The internet is under threat. At risk is what’s known as « net neutrality », or the principle of free access for each user to every online site, regardless of content. That’s the view of the man who coined the above term, Tim Wu, whose new book, The Master Switch, was published yesterday. It argues the internet now runs the risk of not just political censorship – as seen in Libya and Egypt, and in the American reaction to WikiLeaks – but that of commercial censorship, too. Monopolies such as Google and Apple may soon decide to choose which parts of the internet to give us – or switch off – and in some cases have already started to do so.

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