Net Neutrality

Net neutrality or open internet is the concept that internet traffic flows without regard to its origins or content. Columbia Law School professor Tim Wu coined the term network neutrality, commonly shortened to “net neutrality,” in a 2003 law review article. In the United States, net neutrality has been the subject of numerous Federal Communications Commission (FCC) policy shifts and shaped by a handful of federal judicial opinions.

The internet developed in the 1960s as a military and academic communications system designed to ensure government communications in the event of a nuclear war or other catastrophe. When the internet became widely commercial and accessible to ordinary users in the 1990s, U.S. Congress revised the Communications Act of 1934 by passing updated amendments known as the Telecommunications ...