Momentum is building for a net neutrality compromise

Internet service providers (ISPs) and network neutrality activists appear increasingly interested in a proposal that would give consumers more control over their Internet service, a hopeful sign for compromise in the debate about whether all Internet traffic should be treated equally.

Speaking at a Federal Communications Commission roundtable, Stanford University net neutrality scholar Barbara van Schewick said that, under certain conditions, letting Internet users individually control which Web sites were delivered at a faster or slower speed by their ISP would not violate the principle of net neutrality. Van Schewick's idea is similar to a proposal that AT&T outlined this summer that would ban Internet providers from manipulating Web content — which is the FCC's goal — unless users specifically requested it. Under these approaches, known as "user-directed prioritization," consumers could ask their ISP to give streaming video priority over cloud storage traffic, or to give streaming music preferential treatment over online video games. Broadly, the practice could shift economic power for potentially determining the rise and fall of Internet businesses from ISPs to consumers; if implemented under the right conditions, user-directed or user-controlled prioritization could prevent ISPs from abusing their potential role as a gatekeeper.