Issue of the week: Is net neutrality dead?

Hardball is coming to the Internet, said Rich Jaroslovsky in Bloomberg.com. Last week, Internet search giant Google and telecommunications provider Verizon published a joint “declaration of principles” laying out their vision for the future of the Web. The two giants offered “high-sounding language” about preserving what they called the “open Internet,” but it’s clear that what they really want is to kill “net neutrality.” That policy, which currently rules the digital road, dictates that Internet service providers “treat all information the same way, rather than cutting side deals to favor some bits over others.” Google CEO Eric Schmidt claims to support net neutrality, but like Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg, he sees the profit potential in providing extra-high-speed service to the highest bidders while relegating nonpaying customers to the horse-and-buggy lane. With Internet access tiered, 800-pound gorillas would thrive while little guys suffered. Google and Verizon are trying to carve out gigantic loopholes in net neutrality requirements for cable and DSL broadband, while eliminating them altogether for fast-growing wireless broadband.

Thank goodness for that, said Nick Schulz in AOLnews.com. The bureaucrats at the Federal Communications Commission interpret net neutrality as a mandate “purportedly to protect consumers from Internet companies bent on taking advantage of them.” Without net neutrality, this thinking goes, companies would charge high rates for downloading data-intensive files. But even if Google and Verizon really are plotting to gouge consumers, they won’t succeed in a marketplace where other heavyweights, including AT&T, Apple, and Microsoft, “are beating each other’s brains out” to win consumer loyalty. Besides, said Gordon Crovitz in The Wall Street Journal, we should differentiate among different forms of content. Consider the example of a woman implanted with a pacemaker that wirelessly alerts her doctor if she experiences cardiac arrhythmia. It’s perfectly reasonable to give that data high-speed priority over a video of “a squirrel on water skis.”

Google and Verizon aren’t vying to help little old ladies with heart conditions get across the cyberstreet, said The Boston Globe in an editorial. Rather, Verizon envisions partnering with, say, a Hollywood studio to offer high-speed movie downloads over its network. With such a deal in place, movies from a rival studio, it’s safe to assume, would stream “at a snail’s pace.” That’s why Internet consumers need a federal agency such as the FCC to keep “their service providers honest.” But in 2002, the FCC abandoned its responsibilities by defining broadband access as an information service, which it doesn’t regulate, rather than a telecommunications service, which it does. It’s time to rewrite the rules and bring the Internet under FCC jurisdiction. Or would you rather have big corporations regulate themselves?

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