Net neutrality rules in the United States, designed to ensure a level playing field on the internet, were repealed last week by the Federal Communications Commission.
New Brunswick based Beauceron Security CEO David Shipley says the rules were designed to prevent big companies from strangling competition.
He says the impact on Canadians will be less direct and more subtle than the effect on Americans.
“Innovative companies and products and services, as they get choked off from the United States which is the largest market, we’re never going to be able to see the next Netflix if the Americans prevent it from ever becoming a real force to be reckoned with because they’re anti competitive,” says Shipley.
He blasts the decision as anti consumer, anti free expression and anti democratic, describing it as likely the single biggest policy setback for the United States in years.
Shipley is concerned other countries, like Canada, may take a closer look at ending net neutrality.
Thus far, he is slightly reassured because “Canada has not given any direction that it’s going to head in the same direction as the States, and I hope that we don’t ever look at this as a good precedent to follow because I think it’s incredibly shortsighted, stupid, manipulative and greedy.”
Shipley says it goes even further than stifling innovation, because the scrapping of these rules means Internet Service Providers (ISPs) will be able to limit access to certain websites over others.
He says that can be abused by large corporations, like Amazon, which could pay ISPs money to ensure their streaming service could receive better speeds than a competitor’s service, like Netflix.
That means ISPs stand to gain a lot of money by charging people for so called “premium access” to services like Facebook, or video streaming, and because corporations or businesses will be forced to pay ISPs to get better access to customers.
Additionally, Shipley says the support the FCC cites for this is a fraud, adding numerous investigative journalists are discovering a lot of the so called letters and emails in support were automated from a campaign, and weren’t actually human beings asking for the abolishment of net neutrality.
“This is a sham,” Shipley fumes, “there’s a huge potential for abuse in limiting access to information from independent journalism and other things, so I think it’s anti democratic as well.”