One of the giants of the Internet yesterday reversed its position on net neutrality. Google joined Verizon in calling for new laws that would enable Internet providers to favor some Web services over others.
The news sparked vehement protests both on and off line from Internet users and consumer groups.
If the Google-Verizon proposal goes through, it would “kill Internet freedom,” says Justin Ruben, director of the advocacy group MoveOn.org.
Google and Verizon framed their proposal as “a new, enforceable prohibition against discriminatory practices.” In a policy statement, the companies asked Congress to bar phone and cable TV companies from slowing down, blocking or charging to prioritize Internet traffic flowing over their regular broadband lines.
But the companies left room for broadband providers to charge extra to route traffic from premium services such as remote medical monitoring and smart-grid controls over dedicated networks that are separate from the public Internet.
Google and Verizon also want Congress to exempt mobile devices — such as Google’s Android phones and Apple’s iPad — from net neutrality. And they are calling for restrictions on the Federal Communications Commission’s role in regulating the Internet.
The agency declined comment. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski has been an outspoken supporter of net neutrality.
The rising popularity of Web-connected mobile devices, especially Google Android smartphones, probably solidified Google’s change of heart, says Kevin Lee, CEO of search consultants Didit. The company now desires legal standing to pay Verizon a premium to reach users willing to pay for a higher tier of mobile Internet service.
It could arrange, for instance, for Google’s Chrome browser to be used exclusively on such phones and charge advertisers a premium for reaching high-demographic users. “There is value to the eyeballs using those smartphones,” Lee says.
But smaller Internet companies wouldn’t be able to keep pace. “Ultimately, consumers would pay the costs for the premium delivery, or worse, would never see the content of smaller companies,” says John Simpson, director of advocacy group Consumer Watchdog. “Google claims it won’t use premium channels for delivery, but not long ago they professed to defend true net neutrality.”
can someone who knows about this stuff tell me – would this affect content in some way, or just access? (although that’s bad enough)
It opens the door to affect content by making some of the content you might want to view “unavailable” due to slower access paths.
Compare it to a freight company charging their clients for long haul trucking. Companies who can afford to pay the higher prices get their products on trucks hitting the big interstate highways. Companies who cannot afford the premium prices get their products put on trucks limited to Route 66. The biggest corporations will just pay the freight company to buy planes to get their stuff to the destinations fastest.
Eventually, the companies whose products get to their markets the slowest lose their customers. You run the risk of strangling or starving out the last true independent venues, leaving only the media sites that are run by the corporations who are paying for their sites to load 2x-5x times faster (or more) than those pesky venues still interested in true journalism rather than the scripted and agenda-laden punditry being packaged as news.
The same goes for podcasts, streaming videos from entertainment sites (can you say Hulu vs YouTube vs Netflix vs some upstart new company trying to break in and make a buck?). You guys can sometimes see it when FPM websites load slower than usual, or podcasts download slower than usual (small ISP).
So yeah, it starts off as selected access, but eventually, it kills your content when you weren’t even looking.
And asking for mobile devices like smartphones and iPads and whatever new gadget comes along to be exempt from Net Neutrality is just a bad, greedy idea. In areas where Internet access is not available via broadband, and it’s cheaper to have cell service than Internet service in your home, you run the risk of cutting those people off from any alternative information sources before they even know they exist. It’s the divide between broadband and dialup all over again, but with potentially more sinister implications.
ps: I think the primary site with information on this (and other) proposals that might adversely affect Internet access can be found at http://www.savetheinternet.com
tmw: Remember the Big Coprorations from the original Rollerball movie? That’s we’re headed, just add “Internet” to “Energy” et al.
So much for ‘do no evil’, eh Google?