Barbara van Schewick, professor at Stanford Law School and coordinator of the Center of Internet and Society at the same institution, came to Brazil for a series of events about net neutrality. Van Schewick is one of the most prominent specialists on the subject of net neutrality, and her book Internet Architecture and Innovation is currently considered as a major reference for the debate about public policy and internet architecture. In addition, many of her papers play an important role in the regulatory debate in the US and several other countries.

In the middle of her appointments in Brazil, van Schwick sat down for almost one hour with Francisco Brito Cruz, director of Internet Lab, and Pedro Ramos, research associate at Internet Lab, to discuss the state of art of the discussions about net neutrality in Brazil and worldwide. The conversation included topics such as the current state of the academic and regulatory about net neutrality, the outcomes of the regulation on the subject in the US and how it can influence the Brazilian debate, what is the agnostic treatment suggested by van Schewick in her papers, what are the possible consequences and answers to zero-rating, and what are the main challenges for researchers on the regulatory field of net neutrality.

The full interview is available in video (below), and it was transcribed by Internet Lab (also below). This work is part of several initiatives that have been promoted in Brazil so as to make progress in the net neutrality debate. The subject, which was barely known by the scholarly community in the recent past, has been gaining more and more attention from researchers from different schools and specialties, and the Brazilian research has made important progresses so as to go further on simplistic approaches. With this iniative, we at Internet Lab wish to make available to these researchers an important source of knowledge and discussion, which may contribute to create conditions to mature this research field in Brazil.

Videos:

Document (click on the image to take a look):