Caution Urged By F.T.C. on Net Neutrality

[engine]

The chairwoman of the Federal Trade Commission recommended on Wednesday against additional regulation of high-speed Internet traffic.

The chairwoman, Deborah Platt Majoras, said policy makers should proceed cautiously on the issue of “net neutrality,” which is the notion that all online traffic should be treated equally by Internet service providers.

In a statement issued Wednesday, Ms. Majoras said that without evidence of “market failure or demonstrated consumer harm, policy makers should be particularly hesitant to enact new regulation in this area.”

Caution Urged By F.T.C. on Net Neutrality [nytimes.com]

[physics]

without evidence of “market failure or demonstrated consumer harm,

So we should wait until all of the little guys are squashed and THEN do something about it?

Ms. Majoras’s comments provide support for telecommunications companies like AT&T

I seem to remember a company called AT&T getting in trouble a while back for being a communications monopoly. That couldn't happen again though, right? ;)

At least one 800 pound gorilla is fighting for us!
[google.com...]

[Kurgano]

You can't argue with physics.

Googles forward looking statements of knowing what we want and providing it before we know we want it wouldn't qualify as a problem would they?

[TypicalSurfer]

The notion of "net neutrality" is not consumer friendly.

If big companies like Google want to clog the pipes with video and other hog type services they need to pay more for high availability connectivity. I don't want my connection to suffer because nitwits want to watch the latest "dog on skateboard" video.

If they (big companies) don't pay the cost of additional bandwidth and infrastructure costs, consumers will. Not sure how that fits into the "good for the user" mantra.

[edited by: TypicalSurfer at 4:28 pm (utc) on July 1, 2007]