FTC Sides With Telecoms On Net Neutrality
The Federal Trade Commission has given the “Net Neutrality” movement a serious slap in the face. A new report (PDF) issued yesterday by the FTC says there’s no need for government to get involved in ensuring the fairness of network traffic in the U.S.
The Chairman of the FTC Deborah Platt Majoras says in a statement accompanying the report that “in the absence of significant market failure or demonstrated consumer harm, policy makers should be particularly hesitant to enact new regulation in this area.”
In other words wait and see if it all goes south and then maybe consider doing something to fix it.
Interestingly, a report also released yesterday which shows that U.S. broadband customers seriously lag behind the rest of the western world in terms of speed, seems like exactly the sort of definitive evidence of “demonstrated consumer harm” that the FTC claims is necessary before action can be taken.
At least one side of the net neutrality debate is happy. Not surprisingly the telecoms and other broadband providers cheered the decision which more or less paves the way for a two-tiered internet with prioritized traffic. While there is ostensibly nothing wrong with that approach, as many have noted, it is fraught with potential opportunities for abuse.
Still, it’s possible the FTC is right, there is no real cause for alarm at this point and FTC can fix the problems as they arise. Just like the FTC’s highly successful efforts to protect consumers from credit fraud, deceptive advertising and a host of others consumer ills which have been eliminated.
In other news, Compiler now has bridges for sale — contact us for details.
For a less biased overview of the reports’ intricacies see Threat Level’s coverage.
