My Views on Net Nutrality

On December 6,2010 the UN's Commission on Science and Technology for Development (CSTD) decided that only governments would be able to set in on the Internet Governance Forum, a committee which essentially has the power to decide how the internet is governed.  Is this really a good ideas?  Should only governments have control over the internet?  I think Vint Cerf from Google describes it best:

The beauty of the Internet is that it’s not controlled by any one group. Its governance is bottoms-up—with academics, non-profits, companies and governments all working to improve this technological wonder of the modern world. This model has not only made the Internet very open—a testbed for innovation by anyone, anywhere—it's also prevented vested interests from taking control.

Furthermore, I would even go as far as saying most government officials lack the technical knowledge necessary to effectively develop a set of laws to govern the internet.  I think we can all remember back to 2006 when the late senator Ted Steven, the man who was in charge of regulating the internet, demonstrated his poor understanding with his famous "Series of Tubes" speech:

Ten movies streaming across that, that Internet, and what happens to your own personal Internet? I just the other day got… an Internet was sent by my staff at 10 o'clock in the morning on Friday. I got it yesterday [Tuesday]. Why? Because it got tangled up with all these things going on the Internet commercially.

[…] They want to deliver vast amounts of information over the Internet. And again, the Internet is not something that you just dump something on. It's not a big truck. It's a series of tubes. And if you don't understand, those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and it's going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material.

In closing the UN needs to form a committee which includes business leaders, influential individuals, and developers.  Governments are not the only ones with a vested interest in the success of the internet and its regulation.  Including a broad selection of leaders from different disciplines is the only way to arrive at a fair set of regulations that ensure equal access for all.