Justice Department Says it’s ok to Discrimate against the little guy

The Justice Department on Thursday (9/6/07) said Internet service providers should be allowed to charge a fee for priority Web traffic. Just when you thought the Internet was an opportunity for everyone to compete on a level playing field and that the customers where finally getting any opportunity to have their voices heard, the government has decided it’s ok to stack the deck in the favor of big business.

The issue at hand is whether or not it is acceptable for cable companies to charge content providers a fee to make their content high priority and thus be delivered faster to end users. So, if CNN is willing to cough up enough money their content will have a higher priority of delivery than say CNBC. What does that mean for smaller companies or personal websites? It means their content gets delivered via pony express, while the big boys are using jet planes. It means if I want to access my favorite blog (which probably has more relevant content than CNBC) I’m going to have to wait longer to access the page. How much longer? a few seconds? minutes? It doesn’t matter it’s longer and that’s not right.

The government claims that “imposing a Net neutrality regulation could hamper development of the Internet and prevent service providers from upgrading or expanding their networks”. Really? We’ve seen companies pour money into their existing infrastructures, and their existing marketing budgets (who hasn’t seen a Verizon FiOS or Comcast Slowskies ad in the last 24 hours) over the past decade to get a competitive advantage. There is no reason to expect that is going to change anytime soon. The Justice Department also claims that “providing different levels of service is common, efficient and could satisfy consumers”, citing the U.S. Postal Service, who charges customers different guarantees and speeds for package delivery, ranging from bulk mail to overnight delivery. The difference is that the consumer is deciding how much they want to pay for delivery, based on how important the package is to them. I’m not suggesting that consumers should pick up the tab for priority web content, but it does make more sense to allow me to choose what content I get fastest versus a company I may or may not care about.

Net Neutrality is something that is good for consumers. Consumer are embracing the open flow of information in ways no one could have expected a decade ago. This recommendation by the Justice Department is nothing more than an attempt to help big business take back their edge in controlling the information that is delivered to the public and more importantly to them the number of people who will see the advertising associated with that content.