On Tuesday January 14^th, advocates of free speech and an open internet were delivered a blow when the Court of Appeals for the D.C. circuit struck down the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) Net Neutrality rules in Verizon v. FCC.

There are many different definitions of what exactly Net Neutrality is, but it’s basically the ability to the go where you want and do what you want on the internet without extra charges, artificially slow accessibilities or blockages.

Net Neutrality protects us the consumer. It stops internet providers from slowing down, degrading, or even blocking content or access to online content. When over 70% of Americans have only one option for internet providers in their area, this is a big deal.

But here’s possible scenarios in a world without Net Neutrality, and outlines why this is important:

• Your internet provider provides you the option to buy voice over internet from them, so they decide to degrade or block the competition, making them the only real option,
• Your internet provider owns some of the content it delivers (for example Comcast and NBC) and block other services to watch the same or similar content so you have to use their video on demand service,
• An exclusive deal is struck where a service, say a video game platform or digital comics platform, pay and become the only distributor or platform of that content through your internet provider,
• Business pay, or people have to pay, to have their content delivered quicker, in an age where ever millisecond counts (think stock trading or online ticket buying). The haves can outpace the have-nots when it comes to online activities.

I can go on and on with these types of scenarios, and AT&T is already trying to cut deals to deliver some content quicker (that destroys their entire claims for the need of data caps, but that’s another issue). The idea of Net Neutrality is to keep the internet a free and open platform for innovation and expression.

But even though the DC court has said that the FCC cannot enforce network neutrality as it has in the past, it did say it is their job to regulate the internet and protect consumers. Net Neutrality is in the interest of websites, consumers, and the internet as a whole.

The Entertainment Consumers Association has set up a simple form where you can write your Congressmen, the President and the FCC and ask them to enshrine these rules that will past the test of court.

Full disclosure: I act as the Advocacy Director for the Entertainment Consumers Association