Net Neutrality

Here is a reblog from The Seattle Times of an important op ed piece on"net neutrality" and risks to freedom of expression by Michael Connorand Franum Brown

Thursday, December 20, 2007 - Page updated at 12:00 AM

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Farnum Brown

Michael Connor

The Democracy Papersis a series of articles, essays and editorial opinion examining threatsto our freedoms of speech. Technology has created space for morevoices, yet fewer and fewer are heard.

The American press and media are being decimated byconsolidation. This transformation from many owners into five or sixlarge corporations and the lessening of small outlets for radio,newspapers, magazines and music are chilling a once robust marketplaceof ideas. What should American's do? This series explores the argumentsand the backlash.

Democracy Papers online archive:
www.seattletimes/thedemocracypapers

Daily Democracy, the Democracy Papers blog: blog.seattletimes.nwsource.com/dailydemocracy.

Network neutrality | Freedom of expression at risk

By Michael Connor and Farnum Brown
Special to The Times

Itgoes by the unremarkable and unrevealing moniker, "network neutrality."Yet it represents one of the most important subjects brewing in thefield of communications today. Network neutrality would ensure thatInternet service providers (ISPs) such as AT&T and Verizon treatall content that goes across their networks the same. Consumer groupsare pushing for a net-neutrality law that bans ISPs from degradingcontent and charging extra for Web sites to load as fast as possible.The issue is at the heart of a debate over peer-to-peer file-sharingnetworks.

Comcast, Verizon and AT&T need to come clean.

Those three ? and other cable and telephone companies ? need todisclose exactly how they decide to restrict the freedom of expressionof hundreds of millions of Americans. They need to explain exactly howthey decide to limit Americans' access to the Internet and otherinformation services. As consumers, investors and citizens, we have aright to know.

As should be clear, we're no longer dealing with our grandparents'telecom companies. In the old days, a large body of "common carriage"regulations required companies to be neutral carriers of whatevercommunications users chose to have. No more. Since 2005, federalregulations have given telecom and cable companies much more controlover the information ? voice, data, audio and video ? that passesthrough the companies' "pipes."

Three recent examples suggest these companies are not yet prepared to handle these new powers responsibly:

? In August, AT&T censored its webcast of a performance by PearlJam, blocking the audio feed when singer Eddie Vedder ad-libbed somenonobscene but politically pointed lyrics. When confronted, AT&Tblamed an overzealous subcontractor but admitted to a "handful" ofsimilar incidents of censorship. The company has since disclosed a "newpolicy," but that policy apparently applies only to similar Webperformances. AT&T is not saying how the First Amendment is beingtreated in other service offerings.

? In September, Verizon Wireless denied a request by NARALPro-Choice America, the abortion-rights group, to use the company'snetwork for a text-messaging program for individuals who had agreed toreceive the messages. Verizon said the subject of the text messages wastoo "controversial." Following a New York Times story on the incident,Verizon permitted the campaign, saying its earlier decision had beenbased on "an incorrect interpretation of a dusty internal policy."Verizon continues to assert its right to decide what text messages arepermissible but has yet to disclose on what grounds such decisions willbe made.

? In October, The Associated Press reported that its own testsindicate Comcast "actively interferes" with attempts by some high-speedInternet subscribers to share files on peer-to-peer networks. Comcast'sinterference apparently was both surreptitious and disguised to preventuser detection. Comcast acknowledged that it "delays" some Internettraffic, and customer service representatives were told to say: "Wehave a responsibility to provide all of our customers with a goodexperience online and we use the latest technologies to manage ournetwork." Comcast hasn't made public its "network management" policies.

In each of these cases, a company with control over large portionsof our communications infrastructure actively restricted the freedom ofexpression of its customers, even though it had no reason to believethose customers were breaking any law or regulation. Americans have aright to know why these companies did what they did ? and how they willhandle similar situations in the future.

As consumers, we have a right to know in advance when and if aservice we pay for may be intentionally disrupted by our provider. Ifwe're lawyers who do peer-to-peer file sharing of large digitizeddocuments over the Internet, we may want to use an Internet serviceprovider other than Comcast.

As investors, we want to know if a telecom company's "brand" is atrisk. We want to know if AT&T has policies and procedures in placeto avoid similar PR nightmares. Could it be good for AT&T's stockprice that Pearl Jam fans, who number in the millions, now think ofAT&T as the company that wants to Reach Out and Hush Someone?

Finally, as citizens of a democracy whose most cherished freedom isthat of expression, we should be outraged whenever anyone is silencedwithout very good and clearly stated reasons.

So that's what we're asking for: an open, candid and publicdiscussion of the reasons for such actions. Our hope is that such adiscussion will lead us to a future where media, information andcommunication companies profit most by amplifying rather thanrestricting our freedom of expression.

Michael Connor is executive director of Open MIC: the Open Media and Information Companies Initiative, www.openmic.org Farnum Brown is vice president of Trillium Asset Management and board chairman of Open MIC.

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