We've become quite accustomed to the neutral internet. Telecoms and ISPs, however, could threaten to upset that apple cart. Here's the threat to digital marketers.

The net neutrality issue is rearing its ugly head again. This time, the focus is not on whether telecoms can charge online publishers to ensure fast access to their websites and applications, but whether telecoms and ISPs can limit bandwidth to their high-consumption users or control the content they see.

Make no mistake, this represents two sides of the same coin. I'll get to that in a minute.

A week ago, iMedia Connection's Dawn Anfuso referenced a screenshot in her feature story of Google's homepage, as rendered by the browser of Rogers Communications, an ISP offering high-speed access. The image shows a warning from the ISP that the user was approaching the 75GB monthly limit set by Rogers and that additional fees would be incurred if the user went over. Notice from that screenshot that Rogers is aligned with Yahoo, and that the Yahoo logo appears on a Google page, thanks to the ISP.

I like this example because it clearly demonstrates several of the things that could go wrong if the balance of net neutrality were upset.

For one, if telecoms and ISPs set the precedent that they can change content the user requested (even without the user's express knowledge), or place upper bounds on the bandwidth users are allowed to consume, we could end up with the following scenarios:

• ISPs take control of the advertising model -- What's preventing ISPs from simply inserting their own advertising into what users see?
• Value proposition changes -- Users would make value judgments on whether their consumption is worth the bandwidth charges. You might see video sites plummet in usage as people decide it's not worth seeing extra charges on their bill for watching a significant number of videos on YouTube that month.
• Freedom of information dies -- Put quite simply, if telecoms and ISPs can decide what we are able to see online, the medium itself becomes less valuable as people wonder about how the telecom agenda is influencing what they're able to find.
• The Name of the Game becomes "partnerships" -- Remember the mid- to late-1990s when every online business needed a partnership with a portal in order to drive scale? We could return to that era, with telecoms and ISPs replacing portals as the "must have" partners.

Thinking about it for just a short moment will illuminate how the business landscape we've all come to appreciate and enjoy would change radically. And I haven't even explored the issues that came up in the first net neutrality debate, which would charge online content and community providers for the privilege of using the pipes.

Those issues would effectively entrench category leaders and make them difficult to unseat. Search, for instance, benefits tremendously from being both quick and accurate. If Google began to slow down tremendously one day, you might see a lot of people flee from the search engine in favor of quicker alternatives. In that way, market share becomes a function highly influenced by the ability to pay to keep things moving quickly.

What could happen when every content access decision becomes a business decision on the part of an ISP? Would we ever be able to access MYISPsucks.com again? Or would our ISP decide it's not in their best interests to let us participate in that community? What if a search engine approached the ISP with a dump truck full of money and paid it based on the notion that all search requests should redirect to its engine? As you can see, what people see and use on the internet could quickly become the domain of the telecom, and I doubt telecoms will act against their own financial interests.

Regardless of whether they're charging users or publishers, telecoms and ISPs are putting themselves in a position to be gatekeepers for everything we've built over the past decade and a half. When the focus on customers shifts from whether or not they have access, to how much access they have, and to what content, we're all going to be harmed in the long run.

Folks, normally I detest slippery slope arguments. But I do believe that if we grant telecoms a foothold here, the internet marketing business could find itself in serious trouble within a relatively short length of time.

Tom Hespos is the president of Underscore Marketing and blogs at Hespos.com. Read full bio.