Andrew FrankFCC Chairman Julius Genachowski’s announcement of the Commission’s intention to formalize and implement net neutrality regulations has elicited all of the predictable responses, from free-market political and telecom industry opposition to applause from advocacy groups and companies like Skype. (The cable industry alone straddled the fence and offered lukewarm support while warning against excessive regulation: for example, see Comcast’s blog post.)
The FCC also announced the “beta” launch of OpenInternet.gov, a site that will track the progress of all this.
In 2004, the former FCC chairman Michael Powell established four principles that formed the basis of net neutrality policy. Now, Genachowski has added two more:
The Principle of Non-Discrimination
The fifth principle is one of non-discrimination — stating that broadband providers cannot discriminate against particular Internet content or applications.
The Principle of Transparency
The sixth principle is a transparency principle — stating that providers of broadband Internet access must be transparent about their network management practices.
Now, the Principle of Non-Discrimination has been a hot-button issue in the debate, but it’s important to note that it doesn’t prohibit carriers from selling faster internet connections for more money; it just states that they can’t discriminate on the basis of content or applications. It also allows exceptions for "reasonable network management," such as throttling Internet traffic under times of heavy usage or to prevent spam. Its intent is to counter the possibility of carriers from favoring their own services on their networks, by, for example, making (Comcast’s) Fancast work better than Hulu.
But it’s the Principle of Transparency that puts teeth in all this. In fact, the Principle of Transparency, combined with low enough switching costs and enough competition, might suffice on its own to align market forces with the intentions of the remaining regulations.
The Principle of Transparency is hard to oppose because it should generally apply to every industry, not just the Internet. And, as has been frequently demonstrated, when combined with the Internet it is far more expedient at exposing anti-consumer activities than any government agency could hope to be. That’s one of the great promises of the Internet.
Many web video platforms and content providers are already monitoring stream quality, but have little recourse but to optimize for lower bandwidth when bitrates drop inexplicably for their viewers. Transparency would empower them to get an explanation from the service providers involved, which in turn would increase competition and quality, while building confidence in the channel’s overall reliability.
If the telecom industry is to take up transparency at all, it might be to point out the double-standard of applying it to communication but not to content services, which are no less part of the public’s interest in the Internet. Why shouldn’t a company like Google be similarly required to reveal how it manages its search services? Similar issues of potential hidden discrimination are involved. Perhaps net neutrality is not just for service providers.
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4 responses so far ↓
1 Tweets that mention The FCC, Net Neutrality, and the Principle of Transparency -- Topsy.com September 23, 2009 at 6:00 am
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2 Simon Owens September 25, 2009 at 9:59 am
There’s actually a great piece in the WSJ arguing that Google isn’t exactly an innocent bystander in this whole net neutrality debate which segues into a few things; notably that while Google pretends to be against internet gate keeping, it does some questionable gate keeping of its own:
1. Google picks winners and losers online through a search algorithm that no one can see and that constantly changes,
2. Google discriminates in favor of corporate partners (through sponsored search results) and their own value-add services (by making YouTube videos, Google Maps results and other products prevalent in its search results), and
3. Google discriminates against protected political speech (countless examples here and abroad).
So the FCC has an important question to ask: as it considers revamping the rules of the online road, should it look at anticompetitve behavior among dominant Internet firms? The DOJ certainly seems to think so. And if the FCC believes antitrust law is sufficient to protect against misbehaving content/applications providers, is it not sufficient to curb bad behavior from ISPs?
3 Andrew Frank September 25, 2009 at 10:51 am
Thanks for the comment. Item #1 was just what I meant in the last paragraph of my post, more clearly stated. I’m not sure how #2 differs from any other media business, and #3 can’t really be addressed without bringing in a whole lot more stuff.
The WSJ editorial focuses on the issue of usage-based pricing, and summarizes its view of the main issue in “net neut” thus:
“But usage-based pricing that would give consumers a reason to think twice before clicking on a Google-sponsored ad? It would be the end of Google’s business model.”
This seems to me to be a pretty long way off from the substance of Genachowski’s announcement. The principle of non-discrimination focuses on discrimination against specific content or applications; as I read it it’s not a ban on metering.
And, while usage-pricing may have a chilling effect on some power users, for many it may have the effect by lowering costs and making broadband more accessible. Look at Japan’s DoCoMo iMode service, which has thrived under metered pricing. For Google and its ilk, the goal must be to keep access open and access fees low through vigorous competition; the idea that banning telco business models is essential to their survival seems very far-fetched.
So whatever one thinks of Google, I think WSJ missed the mark on this one.
4 Justin Davis September 28, 2009 at 4:39 pm
I like your thoughts. Can you send me a link to your other posts?
Justin Davis
Legal Disclaimer: Author does not represent any legal position of Lightspeed Systems Inc. and is the author’s opinion only. Lightspeed Systems provides internet filter services to K-12 schools and institutions