Courtney Radsch (17/12/2021). Prioritization. In Belli, L.; Zingales, N. & Curzi, Y. (Eds.), Glossary of Platform Law and Policy Terms (online). FGV Direito Rio. https://platformglossary.info/prioritzation/.
Author: Courtney Radsch
Prioritization can refer to a form of traffic management and the way traffic flows through the internet and its connected parts; it can refer to the ranking of results in a hierarchy.
In the former, some network traffic is given precedence over others. Prioritization of some types of information over others can be based on importance. Users or edge providers can pay to optimize the transmission of traffic, the platform can prioritize some types of traffic over others, or users can pay access providers to transmit some traffic before or faster than other traffic. Some see prioritization as contradicting net neutrality principles.
Prioritization can also refer to the ordering of indexed results, with higher quality, or more important, or more relevant results being given priority over other results.