Despite the fact that they've never been photographed together, Google CEO Erich Schmidt and Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg have teamed up to destroy the Internet for the benefit of their shareholders.
As the New York Times reported late last week, and despite Google’s denials (which hinged on a minor technicality), Google and Verizon were indeed in agreement on a net neutrality deal/framework/policy, which they announced yesterday. Both Google and Verizon would have you believe that their proposed policy is full of rainbows and puppies and will keep the Internet awesome for everyone forever. Unfortunately, that’s far from the case as despite their words to the contrary, the proposal nearly completely exempts wireless Internet providers from the rules which it claims are so necessary for the rest of the Internet. (As a very sad CrunchGear article notes, this exemption makes the rest of the document about as relevant as new safety regulations for steam ships.) Additionally, GigaOm points out that the agreement, if adopted, would completely neuter the FCC’s enforcement and rule-making powers. Most egregiously, though the pact leaves a wide open hole for a tiered, discriminatory Internet.
This non-neutral Internet is outlined in the full Legislative Framework Proposal, under the “Additional Online Services” heading. The paragraph there describes how broadband providers could offer “any other additional or differentiated services,” and that these services “could include traffic prioritization,” which means that all the nice words above about not discriminating Internet traffic don’t apply to these “differentiated services.” The proposal notes that these new services would have to be distinguishable from regular Internet service and that the FCC would “immediately report” if they were to notice someone circumventing this rule, but that’s about it.
So what are these “differentiated services?” Verizon and Google claim they might be things like “health care monitoring, the smart grid, advanced educational services, or new entertainment and gaming options.” Basically, these would be the premium channels to the basic cable of the Internet, since these differentiated services could, per the proposal, “make use of or access Internet content, applications or services,” which as we understand it would by definition make them part of the Internet proper.
When you think about potential “differentiated services,” it might be helpful to think about HBO. You could look at HBO in a couple of ways. On the one hand, it looks an awful lot like a lot of other cable channels. It broadcasts TV shows and movies, some of which you may have seen elsewhere somehow and some of which are entirely unique to HBO. On the other hand, you could (as cable and satellite companies do) call HBO a “differentiated service.” After all, it features special HBO-only shows, movies and events and doesn’t have commercials, which makes it different from some (but not all) traditional broadcast and cable/satellite networks. See where we’re going here? The line between categorizing HBO as one of many television networks or as a “differentiated service” is so fine as to be essentially non-existant.
If we were to extend this logic to the Internet (as Google and Verizon purpose), what makes Facebook another website and not a “differentiated service?” After all, it offers by far the largest social network on the Internet in addition to legions of exclusive Facebook apps, events and contests. For a more real-world example, take a look at ESPN3. We’ve already noted how to get around their draconian, ISP-based access restrictions, but in a world where the Verizon/Google proposal was the law, your ISP would not only be paying ESPN for the privilege of access to ESPN3 content, but could also be actively prioritizing that content over things that you might rather be watching, be they sports from another provider, videos from Hulu or Netflix (which are probably also “differentiated services” themselves) or, most importantly, content fron the next great Internet startup we haven’t heard of yet.
It’s that last possibility we should worry about, because right now the Internet is all about awesome new ideas, not who has the deepest pockets to pay ISPs. Let’s hope we can keep it that way.
Encyclopedia & Reference Resource