Network Neutrality And Beyond

[Commentary] Network neutrality rules are only necessary because the way we deliver Internet in this country waves at least three major Temptations to Discriminate in the faces of the access providers. 1. A provider may want to gain advantage over a competitor's services — like Apple not allowing Google's phone service on the iPhone. 2. It may honestly believe that its users want it to give the delivery of (for example) video priority over the delivery of e-mails or search results. 3. Or, it may view discrimination as triage necessary to handle high volumes of traffic. Net neutrality rules out the first two. First, it says that it's anti-competitive for access providers to use their position to tilt the market toward their own services or content. Second, net neutrality says that it's not up to the access provider to decide what the Internet is "really for." The third temptation is where Monday's proposal from Chairman Genachowski will find the most contention. Working out how net neutrality should be applied to network management issues is going to take court battles to make sure network management isn't being used as a Trojan horse for the first two types of discrimination. (David Weinberger is a Senior Researcher at Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet & Society.)