June 8th, 2006
Net neutrality extremism versus common sense economics
[Updated 6/18/2006 2:00 AM] In my last blog, I stated that "Net neutrality and politics don't mix" and tried to move the debate beyond fear mongering but no one answered the call to answer some tough questions. Organizations like MoveOn.org and companies like Google have latched on to a tiny portion of the Net neutrality bill in congress such as the Markey amendment and have hijacked the definition of Net neutrality. They'll have you believe that if you oppose Markey or amendments like it, then you are for destroying the Internet by allowing the big evil Telcos to control what you see on the Internet or degrade competitor's services to monopolize the market. But nothing could be further from the truth since the existing Net neutrality bill in congress without Markey's amendment mandates FCC oversight for all complaints within 90 days with fines of up to $500,000 per infraction. Even before any talk of Net neutrality, the FCC slapped down Madison River Communications for blocking Vonage VoIP service with a $15,000 fine.
To scare the public, the Markey proponents have brought up the case of Craigslist and Cox Interactive which our own Tom Foremski has reported. The problem is that the Craigslist incident has little to do with Net neutrality because it's all about a software bug in Authentium which Cox is using for security purposes [Upadate: This is actually a problem with Craigslist]. This has nothing to do with any of the amendments like Markey because all of them have provisions that have to allow for security software. For example, my own ISP will block any infected PC that attempts to infect other computers on the Internet. Foremski writes: "Craigslist has approached Authentium several times to get it to stop blocking access by Cox internet users but it has been unresponsive" [Upadate: This is actually a problem with Craigslist and has nothing to do with Cox or Authentium]. Well if that's the case, that sounds like a civil lawsuit against Authentium for lost business over the course of recent months. That has nothing to do with Net neutrality. Hypothetically speaking, if there was a patch available from Authentium but Cox for some reason chose not to implement it because they have their own classified services, then that would fall under the existing bill's provisions for FCC oversight. But even now, nothing prevents Craigslist from suing Cox interactive and Authentium [Upadate: Since this is a problem with Craigslist itself, it explains why no legal action was taken]. (more…)
George Ou is Technical Director of ZDNet. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
