In what looks to be a landmark case…at least for the time being…Comcast today won the right, against the FCC, to dictate terms for limiting web traffic of users on their network. In a unanimous decision by judges, the company is now able to block websites and other internet based services without government authority . Ultimately this could be bad for everyone, since without government control, broadband companies have now found themselves in a position where they are policing themselves. This, in affect was what the lawsuit was all about anyway, since the initial suit was raised after the FCC prohibited Comcast from shutting down BitTorrent in 2008, which Comcast had proposed to disallow service to as a matter of policy. The FCC for it’s part, will most likely appeal the decision, and may seriously consider putting internet services into a stricter regulatory class, a move which would make future policy positions by companies such as Comcast more difficult.

Overall, it’s sort of a toss up as to who’s in the right and who’s in the wrong regarding this move. Still, it seems to me that net neutrality is a good thing, since while I don’t believe it’s necessarily in Comcast’s best interests to regularly censor web traffic, it’s a policy, which, as we’ve seen with companies such as Microsoft and Google, could easily be taken advantage of. And while I’m not necessarily a fan of companies such as BitTorrent getting away with what is essentially some form of copyright infringement, the danger to legitimate enterprises is quite real without a universal governance in place such as the FCC would provide. Keep in mind now that Google is actually on the opposite side of this issue, still, you get the picture.

Government policies in this situation really are in place to protect the rights of the little guy, and not just to arbitrarily decide who lives and who dies. As it stands, this decision will most likely be the talk of the town in the internet community for quite a few years to come.