How Markey III Hurts the Internet

[Commentary] Reading the latest version of Congressman Ed Markey's (D-MA) Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2009 is like going to your high school reunion: It forces you to think about issues that once appeared to be vitally important but which have faded into the background with time. When the first version of this bill appeared, in 2005, the Internet policy community was abuzz with fears that the telcos were poised to make major changes to the Internet. In the intervening years, Congress did exactly nothing to shore up the regulatory system, and the Internet appears to be working as well as it ever has: New services are still coming online, the spam is still flowing, and the denial-of-service attacks are still a regular occurrence. It's reasonable to ask how the Internet has managed to defy the odds and continue to function despite these forecasts of doom, and how it would be affected by passing the Markey bill at this late date. [Richard Bennett is a Research Fellow with the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation specializing in broadband networking and Internet policy.]