tatives. Representative Fred Upton, head of the House Telecommunications Subcommittee, indicated that competition could mean consumers will save $30 to $40 each month on Internet access fees. An Amendment to the Act attempted to add clauses that essentially would demand that Internet service firms treat all of the data passing through their cables, equally. The amendment was thought to be needed after the FCC discarded its rules that guaranteed net neutrality.

Catherine England, a spokseperson for eBay, commented, ''eBay supports Net Neutrality legislation tha

As telephone and digital companies continue to grow through mergers and acquisitions, network (''net'') neutrality, has become a contested area of law in the United States. Contoversial statements from Telco officials, as telephone networks appear to monopolize, has fueled the fire of independent Internet giants, such as Google, eBay, and Amazon, who fear that network owners will create a biased, two-tier Internet system, unfairly placing the telco services first, above all others. In addition, there is concern that network owners may seek to entirely censor or block content at their own discretion, thus creating an imbalance of partiality.

Website Hosting Directory, decided to examine the ramifications of this most polarizing, complicated, free speech issue, and the recent legislative defeat of attempts to enshrine the principle of net neutrality, in the United States.

Information on cable networks has been traditionally treated as content, that the vendor may regulate at will, under the First Amendment. As networks increasingly provide the same services, and have come under the same ownership, it has become difficult to justify and manage different sets of rules based on the underlying technology. This has lead to the question of which rules should apply. The FCC re-classified DSL as an information service in 2005, the same year that the US Supreme Court in FCC v. Brand X upheld the classification of cable Internet access as an information service.

The recent Amendment before the Senate, was defeated by 269 votes to 152 and the Communications Opportunity, Promotion and Enhancement Act (Cope Act) was passed by 321-101 votes. Some fear the decision will mean Internet providers will start deciding on behalf of customers which websites and services they can visit and use. The rejection of the principle of net neutrality came during a debate on the Cope Act, which, among other things, aims to make it easier for telecom firms to offer video services around America by replacing 30,000 local franchise boards with a national system, overseen by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

The vote is a defeat for Google, eBay and Amazon, who mounted vigorous lobbying campaigns prior to the vote in the House of Representatives. Representative Fred Upton, head of the House Telecommunications Subcommittee, indicated that competition could mean consumers will save $30 to $40 each month on Internet access fees. An Amendment to the Act attempted to add clauses that essentially would demand that Internet service firms treat all of the data passing through their cables, equally. The amendment was thought to be needed after the FCC discarded its rules that guaranteed net neutrality.

Catherine England, a spokseperson for eBay, commented, ''eBay supports Net Neutrality legislation that

iscretion, thus creating an imbalance of partiality.

Website Hosting Directory, decided to examine the ramifications of this most polarizing, complicated, free speech issue, and the recent legislative defeat of attempts to enshrine the principle of net neutrality, in the United States.

Information on cable networks has been traditionally treated as content, that the vendor may regulate at will, under the First Amendment. As networks increasingly provide the same services, and have come under the same ownership, it has become difficult to justify and manage different sets of rules based on the underlying technology. This has lead to the question of which rules should apply. The FCC re-classified DSL as an information service in 2005, the same year that the US Supreme Court in FCC v. Brand X upheld the classification of cable Internet access as an information service.

The recent Amendment before the Senate, was defeated by 269 votes to 152 and the Communications Opportunity, Promotion and Enhancement Act (Cope Act) was passed by 321-101 votes. Some fear the decision will mean Internet providers will start deciding on behalf of customers which websites and services they can visit and use. The rejection of the principle of net neutrality came during a debate on the Cope Act, which, among other things, aims to make it easier for telecom firms to offer video services around America by replacing 30,000 local franchise boards with a national system, overseen by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

The vote is a defeat for Google, eBay and Amazon, who mounted vigorous lobbying campaigns prior to the vote in the House of Representatives. Representative Fred Upton, head of the House Telecommunications Subcommittee, indicated that competition could mean consumers will save $30 to $40 each month on Internet access fees. An Amendment to the Act attempted to add clauses that essentially would demand that Internet service firms treat all of the data passing through their cables, equally. The amendment was thought to be needed after the FCC discarded its rules that guaranteed net neutrality.

Catherine England, a spokseperson for eBay, commented, ''eBay supports Net Neutrality legislation tha

ership, it has become difficult to justify and manage different sets of rules based on the underlying technology. This has lead to the question of which rules should apply. The FCC re-classified DSL as an information service in 2005, the same year that the US Supreme Court in FCC v. Brand X upheld the classification of cable Internet access as an information service.

The recent Amendment before the Senate, was defeated by 269 votes to 152 and the Communications Opportunity, Promotion and Enhancement Act (Cope Act) was passed by 321-101 votes. Some fear the decision will mean Internet providers will start deciding on behalf of customers which websites and services they can visit and use. The rejection of the principle of net neutrality came during a debate on the Cope Act, which, among other things, aims to make it easier for telecom firms to offer video services around America by replacing 30,000 local franchise boards with a national system, overseen by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

The vote is a defeat for Google, eBay and Amazon, who mounted vigorous lobbying campaigns prior to the vote in the House of Representatives. Representative Fred Upton, head of the House Telecommunications Subcommittee, indicated that competition could mean consumers will save $30 to $40 each month on Internet access fees. An Amendment to the Act attempted to add clauses that essentially would demand that Internet service firms treat all of the data passing through their cables, equally. The amendment was thought to be needed after the FCC discarded its rules that guaranteed net neutrality.

Catherine England, a spokseperson for eBay, commented, ''eBay supports Net Neutrality legislation tha

ean Internet providers will start deciding on behalf of customers which websites and services they can visit and use. The rejection of the principle of net neutrality came during a debate on the Cope Act, which, among other things, aims to make it easier for telecom firms to offer video services around America by replacing 30,000 local franchise boards with a national system, overseen by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

The vote is a defeat for Google, eBay and Amazon, who mounted vigorous lobbying campaigns prior to the vote in the House of Representatives. Representative Fred Upton, head of the House Telecommunications Subcommittee, indicated that competition could mean consumers will save $30 to $40 each month on Internet access fees. An Amendment to the Act attempted to add clauses that essentially would demand that Internet service firms treat all of the data passing through their cables, equally. The amendment was thought to be needed after the FCC discarded its rules that guaranteed net neutrality.

Catherine England, a spokseperson for eBay, commented, ''eBay supports Net Neutrality legislation tha

tatives. Representative Fred Upton, head of the House Telecommunications Subcommittee, indicated that competition could mean consumers will save $30 to $40 each month on Internet access fees. An Amendment to the Act attempted to add clauses that essentially would demand that Internet service firms treat all of the data passing through their cables, equally. The amendment was thought to be needed after the FCC discarded its rules that guaranteed net neutrality.

Catherine England, a spokseperson for eBay, commented, ''eBay supports Net Neutrality legislation that will prohibit Network Operators from replacing the robust open Internet with ''Pay to Play'' private networks that will force out and discriminate against content and service providers that refuse to pay new tolls. The Internet is a global network based on the principle of openness, potentially connecting everyone with everyone. As we have seen with eBay, PayPal, and Skype, the Internet has the power to create communities on a scale never seen before. Replacing the Internet with technologically advanced but closed ''private networks'' will end the Internet as we know it and reduce the ability of Internet users to reach a global market. Small business sellers rely on that global community and could be hardest hit by new fees and tiered services that impede existing and potential customers from accessing their sites.''

House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi commented, that without the Amendment, ''telecommunications and cable companies will be able to create toll lanes on the information superhighway. This strikes at the heart of the free and equal nature of the Internet.'' Speaking at a conference in late May, web creator Sir Tim Berners-Lee warned that the net faced entering a ''dark period,'' if access suppliers were allowed to choose which traffic to prioritise.

Critics of the Amendment said it would bring in unnecessary government regulation. Prior to the vote, Internet companies worried about the effect of the amendment on business and lobbied hard in favor of the Amendment, fostered by fear that their websites will become hard to reach or that they will be forced to pay to guarantee that they can get through to web users.

In a statement released by NETCompetition.org, Meg Whitman, Chief Executive Officer of eBay, e-mailed more than one million members of the auction site asking them to back the idea of net neutrality, while Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, called on staff at the search giant to support the idea, and film stars such as Alyssa Milano also backed the Amendment.

The exact interpretation of "net neutrality" is a subject of contention, due to the highly politicized use to describe both contemporary and potential usage of the Internet, as well as the proposed governmental role in regulating Internet-related trade and communications. Accord