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[edit] Law in the United States

Main article: Network neutrality in the United States
There is ongoing legal and political wrangling in the US regarding net neutrality. In the meantime the FCC has claimed some jurisdiction over the issue and has laid down guideline rules that it expects the telecommunications industry to follow. On February 11, 2008 Rep. Ed Markey and Rep. Chip Pickering introduced HR5353 "To establish broadband policy and direct the Federal Communications Commission to conduct a proceeding and public broadband summit to assess competition, consumer protection, and consumer choice issues relating to broadband Internet access services, and for other purposes."[27]
On June 28, 2006, the Senate Commerce Committee approved the Telecommunications and Opportunities Reform Act, which entails guidelines battling discrimination. The act detailed broadband consumer rights without nondiscriminatory language urged by net neutrality advocates, thought to be a compromise between the ever-battling net neutrality campaigns. It also instituted parameters regarding the actions taken by broadcasters and various media players.

[edit] Law outside the U.S.

Net neutrality in the common carrier sense has been instantiated into law in many countries, including Japan.[citation needed] In Japan, the nation's largest phone company, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone, operates a service called Flet's Square over their FTTH high speed Internet connections that serves video on demand at speeds and levels of service higher than generic Internet traffic. In South Korea, VoIP is blocked on high-speed FTTH networks except where the network operator is the service provider.[28]
In Europe however, the European Commission, within the proposals to amend the European regulatory framework for the electronic communications networks and services published on 13 November 2007, considers that prioritisation, or in other words product differentiation, "is generally considered to be beneficial for the market so long as users have choice to access the transmission capabilities and the services they want" and "consequently, the current EU rules allow operators to offer different services to different customers groups, but not allow those who are in a dominant position to discriminate in an anti-competitive manner between customers in similar circumstances."[29] Furthermore, the European Commission thinks that the current European legal framework cannot effectively prevent network operators from degrading their customers. Therefore, it is proposed to empower the European Commission to impose a minimum quality of services in order to tackle this situation.[30] In addition, an obligation of transparency is also proposed to limit network operators' ability to set up restrictions on end-users' choice of lawful content and applications.[31]
The first major debate on Net Neutrality in the UK was held at Westminster on the 20 March 2006, sponsored by AT&T. It was attended by the Government and Opposition trade secretaries, telecommunications regulators, industry figures and other experts in the field. Google, a noted supporter of net neutrality, declined an invitation to the debate, and then called it "biased".[32]. The conclusion was that Net Neutrality laws in the UK would be "extreme... unattractive and impractical" and that it was "an answer to problems we don't have, using a philosophy we don't share"[32]

why fix it if it ain't broke