IFLA Statement on Net Neutrality and Zero-rating: At the backstage of the problem

Abstract

The article analyzes the IFLA Statement on Network Neutrality and Zero-rating adopted on August 15, 2016 at the meeting of the World Library and Information Congress of the 82nd IFLA Conference inColumbus,USA, its importance for the international library community, as well as the socio-economic and cultural context, which was due to its adoption. Speaking in defense of network neutrality and against the practice of the zero-rating, IFLA designated a zone of latent for that period conflict of commercial interests of Internet providers and rules of equal access of the user to all types of content without speed and additional fee. Conflict this year later, in 2017, became public in the period of active struggle against the abolition of the principle of network neutrality in theUnited States.The market rate of traffic, the green light of which was opened as a result of the cancellation of network neutrality in theUnited Stateson December 14, 2017 by the Federal Communications Commission, is particularly sensitive for libraries with limited funding, unable to pay for high-speed Internet. In addition to paid access to broadband Internet, the obvious danger for libraries is the practice of zero rating, providing free and unlimited traffic in the framework of popular social networks or package tariff plans from large corporations, which leads to the monopolization of the information market by the largest IT corporations and the further marginalization of libraries.The displacement of cultural and educational institutions as a non-profitable sector on the roadside negatively affects libraries as providers of access and as creators of Internet content; strikes both on the acquisition of funds, and on the maintenance of readers of high-quality noncommercial information. As natural opponents of progressing monetization, the Library's networks favor the interpretation of the Internet as a public service, a publicly available public resource with a transparent and stable tariff, legislatively protected from attempts by providers to receive super-profits.