Policy Matters Now and in the Future: Net Neutrality, Corporate Data Mining, and Government Surveillance

In this article, I will detail three key policy issues that have a profound effect on the future of the World Wide Web and Internet-based communications: net neutrality, corporate data mining, and government surveillance. Focusing on policy issues in the U.S., I will describe not only current practices and cases, but future possibilities for writers and teachers of writing. I will draw from work in composition, interdisciplinary studies on privacy, information sharing, and surveillance on the Internet, analyses of applicable policies and laws, and the advocacy efforts by organizations. Issues I will examine include the importance of and threats to net neutrality; how data mining and (so-called) privacy agreements currently work, specifically at social networking sites often used in writing classrooms; and how government and institutional surveillance is far more prevalent than many realize. I will close with recommendations for what writing instructors (and students) can do to try to craft a different future, one where writers and the visual, verbal, aural writing they read and produce online will not be collected, scrutinized, and controlled (or, realistically, at least not as much).