Craig Newmark’s editorial on net neutrality. This is a serious issue for anyone who uses the web (and anyone who wants to offer any services over the net).
Here’s a real world example that shows how this would work. Let’s say you call Joe’s Pizza and the first thing you hear is a message saying you’ll be connected in a minute or two, but if you want, you can be connected to Pizza Hut right away. That’s not fair, right? You called Joe’s and want some Joe’s pizza. Well, that’s how some telecommunications executives want the Internet to operate, with some Web sites easier to access than others.
Write your rep and tell them to keep their hands off the net. Tell them you want the net to remain neutral.
Karl N
on 29 Mar 07It’s so great how some people just sit around thinking of ways to screw others over.
One thing I wonder is if some telecomm corporations could offer neutrality in order to be more desirable than the ones who don’t, but I guess telecomms pretty much have monopolies in their respective areas.
Craig Newmark
on 29 Mar 07thanks! but to give proper credit, the joe’s pizza quote is something I got from someone anon at broadbandreports.com. Somehow, the credit never gets into the pubs.
Craig
pwb
on 29 Mar 07I understand the support of net neutrality but it’s hard to argue that it’s “fair”. Shouldn’t businesses be able to offer whatever services they want? If one provider takes a minute to connect a phone call, wouldn’t you switch to another provider (who would have an extraordinarily easy time differentiating its service)?
I think we can already observe what would happen if net neutrality went away: the cell phone business. The carriers make a ton of money but noone else does. And there’s zero innovation.
Jon
on 29 Mar 07Allow me to quote ‘Getting Real’:
“Don’t waste time on problems you don’t have yet. Make decisions just in time, when you have access to the real information you need.”
My concern with all the net neutrality talk is no one can point to real examples where there is a current problem. And so we’re writing legislation based on what might happen in the future… clearly a recipe for disaster. Can we really accurately predict how the internet will evolve over the next 10 or 20 years?
In fact, you can point to places where this would immediately restrict competition. It would seem that a cable company would not be allowed to provided dedicated bandwidth for a high quality VoIP service. Same goes for video for the telecoms. That doesn’t seem to serve consumers well.
We’ve got so many problems to solve right now. Let’s leave the imaginary ones for later.
Jaan Orvet
on 29 Mar 07Net neutrality is a current and real problem (“Thursday night” is not exactly 10 or 20 years in to the future) because it is going through the political decision making process as we speak. We should not wait until there is nothing we can do, and the problem’s are actually staring us in the face. Right now we can write our representatives, discuss the topic and do our small part.
Mrad
on 29 Mar 07Eh, I can see where you’re going Jon – but this is a serious issue. I agree that we have plenty of problems at hand, but we can’t afford to turn a blind eye to this.
Frankly, it scares the hell outta me. We all know what the U.S. government is capable of.
sandofsky
on 29 Mar 07I’m a libertarian. I believe the government only run what can’t be handled by the free market. For instance, our roads and our military.
Well, I view the internet on level with our roads. Net neutrality sidesteps the issue by regulating a private company. Instead, there should be government run internet access.
Jon
on 29 Mar 07“Frankly, it scares the hell outta me. We all know what the U.S. government is capable of.”
Exactly! And that’s why I don’t think new regulations serves us well right now. Sarbanes-Oxley is well intentioned regulation that is killing our competitiveness right now. I can only imagine how net neutrality legislation might effect the market. Would it force Comcast to stop selling voice services? who knows?
I certainly don’t suggest that we ignore the problem. We, the people, need to keep an eye on this, and if we start to see real abuses, we need to increase the priority. But just like software, solving problems that might occur leads to bad decision-making.
@Jaan Orvet Forgive my ignorance… ‘Thursday night’? I’m not sure what you’re referring to.
Anonymous Coward
on 29 Mar 07I’ve looked at the House record for “Thursday night” (from the articles linked in the original post) but I can’t seem to find the bill being discussed. Anyone know the HR number for it?
I did find Senate 215 to be similar to what we’re talking about: S.215
Jaan
on 29 Mar 07@Jon. I referenced the Craig Newmark editorials “Thursday night”, (and missed that it was published in October ‘06).
“[...] by legislation passed Thursday night by the U.S. House of Representatives that would allow Internet service providers to play favorites among different Web sites.”
jakehow
on 29 Mar 07NET NEUTRALITY == SLOGANEERING!
You do not need legislation to accomplish a free system of communication. Anyone who supports legislation in either direction deserves to have their isp account revoked. The net was never neutral and hopefully never will be.
If anyone wants to have an intelligent discussion on this issue, and the repercussions it would have for small internet providers, those who serve low income communities, rural communities, bleeding edge communities, etc let me know. There is too much propaganda being pushed around.
Jake
Noelle
on 29 Mar 07Here’s an interesting example of how the principles of Net Neutrality can be linked back to the Internet’s older brother, the telecom network. A few weeks ago, AT&T began blocking calls to services like FreeConferenceCall.com. AT&T did this without filing a direct lawsuit, without petitioning the FCC and without even contacting Free Conferencing Corp, the parent company. These types of free services are completely legal and AT&T is using self-help and cowboy justice to financially bully competing services out of business. This is the world of Carrier Neutrality. You can learn more at blog.freeconferencecall.com.
Jon
on 29 Mar 07@Noelle There is so much more to this than you say. This is another case of bad subsidies causing problems. FreeConferenceCall is one of many services using the 712 area code, and the rural exchange loopholes, to have AT&T subsidize their business.
A more complete picture can be found here: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070319-attcingular-blocks-cellular-customers-from-free-conference-call-services.html
Eric
on 29 Mar 07What is fair and free?
It’s a serious question for anyone promoting “Net Neutrality”.
What about bittorrent, voip? Blocking known spammers? Blocking known viruses? Where do we draw the line?
The more I think about it the more the whole thing bothers me. If I build a network what business is it of the government to regulate what traffic it carries?
I think we should be looking at reasonable marketing and disclosure regulations. If you sell “Internet Access” it should mean something and require a specific level of access. Companies that provide “Internet Backbones” on government “right of way” should also be limited in what types of censorship they can implement.
Overall I would consider “Net Neutrality” as the following
1) No blocking of packets unless they are known to be malicious 2) All packets of the same protocol should be treated the same no matter what the endpoint
Stephen Glauser
on 29 Mar 07Anyone know who would be the correct person to write to in Canada? MP or MLA?
Stephen Glauser
on 29 Mar 07Please disregard my last comment, it’s clearly the MP.
Tom H.
on 30 Mar 07You want neutrality? Don’t regulate. If you walk into a business and tell them how to service customers that’s not neutral. There’s no way to regulate and claim neutrality. Neutrality is hands off… let the chips fall where they may.
I can order my commercial prints to have priority printing, order packages next day air, get my mac serviced with overnight priority, and I can even pay extra tolls as I drive through the state to avoid heavier travelled roads. Why isn’t any of that unfair? Why should anyone be able to pay more and travel on newer, less congested roads if ISP’s can’t do the same darn thing?
If you want to tell businesses how to run their business and how to service people then at least have the decency to call it what it is… regulation and control. Stand up and say I’m for regulation, but don’t tell folks how to run their businesses and pretend that your infringement on the free choice of others equals neutrality.
What if a company wants to restrict access to pornography? Are you going to tell them they have to serve up porn and as fast as you serve up something like a site for an abused women and children’s crisis shelter? Would that be unfair to the porn company? Would it be unfair to limit the traffic to filth sites contributing to the violence of women and instead give credit to the organizations that fight against the violence?
To use an example from the recent news on the web, are the S.O.B.s from meankids guaranteed the right to serve up their misogynistic trash at the same rate as your local elementary school? Should sites that advocate the rape, and even murder, of other people be guaranteed the same service level as others. NO… and nothing in US law guarantees it. I’ll pick the provider that gives my business and family access to the services we use.
The only thing that needs to happen is that ISPs should be allowed to compete in any market they want to. If they want to bury the lines and build the infrastructure let them… only then well we have a neutral net.
Nivi
on 30 Mar 07David Cowan from Bessemer (the anti-portfolio guys) has a good article “against” net neutrality: http://tinyurl.com/ysjpvs
“Engineers have done pretty well so far building the internet without regulatory oversight. If we now erect a glorious bureaucracy of regulators who painstakingly review every upgrade to a broadband carrier, the one thing I am sure of is that US carriers will immediately lose market share to their competitors. The state of the U.S. internet backbone itself will freeze both in capacity and technology as the rest of the planet leapfrogs our creaky, petrified infrastructure.”
Wayne
on 30 Mar 07Alarmists drive the early noise on both sides an argument.
The internet is bigger than the world wide web. There could be something to learn from its history. As gambling and copyrighted file exchange have proven – the internet cannot be regulated bureaucratically. Nor can it be halted, think nuke-proof.
The telecoms can/will restrict IP resolution based on payola. And they should be free to do so. Cable /DSL access could be temporary anyway.
- May you will have the freedom to access the internet via future techs that pop up as the alternative
- Maybe the telecoms ruin the WWW experience and some really smart people expand usenet techs
- Maybe 37signals will will start a frameset service and make restricted IP requests from their servers for you.
Point = there will be a way around. That is the internet model.
Eric
on 30 Mar 07@Jon
I call hypocrite. ATT&T lobbied for and got termination fees back when cell phones first started in operation as a way to restrict their spread and protect their monopoly. Now when those fees are used against them they are turning off service and crawling back to those same legislators to undo the harm they imposed into the system.
They implemented it and they should live by it. These services are just taking advantage of a system that the incumbent phone operators rigged in their favor… they hate competition.
Darrel
on 30 Mar 07Tom H….I don’t think you quite understand the term ‘net neutrality’ in this context. It’s a consumer rights issue more than anything.
“Should sites that advocate the rape, and even murder, of other people be guaranteed the same service level as others. NO… and nothing in US law guarantees it.”
Within the confines of legal free speech…yes, they should be guaranteed the same service level. Seems like your advocating censorship while at the same time arguing against regulations. In the end, it’s either self regulation by corporations, or system-wide regulation by the people. I’ll take the latter over the former any day.
I’m no fan of regulation, but it’s often simply needed when profits cloud progress.
“May you will have the freedom to access the internet via future techs that pop up as the alternative”
Well, I think this is one of the issues. Perhaps corporate greed restricting access to the internet WILL bring more competitive alternatives. But this is 2007 already and we still don’t have much options in most of this country. DSL or Cable. Or Dial-up. That’s about it. The big problem, of course, is that the ‘last mile’ isn’t publicly owned.
john
on 30 Mar 07I think the net neutrality issue is seriously misunderstood. It’s not about blocking what you see in favor of someone else who pays more, its about getting corporations to pay their fair share.
Why should Google, or Yahoo, or Craig’s List pay the same amount for internet that you or I do, when they use way more bandwidth then we do? It’s like saying we should flat rate gas, and everyone who goes to the pump pays $35 weather you are driving a hybrid, or a semi-truck.
I am sick of people ridiculing phone companies for not giving their services away for FREE. Companies like Free Conference Call are ripping off one company to profit…that is called stealing in any other form…AT&T has the right to shut off service none payment. If I don’t pay my phone bill, my service gets shut off.
Speaking as a business owner, I have to pay for everything I use. If one of my websites uses tons of bandwidth, I have to pay for it. So why should a company expect to get free services by exploiting loop holes? Now they scream poor me when it ends. Grow up!
Has anyone here actually read the legislation? Or just the hype they read on the internet? Maybe to be truly neutral we should see the facts before we are told “This is a serious issue for anyone who uses the web (and anyone who wants to offer any services over the net).”
Nicole
on 30 Mar 07What strikes me is that no one wants to address the cause of this “problem” (heavy traffic on limited bandwidth) instead opting for short-sighted “net neutrality” legislation.
Eric
on 30 Mar 07@john
“Companies like Free Conference Call are ripping off one company to profit…that is called stealing in any other form…AT&T has the right to shut off service none payment.”
They are using the rules AT&T and other ILEC’s setup in order to squash competition 20 years ago. Now the tables are turned and they are once again using their monopoly to squash new company playing by the rules they setup. Termination fees may be stupid, but AT&T has only themselves to blame for this mess.
John
on 30 Mar 07@Eric
“They are using the rules AT&T and other ILEC ’s setup in order to squash competition 20 years ago.”
Those rules worked real well considering how many CLEC’s there are. :)
Eric
on 30 Mar 07@john
You might want to get your facts straight on who is demanding “free” service.
http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache:dTI3G0uzlPYJ:www.netaction.org/futures/TD-Future.doc
“In the 106th Congress (1999-2000), Tauzin and Dingell teamed up for the first Tauzin-Dingell bill, HR 4445: Reciprocal Compensation Adjustment Act of 2000: to exempt from reciprocal compensation requirements telecommunications traffic to the Internet.28
This bill would have exempted the ILECs from paying termination fees to CLECs, while the CLECs would still be required to pay fees to the ILECs.29 “In other words, it changes the Act so that a business is required to provide a service for free to its competitors,”"Basically AT&T has been the one stealing from the CLEC’s not the other way around.
Noelle
on 30 Mar 07Regardless of which side of the fence you choose for free services like conference calling, the issue at hand is that AT&T did not use legal or regulatory channels to air their grievances. The used network muscle. This is illegal, no matter how you defend it. Not to mention the exact type of behavior the net neutrality advocates are trying to preempt.
Tom H.
on 30 Mar 07Darrel, the “confines of free speech” do not cover death threats and I challenge you to show where I have a right to threaten to rape and take the life of another. You may want to read up on some of the law pertaining to menacing, harassment, etc. You’ll find that there are actually limits as to what you can say and how you can say it.
You can’t run around starting riots, but you can protest. You can’t threaten to rape or kill someone… as Kathy Sierra, et al are in hiding because of the hateful and illegal actions of others. Actions that are not covered by the “confines of free speech”.
As to censorship. Private business are allowed to censor whatever they want, its the government that cannot censor speech that is actually covered. Does BET have to run recruitment ads from an aryan hate group? If I run a comedy club do I have to hire comics like Michael Richards?
The answer is no.
A private business has the right to offer whatever matrix of services they choose to. If an ISP wants to take an honorable stand against the violence and degradation of women and children on the web, they are entitled to do so.
I also advocate the rights of those that want to peddle the smut, so long as it falls within the laws of our country. I won’t use them, but they have the right to filter out the “good” stuff if they want.
This isn’t a consumer rights issue. We, as consumers, can’t walk into a business and demand to be served the way we want to and say “Its’ my right”. It’s not your right to lobby a congressman to take away the rights of other private entities. The litmus test is when it infringes on the rights of others.
Walk into a busy, reservations only, restaurant and demand to be seated immediately on the grounds that its unfair to take reservations. It’s your right to have the next table.
The only way to make this all work is to allow fair competition in all markets, then let the consumer decide who provides value.
Eric
on 30 Mar 07@Tom
My only issue is that and ISP should not be able to Filter and censor and still call it “Internet Access”. Who needs “Net Neutrality” strongarm govt regulation when just a FTC standard about what constitutes “Internet Access” like they do “Made in the USA”?
Eric
on 30 Mar 07I can’t type can I….
I don’t think we need new legislation… I think we need the FTC to set a standard for what “Internet Access” and “ISP” means just like they standardize what “Made in the USA” means.
This way your ISP can’t just go ahead and filter or censor content without running afoul of the FTC. If they want to call it “Kiddie safe net access” that’s fine… no one will confuse it will Joe’s “Internet Access”.
Tom H.
on 30 Mar 07Eric, I think I would agree. When choosing a provider I would want to know what I’m getting…. kiddie safe or not. My other concerns are business ones.
We’re now starting to use Highrise quite a bit [great application] and I would want to know if my access is hampered or restricted to favor a competitor.
I agree that people need to know what they’re getting.
Dr. Pete
on 31 Mar 07Why should Google, or Yahoo, or Craig’s List pay the same amount for internet that you or I do, when they use way more bandwidth then we do?
You lost me on that one, John. I pay GoDaddy $3.99/month, whereas Google and Yahoo pay millions/month for their use of the internet. I’m also quite sure their phone bill is much higher than mine. I’m a business man, too, and I believe in free enterprise, but I don’t think anyone is suggesting that bandwidth be free.
John
on 31 Mar 07@ Dr Pete
If your read the opposing view point to Craig’s http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/06/09/mccurry.internet/index.html
“The debate over Internet content regulations ultimately comes down to one issue: Who’ll pay for the billion-dollar upgrades required for tomorrow’s Internet?”
“Under their self-proclaimed banner of “neutrality,” Google, eBay and other big online companies are lobbying for what amounts to a federal exemption from paying. Unfortunately, their thinly disguised effort at self-interest would dramatically shift the financial burden of paying for these upgrades onto the backs of ordinary consumers.”
Craig
on 03 Apr 07“The debate over Internet content regulations ultimately comes down to one issue: Who’ll pay for the billion-dollar upgrades required for tomorrow’s Internet?”
I’m paying Comcast like $50/month. Isn’t that what that’s for? Customers paying for a service so a company can take in revenue and invest that revenue to grow their business.
“Under their self-proclaimed banner of “neutrality,” Google, eBay and other big online companies are lobbying for what amounts to a federal exemption from paying.
Exempt from paying? I’m sure Google and eBay pay gobs in bandwidth and connectivity charges. Millions a month I suspect.
Richard
on 03 Apr 07The cited example of a non-neutral world of big pizza delivery companies paying more for priority access is terrible; however, I don’t think that this is what the telcos want to do. I can envisage a non-neutral world where traffic is separated not by “where to” ie Pizza Hut, Joe’s Pizza etc as in the scary examples, but by “what” ie Video/Streaming media, Games, eMail, web. Under this model, all pizza delivery would be treated neutrally. However, I as the consumer would be able to choose what was important to me and pay accordingly. This could open up all kinds of innovation whereby I could choose my Internet Video Provider, an Internet Gaming Provider and an Internet General Services Provider for mail, ftp, general web browsing. Keeping some kind of neutrality is important – but discrimination can sometimes be good!
Darrel
on 03 Apr 07“Why should Google, or Yahoo, or Craig’s List pay the same amount for internet that you or I do”
Correct me if I am wrong, but they don’t. They have bandwidth costs like any of us that are pegged against the amount of bandwidth that they are using.
Personally, I think the network should belong to the people as part of our infrastructure. I’m not so sure the big telcos have really advanced us more than we could have ourselves.
“Darrel, the “confines of free speech” do not cover death threats and I challenge you to show where I have a right to threaten to rape and take the life of another.”
I guess I’m really not sure what you are trying to say. It sounded like you were for cencorship and used already illegal material as an argument for it. I’m for laws that prevent hate crimes (like you use as examples). I’m not for arbitrary censorhip.
And while companies MAY be allowed to censor, it’s a very dangerous thing to allow monopolies to do so. They own the pipes. That’s a HUGE and PROFITABLE privilege to have. Since they are the keepers of the pipes, they shouldn’t be allowed any say of what flows through those pipes. If they get that say, then they basically become governemnt approved censors of the media with few options for the consumer to fight back with.
“The litmus test is when it infringes on the rights of others.”
Absolutely! That’s the point. Where I live I have two options for decent internet. Qwest DSL and Comcast cable. These are huge companies and serve large parts of the country. If both decide to ban Google.com, then what? They’ve infringed on my rights to go to Google.com, because I have no other way to get there now.
If we want to sell our highway system to GiantCo, fine, but once they decide they won’t allow any japanese cars to ride on it, then that’s infringing on individual’s rights…not just private cencorship.
“The only way to make this all work is to allow fair competition in all markets, then let the consumer decide who provides value.”
The problem is that rarely is there such a thing as ‘fair competition’. How many companies offer you a wire into your house? My bet is one…MAYBE two. That’s not much choice for the consumer, is it?
This discussion is closed.