Guest columnist: Google threatens net neutrality

“Today the Internet is an information highway where anybody — no matter how large or small, how traditional or unconventional — has equal access,” said Google CEO Eric Schmidt in 2006.

This was said long before the former corporate ally of net neutrality proponents infamously changed its tune.

After having met with Verizon Communications and declaring that crucial net neutrality rules should not be applied to wireless access, the Internet heavyweight has become a subject of disenchantment for many as it attempts to balance pragmatism and idealism.

Even long before the great flip-flop, Google was contemplating its business interests.

Entities such as Google, Apple and Microsoft flourish in the deluge of Internet traffic, and the tired content that will occur if the Federal Communications Commission regulation is not implemented could hurt their profits.

But it’s those who sell Internet access — Verizon, AT&T, Comcast — who hold the short end of the stick. In an era of escalating mobile use of ubiquitous cell phones and a growing goulash of gizmos, they must increasingly pay more for the groundwork that spreads wireless access.

It’s a frantic battle to keep up, and if lost Google cannot expand its services (and revenue): perhaps, as columnists Rob Cox and Robert Cyran noted, Google “may have recognized the symbiotic relationship that exists between its business and that of the Pipes [internet providers].”

But the situation isn’t as drastic as it first appears, and certainly does not necessitate the butchering of wireless web user’s rights in order for these businesses to thrive.

Lack of regulation could lead to certain companies and sites (possibly among them non-profit advocacy groups and the individual blogger) having less access to Internet consumers due to their inability to pay high fees. Without net neutrality protections, innovation will be stifled and equal usage will be a hazy memory.

The joint Google and Verizon proposal disregards net neutrality rights for wireless networks due to the “competitive and still-developing nature of wireless broadband services.”  

Competitive? AT&T and Verizon dominate 60 percent of the market, “and continue to gain share,”according to the FCC.  Google once was in agreement until the advent of its revelation. In April it noted, “the number of service providers actually is contracting.”

Indeed, back when Google adhered to its unofficial motto “Don’t be Evil,” the leviathan noted another vital fact, that “the government to date has declined to exercise its rightful oversight authority and effective enforcement mechanisms to address abuses do not exist.”

Even as the corporations clamber to formulate their legislative proposal, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski remains passive and impotent. As Free Press’ Jenn Ettinger writes, “It’s this very attitude that resulted in the spill (spill seems like such an unimpressive word for what happened) in the Gulf.”

If the FCC acts as the Minerals Management Service did and takes up legislation provided by the very corporations it is meant to regulate, web consumers and the common man’s website will suffocate along with the oil-drenched pelicans, dolphins and turtles.


E-mail: celgrund@indiana.edu