequences of this decision? Companies like Comcast and Verizon are changing and merging to become providers, content creators and gatekeepers. If net neutrality is no longer an accepted policy, what happens if Comcast buys NBC (as is currently rumored) and slows down or blocks their Internet customers’ access to ABC or CBS? What happens to Google Voice (Google’s version of VOIP – Voice over Internet Protocol) if Verizon decides that users who make VOIP calls from Google Voice will not allow them to keep or increase their earnings? Google Voice is rumored to be a browser-based service, which means it could be used to make phone calls on any web-enabled smartphone, let alone the computers of Verizon home phone subscribers. Would Verizon, as a carrier, be allowed to block Google? If they can do it to Google, will they be able to block all VOIP providers? And if it happens in our homes, what about business accounts? How would this affect the many businesses that rely on VOIP and cloud computing to help control their expenses?

Is it possible that we need Congress to appoint a regulatory body to guarantee free access to information? If we allow companies to successfully move forward with the argument that the Web is not subject to open access regulation, it will be much more difficult to change this interpretation in the future.