Obama and Net Neutrality

US President Barack Obama received a B+ rating from the online community for his first 100 days in office as far as the issue of net neutrality is concerned.

Online users and administrators said that they have no complaints over Obama’s actions on net neutrality and cyber security even if the online issues have taken the “back seat” due to the global financial crisis.

On the issue of net neutrality, the Obama recently nominated Julias Genachowski as a potential candidate to head the Federal Communications Commissions (FCC).  However, the members of Congress have yet to approve the nomination of Genachowski for chairmanship.

Both the president and Genachowski expressed strong support for the network neutrality and advocated a Bill that will underline net neutrality rules during last year’s elections.

According to Free Press Policy Director Ben Scott, Obama’s version of the Bill requires recipients of the $7-billion broadband stimulus money to abide and act under the rules and regulations of net neutrality. The Bill will also mandate anti-discrimination policies against internet protocol sites, such as BitTorrent, which are often used by online users to get pirated copyrighted works.

Scott’s company was responsible for the stoppage of throttling on BitTorrent traffic by Comcast after the Free Press pressured the Federal Communications Commission to order a halt on the issue.

Meanwhile, the groups scored Obama with D with regard to the copyright issue for taking the same position of the Bush administration. The president was also reportedly continued the negotiation for the so-called Anti-counterfeiting Trade Agreement, which also gained criticism during the time of Bush.

Leaked copies of the Act stated that Obama has worked on an inner agreement with recording companies that would terminate duplicated copyright scofflaws, ban P2P file-sharing, iPod restrictions, and even a direct interference with the legal sale of branded pharmaceutical products.