Quote:
Originally Posted by deed02392
I actually see them as the same thing over the long term. I see traffic shaping as a step towards traffic prioritisation, hence corporations buying traffic, ISP's selling exclusivity to the highest bidder, the segmentation of the web and eventually the end of the global, 'free' internet as we know it. ISP's can own all the hardware and fibre they want, but they have no right over the traffic that goes through it as the responsibility they so wish to distance themselves from (i.e. copyright infringement).
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Traffic has been shaped on public networks for over a decade and that hasn't happened yet. That's just considering hardware appliances, it's of course perfectly feasible to deprioritise by having certain destinations you don't like very much crammed together on cheap congested transit and give uncongested connectivity to others.
ISPs are perfectly allowed to inspect traffic in an automated fashion for network management purposes without losing common carrier protection or violating privacy - see RIPA for more details.