Net neutrality debate heating up after Supreme Court ruling

When the Supreme Court ruled early last week that Comcast was within its legal rights when it banned BitTorrent from its network, proponents of net neutrality claimed that internet service providers would exploit the ruling to block any website they wanted from their network.

The Wall Street Journal wrote in an editorial last week that it does not expect ISPs to block websites for any reason other speed limitation - the reason Comcast banned BitTorrent. Federal Communications Chairman Julies Genachowski disagrees and believes that the FFC has the right to enforce its policy of net neutrality.

GiGi Sohn, co-founder of net neutrality advocate organization Public Knowledge, recently told PBS that the decision is worrisome because it allows ISPs to ban any website from its network under the guise of excessive bandwidth occupation.

"Peer-to-peer BitTorrent is a high-bandwidth application, without a doubt, but there are others bandwidth applications that Comcast chose not to block," Sohn told PBS.

IDG News recently reported that the European Union will meet to discuss similar policies. The leader of the group researching net neutrality, Neelie Kroes, reports that the body will only apply any new regulations when it is "justified by the need to tackle specific problems."