General Assembly

General Assembly Resolution #398 “Internet Neutrality Act” (Category: Social Justice; Strength: Mild) shall be struck out and rendered null and void.

Recognizing the critical importance of internet access to international business, trade, education and communications,

Acknowledging the importance of limited international network neutrality regulation to prevent anti-competitive behaviour by internet service providers,

Commending GAR #398, "Internet Neutrality Act", for attempting to establish such regulation, while convinced that the target resolution's numerous flaws unfortunately warrant its repeal,

Concerned that the definition of "internet" used by the resolution is sufficiently vague so as to encompass telecommunications networks that are not publicly accessible, which should not be subject to a network neutrality mandate,

Alarmed that the target resolution's prohibition on throttling prohibits multiple forms of reasonable network management by internet service providers, including:

1. throttling users consuming large amounts of bandwidth when the network is congested in order to improve performance for others, and

2. prioritizing traffic with higher latency requirements than other traffic, such as video streaming or telemedicine over peer-to-peer file sharing,

Distressed by the vagueness of the target resolution's definition of "throttling", especially the confusion as to what constitutes the "maximum possible connection speed" for a particular link, which may cause the target resolution to prohibit standard industry practices such as oversubscribing the last mile,

Dismayed that the target resolution's absolute prohibition on internet service providers blocking content prevents them from providing internet filtering as a service to their customers on request, such as the case of a family, school or library requesting an ISP to block access to pornography on their connection,

Noting that prohibition on member states blocking content is meaningless, as member states can simply declare any content they wish to block illegal, rendering it unprotected by the target resolution,

Hoping that replacement legislation will soon be passed,

The General Assembly,

Repeals GAR #398, "Internet Neutrality Act".