Should an internet provider be allowed to speed up some traffic and slow down the rest?

Net neutrality is the principle that internet service providers must treat all internet communications equally, offering users and content providers consistent transfer rates regardless of content, website, platform, application, source address or destination address, without price discrimination. Whether they should be forced to is a real dispute, with serious experts on both sides.

The phrase was coined in 2003 by Columbia law professor Tim Wu, as an extension of the old idea of a common carrier, the role telephone systems played. Supporters argue that neutrality prevents ISPs from filtering content without a court order, fosters free speech, promotes competition and innovation, and keeps the end-to-end principle alive. Opponents reply that it reduces investment, deters competition, increases taxes, imposes unnecessary regulation, and keeps the internet out of reach of lower-income people by preventing cheaper offers.

Both camps include serious names. Proponents include computer science experts, policy experts, non-profits and content providers. Among individuals who opposed the rules are internet pioneers such as Bob Kahn, who with Vint Cerf first proposed TCP and IP, and Louis Pouzin. In the United States the rules were repealed in 2017, reinstated by the FCC in 2024, and struck down on 2 January 2025 by a federal appeals court, the Sixth Circuit, which ruled that internet companies should not be regulated like utilities. That leaves the decision to Congress and state legislatures.