Whatsapp: A deal with the devil

At first glance the idea of telephone companies providing  free acces to Facebook, twitter or whatsapp with their telephone plans seems a good promotion, but this is diametrically opposed to the uppermost principle of internet, the net neutrality.

The net neutrality means simply that no content can be privileged over another. In other words, your internet provider company cannot censor your acces to websites or make some sites work faster than others, or allow free access only for some of them.

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The concept of net neutrality is very important in order to ensure the future of the internet.

That is why in many countries, like Chile, the issue has been legislated.

Neutrality doesn’t affect me at all, I just want free whatsapp.

Whatsapp free Access is an irresistible offer and phone companies know it. The fact that this kind of offers undermine the net neutrality has caused the intervention of the SUBTEL. The organism resolved that this situation will oficially finish in June 1st.

A deal with the devil

The questions you should formulate yourself before signing the pact are;

Why it affects you?

What entails the small print?

You can find the answer making yourself the following question

What will happen when phone companies privilege some contents over others?

The most obviously answer is the censorship; if the phone company provides free access only to some dailys , which dailys will people read?

Second one is; What happens with other applications? Why is whatsapp free acces instead of Line?

The future entrepeneurs who develop better applications will not be able to compete because most people will be unable to access them.

The supplier could force you to occupy exclusively Windows to connect to the internet for comercial reasons, worse still, imagine Entel signs an agreement with Microsoft and the only way to surf the internet freely is using Internet Explorer. (it sounds macabre)

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But there are more undesirable consequences; One in particular: if the web content is chosen by just a few companies, it wouldn’t be different from TV world; only a couple of channels and nothing to watch.

It would happen exactly the same with the internet; telephone companies would start to sell basic internet plans with access to Facebook, twitter, 2 or 3 more social network, Wikipedia and Netflix and nothing else, limiting the infinite content of internet to five channels. The power of the internet lies in the infinite capacities that it offers.

Limit its huge network content to only a couple of websites would be extremely harmful for our society.

We must take care of net neutrality, even if it means sacrificing free access to Whatsapp

Gonzalo Sanchez

http://blog.en1mes.com/