By Liang Jia Sheng (P.104 Subang Intern, 2017) Executive Summary:
There is little to none legislation on net neutrality or even on the rights of Internet users in Malaysia.
Net neutrality has gained prominence around the world due to high-profile cases in the United States, where Internet service providers (ISPs) have repeatedly disadvantaged certain media content providers over others and have prevented their end-users from having free and fair access to legal content.
Net neutrality regulations are needed to curb unfair practices of ISPs and media content providers towards end-users. These regulations should minimally include: 3.1 No blocking of legal content; 3.2 No throttling (slowing) of lawful Internet traffic; 3.3 No paid prioritisation of select content; and 3.4 Transparency in network traffic management.
Net neutrality is an issue that has surfaced in Malaysia only recently, due to a sharp increase of content consumption over the Internet, mostly via mobile devices. Regulations need to be in place to protect end-users against potentially unfair treatment from their ISPs.