LIVE FROM BROADBAND WORLD FORUM: Eric Klinker, CEO of file-sharing enabler BitTorrent, called for industry cooperation on the issue of net neutrality, claiming this would “bring us solutions that are much better for our customers and better for supporting our industry”.

“We don’t want to set it in stone at the policy level. That’s the last place we want to do it. It would be great if we all as an industry self-regulate and solve problems together,” he said.

Klinker noted the importance of an open internet, noting that “if it hadn’t been this neutral network, BitTorrent wouldn’t exist”.

“Much of the internet today probably wouldn’t exist. And you want these emerging services, the next BitTorrent, the next Tor, the next Google, the next Facebook. We all want these because that’s going to make the services that we offer as an industry that much more valuable,” he continued.

But he also acknowledged that a one-size fits all approach is not necessarily the best way forward. “I don’t think we want to be purists when it comes to network neutrality. I think there needs to be a certain understanding of what can and can’t be done,” he said.

“For example, you may not know it, but BitTorrent is probably one of the biggest violators of net neutrality out there. We voluntarily degraded our traffic in the face of congestion. This is something that we took as an action,” Klinker noted.