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Emerging ICT Policies and Regulations pp 125–146Cite as

What Are the Nuances of Net Neutrality?

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Abstract

Since the coining of the term “Net Neutrality” by Tim Wu way back in 2003 Net Neutrality  has been one of the hotly debated regulatory issue across the world. Country regulators have taken varied positions in defining net neutrality, with some such as the Federal Communications Commission in the USA even reversing its net neutrality policies. There are still gray areas in enforcing and implementing net neutrality rules. The Indian regulator tilted more toward pure net neutrality, despite lobbying against the same by the telcos and ISPs. However, in the USA, net neutrality regulations have swayed from pure to “no” net neutrality.

When I was handling communications department…my friend Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook CEO) met me a number of times with the idea of Free Basics . I said India is a democracy, we don’t believe in one gate. We believe in multiple gates. Therefore, this gate locking for India will not be accepted and I did not allow it. This stems (from) our commitment that Internet must be accessible to all. The citizen’s right to access the internet “non-negotiable” and that the government will not allow any company to restrict people’s entry to digital space.

—Ravi Shankar Prasad, IT Minister of India.*

*https://www.hindustantimes.com/tech/net-neutrality-ravi-shankar-prasad-says-right-of-internet-access-is-non-negotiable/story-3HATMUGp5Qg4S0xq2sBagJ.html.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Partly based on Consumer Unity & Trust Society (CUTS) International Washington DC Centre Policy Note #8 that was first published in February 2019 included with the permission of CUTS International.

  2. 2.

    Partly based on the article that appeared in HINDU BUSINESS LINE on July 6, 2016, with the permission of THG Publishing Private Limited.

  3. 3.

    Source code of this project is available at: https://github.com/arashmolavi/DifferentiationDetector

  4. 4.

    Partly based on article that appeared in HINDU BUSINESS LINE on 11 Jul 2017 with the permission of THG Publishing Private Limited.

  5. 5.

    Partly based on Consumer Unity & Trust Society (CUTS) International Washington DC Centre Policy Note #8 that was first published in February 2019 included with the permission of CUTS International.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. International Institute of Information Technology Bangalore, Bengaluru, India

    V. Sridhar

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  1. V. Sridhar
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Correspondence to V. Sridhar .

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Sridhar, V. (2019). What Are the Nuances of Net Neutrality?. In: Emerging ICT Policies and Regulations. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-32-9022-8_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-32-9022-8_7

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  • Print ISBN: 978-981-32-9021-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-981-32-9022-8

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