Tim Wu, who ran a complelling race for Lieutenant Governor in NY and is a professor at Columbia Law School, writes:  A neutral network might be designed without legal prodding – as in the original internet.   In an ideal world, either competition or enlightened self-interest might drive carriers to design neutral networks.

The problem now is favoritsim by the carriers to certain subscribers.  If there were no favoritism and if the carriers were not allowed to use the information that flowed through the wires, cables and ether, they would have to be subscription based.  Companies like Verizon are now.  Google of course is not. Europeans are more sensitive to privacy issues than people in the US.  NSA and Edward Snowden have made this issue more prominent.

Preisdent Obama has come out for net neutrality.  Under this concept, the internet would be treated like a utility.