Around the World, Net Neutrality Is Not a Reality

In the emerging economies of the world, a few giant companies control, or at least mediate, the Internet experience for much of the population because of special deals they’ve struck with Internet providers for prioritized or subsidized data delivery.

For people who have no Internet in the first place, the idea of net neutrality is not exactly top of mind. Getting online cheaply in the first place is a greater concern, and the American companies are often enabling that to happen. Internet access is expensive in developing countries -- exorbitantly so for the vast majority of people. But the existence of a free and dominant chat, e-mail, search, and social-networking service makes it awfully hard for any competitor to arise. And Susan Crawford, visiting professor of law at Harvard University and a co-director of Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society, calls it “a big concern” that Google and Facebook are the ones becoming the portal to Web content for many newcomers.