Comments on: Frontiers of Net Neutrality: Recognizing the Bottlenecks http://www.concurringopinions.com/archives/2008/12/frontiers_of_ne.html The Law, the Universe, and Everything Sun, 22 Nov 2009 04:22:46 -0700 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.3 hourly 1 By: Behringer http://www.concurringopinions.com/archives/2008/12/frontiers_of_ne.html/comment-page-1#comment-45542 Behringer Wed, 17 Dec 2008 05:32:57 +0000 http://www.solove.org/archives/2008/12/frontiers-of-net-neutrality-recognizing-the-bottlenecks.html#comment-45542 I was talking to a friend today who brought up an interesting point about this. She said basically that there's nothing wrong with what Google and the carriers are "colluding" or "consipring" to do, because such collusion already occurs in the television advertising context: television advertisers pay more for better access to coveted markets, and there's no outrage over the fact that small companies with small advertising budgets can't pay to play with the big boys. This thinking kinda seemed wrongheaded to me, because the carriers in the net-neutrality context are more analogous to TV manufacturers, not TV broadcasters or programming-providers. Most people wouldn't like it if TV manufacturers started favoring certain channels or programs over others. Yet it's still kinda hard to explain why the same free-market thinking that allows big-dollar TV advertisers to obtain better access (than small-dollar TV advertisers) to certain prime-time markets shouldn't apply to similar arrangements between TV producers and TV manufacturers, and it's just as hard to explain why that same thinking shouldn't apply in the internet carrier-and-content provider context. I was talking to a friend today who brought up an interesting point about this. She said basically that there’s nothing wrong with what Google and the carriers are “colluding” or “consipring” to do, because such collusion already occurs in the television advertising context: television advertisers pay more for better access to coveted markets, and there’s no outrage over the fact that small companies with small advertising budgets can’t pay to play with the big boys. This thinking kinda seemed wrongheaded to me, because the carriers in the net-neutrality context are more analogous to TV manufacturers, not TV broadcasters or programming-providers. Most people wouldn’t like it if TV manufacturers started favoring certain channels or programs over others. Yet it’s still kinda hard to explain why the same free-market thinking that allows big-dollar TV advertisers to obtain better access (than small-dollar TV advertisers) to certain prime-time markets shouldn’t apply to similar arrangements between TV producers and TV manufacturers, and it’s just as hard to explain why that same thinking shouldn’t apply in the internet carrier-and-content provider context.

]]> By: A.W. http://www.concurringopinions.com/archives/2008/12/frontiers_of_ne.html/comment-page-1#comment-45541 A.W. Tue, 16 Dec 2008 16:03:04 +0000 http://www.solove.org/archives/2008/12/frontiers-of-net-neutrality-recognizing-the-bottlenecks.html#comment-45541 Government imposed "fairness" is rarely the same as the real thing. For google, no one is pointing a gun at your head. there are other options, most notably yahoo. Rather than neutrality, i prefer transparency. Force them to tell you if they are not neutral and let you make up your own mind. But the government has no right to regulate speech on the net (leaving aside issues like child porn and actual fraud). the old precedents dubiously allowing the government to regulate radio stations simply doesn't apply to the internet. Government imposed “fairness” is rarely the same as the real thing.

For google, no one is pointing a gun at your head. there are other options, most notably yahoo.

Rather than neutrality, i prefer transparency. Force them to tell you if they are not neutral and let you make up your own mind.

But the government has no right to regulate speech on the net (leaving aside issues like child porn and actual fraud). the old precedents dubiously allowing the government to regulate radio stations simply doesn’t apply to the internet.

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