[Ecommerce] No tolls on the internet op ed

[Manon Ress]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/07/
AR2006060702108.html

No Tolls on The Internet

By Lawrence Lessig and Robert W. McChesney

Thursday, June 8, 2006; Page A23

Congress is about to cast a historic vote on the future of the
Internet. It will decide whether the Internet remains a free and open
technology fostering innovation, economic growth and democratic
communication, or instead becomes the property of cable and phone
companies that can put toll booths at every on-ramp and exit on the
information superhighway.

At the center of the debate is the most important public policy
you've probably never heard of: "network neutrality." Net neutrality
means simply that all like Internet content must be treated alike and
move at the same speed over the network. The owners of the Internet's
wires cannot discriminate. This is the simple but brilliant "end-to-
end" design of the Internet that has made it such a powerful force
for economic and social good: All of the intelligence and control is
held by producers and users, not the networks that connect them.

The protections that guaranteed network neutrality have been law
since the birth of the Internet -- right up until last year, when the
Federal Communications Commission eliminated the rules that kept
cable and phone companies from discriminating against content
providers. This triggered a wave of announcements from phone company
chief executives that they plan to do exactly that.

Now Congress faces a legislative decision. Will we reinstate net
neutrality and keep the Internet free? Or will we let it die at the
hands of network owners itching to become content gatekeepers? The
implications of permanently losing network neutrality could not be
more serious. The current legislation, backed by companies such as
AT&T, Verizon and Comcast, would allow the firms to create different
tiers of online service. They would be able to sell access to the
express lane to deep-pocketed corporations and relegate everyone else
to the digital equivalent of a winding dirt road. Worse still, these
gatekeepers would determine who gets premium treatment and who doesn't.

Their idea is to stand between the content provider and the consumer,
demanding a toll to guarantee quality delivery. It's what Timothy Wu,
an Internet policy expert at Columbia University, calls "the Tony
Soprano business model": By extorting protection money from every Web
site -- from the smallest blogger to Google -- network owners would
earn huge profits. Meanwhile, they could slow or even block the Web
sites and services of their competitors or those who refuse to pay
up. They'd like Congress to "trust them" to behave.

Without net neutrality, the Internet would start to look like cable
TV. A handful of massive companies would control access and
distribution of content, deciding what you get to see and how much it
costs. Major industries such as health care, finance, retailing and
gambling would face huge tariffs for fast, secure Internet use -- all
subject to discriminatory and exclusive dealmaking with telephone and
cable giants.

We would lose the opportunity to vastly expand access and
distribution of independent news and community information through
broadband television. More than 60 percent of Web content is created
by regular people, not corporations. How will this innovation and
production thrive if creators must seek permission from a cartel of
network owners?

The smell of windfall profits is in the air in Washington. The phone
companies are pulling out all the stops to legislate themselves
monopoly power. They're spending tens of millions of dollars on
inside-the-Beltway print, radio and TV ads; high-priced lobbyists;
coin-operated think tanks; and sham "Astroturf" groups -- fake grass-
roots operations with such Orwellian names as Hands Off the Internet
and NetCompetition.org.

They're opposed by a real grass-roots coalition of more than 700
groups, 5,000 bloggers and 750,000 individual Americans who have
rallied in support of net neutrality at http://
www.savetheinternet.com/ . The coalition is left and right,
commercial and noncommercial, public and private. Supporters include
the Christian Coalition of America, MoveOn.org, National Religious
Broadcasters, the Service Employees International Union, the American
Library Association, AARP and nearly every consumer group. It
includes the founders of the Internet, the brand names of Silicon
Valley, and a bloc of retailers, innovators and entrepreneurs.
Coalitions of such breadth, depth and purpose are rare in
contemporary politics.

Most of the great innovators in the history of the Internet started
out in their garages with great ideas and little capital. This is no
accident. Network neutrality protections minimized control by the
network owners, maximized competition and invited outsiders in to
innovate. Net neutrality guaranteed a free and competitive market for
Internet content. The benefits are extraordinary and undeniable.

Congress is deciding on the fate of the Internet. The question before
it is simple: Should the Internet be handed over to the handful of
cable and telephone companies that control online access for 98
percent of the broadband market? Only a Congress besieged by high-
priced telecom lobbyists and stuffed with campaign contributions
could possibly even consider such an absurd act.

People are waking up to what's at stake, and their voices are growing
louder by the day. As millions of citizens learn the facts, the
message to Congress is clear: Save the Internet.

Lawrence Lessig is a law professor at Stanford University and founder
of the Center for Internet and Society. Robert W. McChesney is a
communications professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-
Champaign and co-founder of the media reform group Free Press.






************************************************
Manon Anne Ress
manon.ress@cptech.org,
www.cptech.org

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