The media report that Google and Verizon had closed in on a deal to buy preferential web access stunned the world and denizens of the World Wide Web accused Google's co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page of betraying the founding principles of the internet.

Consumer comments flooded in from all corners of the world. How could it be possible for the search engine agreeing to terms with the largest telecom company in the US, opening the door to special “fast lanes” for favoured internet traffic!

People have been left confused. The reaction from the net users as seen on the blogs and social media sites was alarming. One consumer called it “a classic example of how business under-invests and over-capitalises”. Another comments, “Google aren't being evil—they're being corporate.”

The concept of net neutrality has always been a precious asset for the internet users. Now it is at stake. The public reaction to the media report was so alarming that Google panicked and refuted the deal the next day and denied having talks with Verizon about paying for carriage of Google traffic. But Google CEO Eric Schmidt said that what Google means by “net neutrality” is “If you have one data type like video, you don't discriminate against one person's video in favour of another but it's okay to discriminate across different types.”

IT media guru Rabia Garib thinks Pakistan is safe from the repercussions of the deal. She explains “When we talk about convergence of platforms, this is an inevitability that we've known would occur eventually. In the present scenario, there is a relatively level playing field between individual voices (influences) which have been using the web for as long as it has been around versus the corporate media and telecom companies who are only just now finding their way through it.”

IT specialist Umair Mohsin thinks, “With the growing importance of wireless devices such as mobile phones to access the net, the exclusion of wireless internet from the net neutrality standard marks a dangerous precedent of the principles on

which the internet was formed. In a two-tiered system, the profitable tier will get all the development efforts, bandwidth expansion, priority, whatever, and the so-called lesser tier will dwindle. This is what has happened to public broadcasting.” He believes that net neutrality should be taken as a “safe” default.

The Google-Verizon agreement aims at laying ground rules for the treatment of internet traffic by the phone and cable companies over whose networks the data travels, and it is going to affect similar agreements across the globe sooner than we can expect.

The exact terms are still shrouded in mystery but it was clear that they compromise the principle of net neutrality, including the opportunity for telecom operators to offer premium services to some internet companies. Under the deal, internet traffic will not be blocked or slowed over land lines, but it may not be so with wireless devices which are increasingly being used to access the internet.

The news of Google-Verizon deal has killed off an attempt by the US telecoms regulator to patch together a broader pact backed by the US administration to safeguard net neutrality. Gigi Sohn of Public Knowledge, an internet freedom advocate, believes that “the fate of the internet is too large a matter to be decided by negotiations involving two companies, even as big as Verizon and Google.”