This concept has legal, social and philosophical dimensions.Net neutrality is about unhindered accessibility on the internet.Here an idea can vie with big money.This coinage came into circulation in 2002. It was coined by Tim Wu, a law professor and an author.According to him, net neutrality means no authority should be able to decide what kind of information is and is not allowed on internet.

Of course, there are costs of running and maintaining the network hardware. Wu too recognised this. The costs are recovered by charging for usage. People would pay for more bandwidth, not for access to certain sites.

The FCC has identified net as a public utility.It bars the service providers to charge the content providers for preferential treatment.

All this leads to question us the ownership of the internet. Does it vest with the service providers? Or the consumers who connect to it ? Or the content companies ? All these have competing interests. Someone has to balance these. Who? Is the government’s intervention necessary to preserve net neutrality ?