Tech firms urge government rethink on net neutrality

Several major technology companies and organisations have written an open letter to communications minister Ed Vaizey urging a rethink of the government's position on net neutrality.

Nineteen signatories, including eBay, Skype and Yahoo, said in the letter that, while aspects of the government's internet policy are welcome, such as ensuring access to legal content and services, the decision to forego any form of net neutrality regulation needs changing.

"The internet should remain open so that everyone is able to send and receive the content, use the services and run the applications of their choice, on the device of their choice, within the law," the letter states.

"Traffic management should be kept to a minimum, and deployed for purely technical, security or legal reasons. There should be no discrimination in the treatment of traffic, based on device or the origin and/or destination of the content, service or application."

The letter also argues that any traffic management must be accompanied by " meaningful information" to give people information on how services may differ.

Vaizey said last month that the government will not introduce any direct form of regulation to stop internet service providers tiering the delivery of internet traffic, a position directly opposite to that taken in the US.

"The government is no fan of regulation and we should intervene only when it is clearly necessary to deliver important benefits for consumers," he said.

Critics of tiered internet delivery argue that it could damage the innovation that has been fostered by the internet by removing the level playing field and allowing larger firms to pay for better connections to customers, creating an imbalance in the market.

The letter was also signed by chief executives of Ariadne Capital, Consumer Focus, IMRG, the National Union of Journalists, the Open Rights Group, Oxford University, TechHub, Truphone, The Filter, We7, The Coalition for a Digital Economy and Which?.