Verizon's Sponsored Data Shouldn't Hurt Net Neutrality [teleocm]

by Stacey Higginbotham Fortune

But it is bad for business.

Verizon is planning to follow in AT&T's footsteps with its own plan to let advertisers pay the carrier for the mobile data consumers use when watching certain content. This plan, which AT&T introduced back in 2014, might let a company like Hershey's pay to let a consumer watch a mobile video ad for the chocolate without having that ad count against the consumer's mobile data cap. In fact, at one time, Hershey's was an actual client (using a third-party provider) of AT&T's sponsored data plan for that exact reason.

In general, the media and open Internet fans hate this plan. The idea that consumers already pay Verizon for mobile data, and that Verizon might also get to charge advertisers another fee for the same bits infuriates them. Some hate the idea of this because carriers are double-dipping on revenue.

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Bill Horne
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A confusing excerpt from Fortune magazine notes:

This part about double-dipping seems to contradict the first part of the article, which says that the advertiser-paid content would not count against the consumer's mobile data cap. So which is it, Fortune? Would this plan allow Verizon to charge both the consumer and the advertiser for the same bits (as second paragraph states), or would only the advertiser pay the freight for such content (as the first paragraph claims)?

A later posting in the Digest quotes the Christian Science Monitor, which seems to come down firmly on the "single-dipping" interpretation:

If there is not actually any double-dipping involved, I can't get too worked up about this idea. Imagine if there had been "telephone neutrality" advocates half a century ago. They would presumably have been outraged at the prospect that "deep-pocketed" companies could pay to set up called-party-pays toll-free numbers, giving such companies an "unfair advantage" over their smaller competitors, since consumers would have to pay the usual call charges for the privilege of reaching the latter, but would be able to call the former for free. The notion of the 800 number would have been stillborn.

Bob Goudreau Cary, NC

Reply to
Bob Goudreau

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