Obama’s Internet plan plays favorites, and Netflix is one of the darlings

[Commentary] President Barack Obama recently announced his plan to regulate the Internet under Title II of the 1934 Communications Act. This law nurtured America’s telephone monopoly for 50 years.

Under the president’s plan, Internet service would be treated like a public utility, subject to rate regulation and state utilities commission oversight. The plan President Obama proposes to prevent Internet service providers (ISP) from playing favorites with content ironically reveals him to be playing favorites with content providers such as Netflix. Indeed, Obama’s plan includes a goodie that Netflix has been lobbying for: Federal Communications Commission oversight of Internet transit and interconnection, an efficient market that has never been regulated since the advent of the Internet. To create the impression that it is being oppressed by ISPs, Netflix employs a tactic that it might have borrowed from its popular show Orange Is the New Black. In that series’ second season, prison guards were given “shot quotas” -- they had to record five inmate infractions per week. Both guards and inmates know that the writing of shots is not an accurate reflection of inmate behavior, but quotas give the appearance that the prison system is doing its job.