The network neutrality debate has two perspectives. You have only presented one perspective. And by the way, I agree that we should not have government regulation that "censors" the flow of information on the internet.
The second, and overlooked, perspective is the responsibility of corporations not to do what you want the government not to do. To put it another way, corporations must not censor the internet themselves.
Websites such as the Gripeline, TechDirt, Freedom to Tinker, and this forum have exposed numerous attempts by content providers to "manage" the flow of content, even to the extent of forcing third parties to monitor (spy on) networks to actively seek "unauthorized" content so that it can removed.
If the government should stay out of network regulation then private industry should stay out too. Since, I don't have much belief in the honesty of corporations to keep their hands clean, I wouldn't mind seeing network neutrality laws that would fulfill this very limited purpose.
v
· 2 years ago
Regulations live Steve suggests could be good, but I'd think they'd work best if consumers (or a state attorney general) could just sue misbehaving ISPs when they commit violations, rather than have a government agency actively regulating.
Steve Schultze
· 2 years ago
Adam Thierer has just written another thought-provoking post on TLF/PFF about the well-trod net neutrality debate. He is riffing on a ZDNet article by long-time net neutrality critic Larry Downes. The heart of his (and Larry's) argument is that the Internet should remain free from meddlesome regulation. I must say that I wholeheartedly agree. Where I take issue, is whether most net neutrality proposals are necessarily meddlesome. This is a critical distinction too fine for Thierer or Downes.
I agree with Thierer on a great number of issues. He is spot-on when it comes to the perils of presumptive content regulation in the name of child protection. The risks of caving to DOPA-style regulation or other ill-conceived technological "solutions" to the issues that youth face online cannot be underestimated. Closing off vast swaths of the internet to the next generation of online artists, innovators, and entrepreneurs is self-evidently foolish. What Thierer fails to recognize is that the risks he envisions under the banner of "child protection" are paralleled in the world of net neutrality -- just not in the way that he assumes.
I object to legislation like Markey's because it ties the network operator's hands with respect to providing the service that the market demands. Let's look at one shining example: the VoIP services offered by cable operators. For many years now, these services have used the PacketCable and DOCSIS standards to provide priority to to VoIP packets over the rest of the best effort Internet traffic on the cable network. The cable industry developed these standards for two big reasons: to provide a consistently high-quality voice service to their subscribers, and to avoid investing in antiquated and expensive circuit switching equipment to provide those voice services. In other words, they were trying to compete with the telcos with a service of roughly equal quality and they found a cheaper and more advanced way of providing that service at lower cost than the legacy telco solution. And yes, the cable company charges extra for the voice service. Do we really want to tell the cable company that they can't prioritize their voice packets any more? Of course not.
All Comments
The second, and overlooked, perspective is the responsibility of corporations not to do what you want the government not to do. To put it another way, corporations must not censor the internet themselves.
Websites such as the Gripeline, TechDirt, Freedom to Tinker, and this forum have exposed numerous attempts by content providers to "manage" the flow of content, even to the extent of forcing third parties to monitor (spy on) networks to actively seek "unauthorized" content so that it can removed.
If the government should stay out of network regulation then private industry should stay out too. Since, I don't have much belief in the honesty of corporations to keep their hands clean, I wouldn't mind seeing network neutrality laws that would fulfill this very limited purpose.
Adam Thierer has just written another thought-provoking post on TLF/PFF about the well-trod net neutrality debate. He is riffing on a ZDNet article by long-time net neutrality critic Larry Downes. The heart of his (and Larry's) argument is that the Internet should remain free from meddlesome regulation. I must say that I wholeheartedly agree. Where I take issue, is whether most net neutrality proposals are necessarily meddlesome. This is a critical distinction too fine for Thierer or Downes.
I agree with Thierer on a great number of issues. He is spot-on when it comes to the perils of presumptive content regulation in the name of child protection. The risks of caving to DOPA-style regulation or other ill-conceived technological "solutions" to the issues that youth face online cannot be underestimated. Closing off vast swaths of the internet to the next generation of online artists, innovators, and entrepreneurs is self-evidently foolish. What Thierer fails to recognize is that the risks he envisions under the banner of "child protection" are paralleled in the world of net neutrality -- just not in the way that he assumes.
(my critique continues at http://managingmiracles.blogspot.com/)</p>
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