Ten things that finally killed Net neutrality
If you haven't heard much about Net neutrality this year, you're not alone. It went from being the political equivalent of a first-run Broadway show, with accompanying street protests and high profile votes in Congress, to a third-rate performance with no budget and slumping attendance.
So what killed Net neutrality? Here's a list, in no particular order:
You don't see these kinds of marching-in-the-street protests anymore
(Credit: Declan McCullagh/mccullagh.org)1. The Bush administration. Democrats may control Congress, but the White House and federal agencies matter. And the administration made it perfectly clear on Thursday that no new Net neutrality regulations are necessary. That gives the Republicans in Congress their marching orders, and a unified GOP front means the Democrats are more likely to expend ammunition elsewhere.
2. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The California Democrat claimed to adore Net neutrality last year, saying: "Without Net neutrality the current experience that Internet users enjoy today is in jeopardy. Without the Markey Amendment, telecommunications and cable companies will be able to create toll lanes on the information superhighway. This strikes at the heart of the free and equal nature of the Internet." The Markey Amendment was defeated in a Republican Congress last year.
But even though Pelosi's now in charge, she's done precisely nothing (at least nothing that's been publicly visible) to live up to last year's rhetoric.
3. The AT&T merger. Net neutrality rules were part of the Federal Communications Commission's approval of the AT&T and BellSouth merger in December 2006. The company pledged not to privilege, degrade, or prioritize "any packet transmitted over AT&T/BellSouth's wireline broadband Internet access service based on its source, ownership or destination" for two years. That defused concerns for a while, which had grown after AT&T CEO Edward Whitacre was quoted as talking about giving Google and other Internet companies a "free ride" on his network, whatever that means.
4. A fragmenting coalition. The major pro-Net neutrality coalition last year was called "It's Our Net" and boasted 148 members. Now, says coalition spokesman Eric London, it's been "reconstituted in a different form" with a broader focus and is called the Open Internet Coalition. (The old domain name redirects to the new one.)
But the list of members today is far smaller, at just 74 members. Missing are previous members including Adobe, Amazon.com, the Business Software Alliance, Expedia, Intel, Microsoft, Sony, and Yahoo. Companies that stayed in the coalition include eBay, Earthlink, Google, NetCoalition (which includes CNET Networks), and TiVo.
5. Mixed messages. Most proposals for extensive Net neutrality regulations have given the FCC broad authority, not least because the chairman of the Federal Trade Commission said in August 2006 that she was skeptical of aggressive regulation.
Then Google's head of public policy said a few months later that "cutting the FCC out of the picture would be a smart move" in favor of Justice Department or FTC enforcement. Now, maybe he was misquoted, and Google subsequently said there's "no change" in the company's position. And it's true that the company has continued to be a part of pro-Net neutrality coalitions. Still, the legislation that Google officially supported in mid-2006 would have put the FCC--not the FTC--in charge.
There's also Google CEO Eric Schmidt's speech last month in Aspen, Colorado that I covered. By Google's standards, it was remarkably conciliatory: it mentioned Net neutrality only once and did not call for new federal laws. Schmidt even acknowledged "the billions of dollars that have been spent to do both wireless and wireline data deployment networks"--by the broadband providers that have been his political enemies for the last two years.
6. The Bush administration. Yes, it's on the list twice. It's on here again because of how much President Bush's and the Justice Department's arguably illegal wiretapping program and related policies have consumed Congress. The four most recent headlines on the House Judiciary Committee's Web site are about FISA or the Justice Department. In the Senate, the Judiciary Committee has held no fewer than seven hearings on the dismissal of U.S. Attorneys. It's true that the two Commerce committees haven't been tied up with those topics, but the Iraq War and global warming have been higher priorities than less pressing concerns about broadband regulation.
7. The Federal Trade Commission. The lifelong bureaucrats at the FTC are hardly a bunch of Hayek-quoting, Ron Paul-voting libertarians. Which is why, as I wrote in June, it's notable that they came out with a report saying no new laws are necessary. In part it's something of a turf battle, of course, and a way to warn the FCC that it doesn't have a monopoly on this issue. But it could have been far more enthusiastic about new laws, and is sure to make otherwise pro-regulation Democrats think twice about supporting them again.
8. No smoking gun. The problem with the Net neutrality debate has been two-fold. First, the term is vague and means different things to different people. Does it mean broadband providers shouldn't block content (a perfectly reasonable principle, that) or does it mean the FCC gets to prevent AT&T from entering into deals to make its partners' TV shows stream without hiccups? Second, it's possible to support the goals of Net neutrality while being deeply skeptical of the FCC getting things right when it comes to Internet regulation.
Which brings me to Point No. 8: With one or two exceptions like the Madison River blocking, there's no evidence of wrongdoing by broadband providers. Sure, maybe broadband providers have been on their best behavior now that their arch-nemesis Rep. Ed Markey can haul them before his subcommittee, but without horrific examples of abuses (or, even any examples of abuses) it's hard for advocacy groups to raise the alarm.
9. 700 MHz wireless spectrum. Perhaps as a result of being trounced repeatedly in Congress last year, the proponents of Net neutrality have spent 2007 lobbying federal agencies instead (this is also known as the "FCC is a softer touch theory"). One catalyst was probably Columbia University law prof Tim Wu's paper, and Google's lobbying to persuade the FCC to impose open access requirements on a chunk of the valuable 700 MHz spectrum. They won in part in July, and Google said last month it will "probably" place a bid.
10. Partisan gridlock. Most technology debates in Congress aren't especially partisan: Both Democrats and Republicans fall over each other to enact unconstitutional restrictions on free speech when it comes to laws like the Communications Decency Act. The R&D tax credit is another. But somehow along the way, perhaps because Internet companies allied themselves so closely with MoveOn.org (hardly a non-partisan group), it became a partisan issue. And that led to the usual partisan gridlock.
James Gattuso, a senior research fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation, has a related explanation he told me on Thursday: "When this became a hard left issue, I think some of the for-profit members of the coalition got cold feet. Some of the rhetoric got a bit out of control on the left. They started talking about the evils of pricing and the evils of price discrimination in markets. Anyone in the corporate side had to have second thoughts about that."
I should point out, to be fair, that Art Brodsky, a spokesman for pro-Net neutrality group Public Knowledge, thinks I'm wrong about the death of Net neutrality (and also thinks that Gattuso is wrong on the hard-left impact). "It's not dead," Brodsky said. "It's dormant, pending metamorphosis. It will re-emerge at some point." His group still wants Net neutrality rules enshrined into law as "part of a bigger broadband policy rather than a centerpiece of a discrete issue."
He may be right. Maybe some Net neutrality bill will come back from the dead under a Democratic administration in 2009. But I'd say the most likely scenario is that Net neutrality, at least in its current form, fades away like Show Boat and other onetime Broadway hits that are now just faint memories.
Declan McCullagh, CNET News' chief political correspondent, chronicles the intersection of politics and technology. He has covered politics, technology, and Washington, D.C., for more than a decade, which has turned him into an iconoclast and a skeptic of anyone who says, "We oughta have a new federal law against this." E-mail Declan. 
Aren't people tired of unsubstantiated and nonsensical metrics yet? The number is whatever the source wants it to be to support their position. Stop, think.
First you libs didn't want the Internet regulated, now you do, but only certain parts. Go ahead - let the government's nose under the tent. You'll end up being sorry.
(Not to be nitpicky, but notice how Heritage is labeled "conservative", but no "liberal" label is given to MoveOn.org - why might that be?)
This is another case of big corporate dollars trumping consumer rights, and when it comes to corporate cash, both parties have members who will feed at the trough at our expense every time.
It was no surprise to see the FTC green light the concept of corporate control of the net. They wouldn't know antitrust if it moved in with them.
The Democrats in Congress that are getting big checks from Verizon and other big lobby groups are also happy to support the squelching of net neutrality.
The only way to fight this is to put in so many calls to the switchboards of your elected officials that it becomes more expensive for them to cash that check from Verizon than it is to do the right thing.
And who is talking about reregulating the Internet here? The whole point of net neutrality is that the net is an equal playing field. Want faster access, by a super premium account from your ISP. But don't establish a playing field that will inevitably favor only the deepest corporate pockets to transport the innovative products and services that are under development today for release tomorrow.
Seems to me the free market should allow every player to compete on merits, not on favoritism by rigged playing fields by telecom oligarchs.
My only significant quibble is that I would have made more of a point that clearly the issue is not grass roots, but a well orchestrated campaign by Moveon.org and its functional affilliates Free Press, Public Knowledge and the New America foundation -- and its lead corporate sponsor/ally -- Google.
They have obviously made a political campaign decision to go "dormant" on net neutrality as Mr. Brodsky suggested.
When the Moveon.org crowd decides to re-unleash their dogs on the issue it will burst back onto the scenes again.
My most important takeaway on all this is that this net neutrality "dormancy" exposes this issue for what it is: a manufactured bogus policy issue pushed into the forefront by very sophisticated political/policy operatives -- there is zero grass roots groundswell for net neutrality here -- only millions of Moveon.org email-list puppets on a string... and an apparently insatiable appetite for corporate welfare by Google...
Last time I checked, there was nobody left in charge of the Justice Department because they've all resigned in disgrace. Amazing what a little oversight will uncover in this administration.
And bringing up the firing of prosecutors after a change in administration (the Reno 93) conveniently forgets about the mass-firings of political appointee prosecutors everytime there is a new president, particularly from another political party. What was unprecedented was the mid-term firing of prosecutors for purely political purposes and then smearing them in public with attacks on their competency.
And let's not even go there if you are suggesting Democrats are over-investigating this White House. After more than 400 subpoenas were issued on issues all the way down to who was on Bill Clinton's cat's Christmas card list, don't make the mistake of checking into a deluxe suite at the Hypocracy Hotel.
manually...
I followed up on this over on my blog:
http://blogs.cnet.com/8301-13512_1-9773691-23.html
. png
Since its a lie, the telecoms are really saying that they are going to degrade everyone that doesn't pay their bribe - this they can do, by increasing packet loss.
This protection racket - "pay us so nothing bad will happen to your data" - should really fall under RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act), but we currently have a corrupt Attorney General's office.
Here is a perfect example that you and now our wonderful Justice Dept. have been repeating over and over:
It could also shift the "entire burden of implementing costly network expansions and improvements onto consumers," the agency said in its filing.
What complete nonsense! Where is the money for expansion going to come from other than the consumer? No matter what legislation is in place, consumers always pay for everything, it won't come out of a CEO's pocket!
So there is your intellectual dishonesty- why should we believe anything else out that comes out of your mouth? So stop the lies and disinformation about net neutrality. If you don't like the fact that such legislation could negatively impact the cozy position of your patrons, just say so!
At this point abuses by ISP's are not rampant and the FCC promises to keep an eye on things. Chances are nothing will get enacted until consumer complaints reach a certain crescendo.
I supposed we'll wait until the Chinese or some other country builds it first and shame ourselves for not keeping up. Then our politicians will waste even more time and resources trying to blame each other. The Congress needs a name change. Let's call it The Hopeless.
In a recent article posted by the Washington Post entitled, "Japan's Warp-Speed Ride to Internet Future" on Aug. 28, 2007, it is clear that we as users are blind to the to what we
are missing. Our average download speed on broadband in the U.S. is two megabits per second. Compare that to eight megabits in Canada and sixty-one in Japan. Yes, sixty-one. How did they and many other countries achieve better service and less congestion?
I am not advocating government control, far from it. It seems that the Telco?s need money to install and upgrade lines, so they say, and local municipalities control who get to put lines in their cities, more red tape. I think the FCC should step in and dictate a
nationwide upgrade. The Telco?s could also try to get a one time fee from all the heavy
internet media services, Google, Ebay, Yahoo, Amazon, and all the others, based on their past broadband usage. These are just a few views. I am positive that there are many other options. The end result would be that there would not be a usage problem and Net Neutrality would be a mute point.
This is the problem, we need to push for more bandwidth and our rights to view what we
want to view, not what they want us to see.
You speak to soon to say this issue is dead, but are right to say that it has fallen off the media and perhaps congress' radar for a number of reasons (the least of which is not the lack of real political discourse enabled by our media system). The grassroots put this issue on the map to start with and only the grassroots will bring it back.
Notwithstanding, they are still great company!
game of control is not over and it's important that the issues be
resolved regarding access, pricing, and keeping the net free of the
kinds of controls that the Bush administration represents.
Get rid of those people and we can all go back to bed.
- by KleidKlimmerman September 7, 2008 7:46 AM PDT
- "The major pro-Net neutrality coalition last year was called 'It's Our Net' and boasted 148 members."
- Like this Reply to this comment
-
(25 Comments)Really? No mention of "Save the Internet" (www.savetheinternet.com), their arguably larger activist-group counterpart?
This whole article has a bit of a sketch perspective. I wasn't aware that net neutrality was dead, particularly with the recent FCC ruling in favor of it. And who knows what will happen with the next presidency and shifts in congress?