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NEWS: Google and Verizon unveil Web plan

Google and Verizon walked into a barrage of opposition from public interest groups in Washington on Monday as they formally announced a joint proposal for how traffic on the internet should be regulated.

The biggest US internet and telecommunications groups said their plan, the first reports of which emerged last week, would ensure all services on the internet were treated equally ? ?net neutrality? ? and the web would remain a fully open medium.

But they said network operators should be able to charge more for a category of services that travel over a higher-quality connection separate from the public internet. They also proposed that wireless companies should be free to block individual internet services, provided they disclosed their actions.

Services likely to travel over the communications ?fast lanes? included high-bandwidth content such as healthcare and education and entertainment such as 3D video, said Ivan Seidenberg, Verizon chief executive.

The greater freedoms proposed by Google and Verizon drew condemnation from public interest groups that have supported the Obama administration?s push for net neutrality.

Free Press claimed the plan would ?divide the information superhighway, creating new private fast lanes for the big players while leaving the little guy stranded on a winding dirt road.? The Center for Democracy and Technology said that while it supported the rules that would prevent discrimination, the extra freedoms the groups were proposing would undermine the plan?s value.

Early reports of the joint proposal had already prompted strong attacks on Google, with critics claiming it was backing away from its commitment to net neutrality in favour of an approach that would mainly favour rich, established groups.

Eric Schmidt, chief executive, defended his company?s position. Google continued to believe in an open internet supporting future generations of internet upstarts, he said. He said Google would not pay to be carried on the new ?fast lanes? it was proposing, but would use the existing public internet for all its services, including YouTube. Existing financial relationships between internet and communications groups created enough incentives for network operators to keep investing in the internet, he said.

The Federal Communications Commission last week called off talks aimed at agreeing rules for net neutrality, and has proposed extending its regulatory remit to enforce a set of internet rules.

Reply to
John Navas
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KEEP THE INTERNET OPEN, ACCESSIBLE, CREATIVE

The White House, Congress and the Federal Communications Commission need to push back against efforts by Verizon and Google and other Internet service providers to discriminate against online content by rates and fees

THE debate over preserving open, equal access to the Internet took a hard, sharp turn away from the theoretical toward a grim future of toll booths on the information superhighway.

The Associated Press confirmed Monday that Verizon and Google want to allow Internet service providers to charge customers extra for premium services over segregated networks. None of this, they claim, should come at the expense of slowing, blocking or charging to prioritize regular Internet traffic ? however that gets defined. Brace for heavy eye rolls.

Columbia law professor Tim Wu, writing for Slate, likens the "content-for-cash scheme" to an earlier scandal in another medium: "We could term it 'Internet Payola' after the practice of record labels paying radio stations to play their songs."

The agreement between Verizon and Google to pursue their line of argument in Congress and with regulators should be an alarm bell for consumers, lawmakers and the White House. This is a direct assault on their pocketbooks, and a productive way of doing business.

Wake up Mr. President, reintroduce yourself to your campaign personas, which was shocked and appalled by the potential tampering with a technology that thrived, prospered and evolved thanks to open access for new ideas, devices and software.

The next few days and weeks will introduce a brave, new world of murky language about "managed services" and other contrivances by ISP lobbyists to sell their plan not to treat all customers equally.

The moment is ripe for the Federal Communications Commission and chair Julius Genachowski to reclaim the moral and legal authority to protect American consumers. A judicial setback in the FCC's ability to regulate broadband only means the agency's authority needs to be broadened and affirmed by Congress.

The FCC has powerful allies, such as Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., who chairs the Senate Commerce Committee. He knows firsthand how corporate selectivity in service provision can hurt rural markets.

Wu, chair of the media-reform group Free Press, wonders if an inadvertent casualty of the pay-to-play path will be Google's credibility with customers who trusted the company as a corporate expression of an open-Internet ethic.

Net neutrality is under assault and the consequences are real. The White House, Congress and the FCC must take on a potent, well-financed, politically adroit lobbying force to protect millions of ordinary customers and voters.

Reply to
John Navas

GOOGLE-VERIZON PACT: IT GETS WORSE

What Google and Verizon are proposing is fake Net Neutrality. You can read their framework for yourself here or go here to see Google twisting itself in knots about this suddenly "thorny issue." But here are the basics of what the two companies are proposing:

  1. Under their proposal, there would be no Net Neutrality on wireless networks -- meaning anything goes, from blocking websites and applications to pay-for-priority treatment.

  1. Their proposed standard for "non-discrimination" on wired networks is so weak that actions like Comcast's widely denounced blocking of BitTorrent would be allowed.

  2. The deal would let ISPs like Verizon -- instead of Internet users like you -- decide which applications deserve the best quality of service. That's not the way the Internet has ever worked, and it threatens to close the door on tomorrow's innovative applications. (If RealPlayer had been favored a few years ago, would we ever have gotten YouTube?)

  1. The deal would allow ISPs to effectively split the Internet into "two pipes" -- one of which would be reserved for "managed services," a pay-for-pay platform for content and applications. This is the proverbial toll road on the information superhighway, a fast lane reserved for the select few, while the rest of us are stuck on the cyber-equivalent of a winding dirt road.

  2. The pact proposes to turn the Federal Communications Commission into a toothless watchdog, left fruitlessly chasing consumer complaints but unable to make rules of its own. Instead, it would leave it up to unaccountable (and almost surely industry-controlled) third parties to decide what the rules should be.

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Reply to
John Navas

The Internet has become so important to daily life that it needs to be in the "commons" like our highways and away the control of the oligarchs.

Reply to
Bhairitu

More and more countries are coming to see it that way, but don't hold your breath here, because right-wingers will vigorously oppose anything so clearly in the public interest. Can you say, "Obamanet"? ;)

Reply to
John Navas

Absolutely, right wingers often go against their own best interests. In this case you might remind them their own web sites (out site the Murdoch ones) may become difficult to access if there is an end to net neutrality.

Reply to
Bhairitu

GOOGLE, VERIZON NET PACT HAS 'MANY PROBLEMS' SAYS FCC COMMISH

Interests of consumers versus giant corporations

If Google and Verizon thought that their "free except when it isn't" internet plan would have smooth sailing through the US Federal Communications Commission, a response by one FCC commissioner should snap them back to reality.

"Some will claim this announcement moves the discussion forward," said Michael Copps in a statement (PDF) referencing the Google/Verizon proposal. "That's one of its many problems."

Copps didn't detail the "many problems," but the remainer of his statement made it clear that he's firmly on the side of FCC chairman Julius Genachowski's third way plan, which claws back some of the regulatory mojo that the FCC lost when their ability to regulate internet traffic was dope-slapped into near irrelevancy by a federal judge in the Comcast decision.

"It is time to move a decision forward ? a decision to reassert FCC authority over broadband telecommunications, to guarantee an open Internet now and forever, and to put the interests of consumers in front of the interests of giant corporations," Copps wrote.

From Copps' point of view, the battle lines in this tug of war are as clear as the stakes are great. Genachowski, a network neutrality proponent, has two "interests of consumers" allies on the commission: Copps and Mignon Clyburn, both Democrats. And then there are the "interests of giant corporations" commissioners, Robert McDowell and Meredith Baker, both Republicans.

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MY COMMENT: Republicans are, as usual, pro-big business and anti-citizen.

Reply to
John Navas

They only go against the best interests of average folks they've duped into supporting them. Their big donors will ensure they get the preferential Internet service.

Reply to
John Navas

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