Net Neutrality Bill Falters in Senate

Things don’t look good for net neutrality:

In a dramatic tie vote Wednesday, a U.S. Senate committee rejected an amendment that would have preserved the status quo of equal pricing for all Internet traffic, an issue known as network neutrality.

Although the net neutrality amendment did not prevail in the committee, the issue could be revived. The amendment that failed was part of a larger telecommunications bill that passed the committee and now heads to the full Senate. A similar amendment could be reintroduced into the larger bill before that vote.

Tim Wu wrote an essay in Slate recently about why people should care about network neutrality—”The future of the Internet depends on it!”—so go read that for a good backgrounder.