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Verizon and Google Offer Up Net Neutrality Truce

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the can't-we-all-just-get-along dept.

When it comes to net neutrality, can we get along? Google and Verizon, antagonists on the question yet partners in Droid, say yes. The two companies have even teamed up to send the FCC ideas on how to handle network management disputes. 'Google/Verizon say that the Internet should function as an "open platform." That means, to them, that "when a person accesses cyberspace, he or she should be able to connect with any other person that he or she wants to—and that other person should be able to receive his or her message," they write. The 'Net should operate as a place where no "central authority" can make rules that prescribe the possible, and where entrepreneurs and network providers are able to "innovate without permission."'"

3 of 115 comments (clear)

  1. Throttling? by SanityInAnarchy · · Score: 5, Interesting

    There's still this problem:

    when a person accesses cyberspace, he or she should be able to connect with any other person that he or she wants to—and that other person should be able to receive his or her message,

    Yes, but how fast?

    A throttled Internet is still not a neutral network.

    --
    Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
    1. Re:Throttling? by jornak · · Score: 5, Insightful

      A throttled Internet is still not a neutral network.

      Actually, if it's throttling based on overall traffic, and not port/application-based, then yes, I'd say it's neutral.

    2. Re:Throttling? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I fear that everyone is losing sight of the original problem: that websites could pay ISPs to have their accessibility increased to that ISP's customers, or pay to have their competitors slowed, or even that ISPs might start racketeering sites to protect them from being slowed to the point of inaccessibility, not cut off.

      At some point, the telco lobby seems to have tricked everyone into forgetting that this is what we were originally upset about, not the more drastic idea of having access cut off completely for some reason. Simple QoS based on volume obviously makes sense, and censorship is a serious issue in net neutrality too, but we've still left a very large door open for Big Telecommunications to exploit; they can still, for example, make Google unbearably slow and Bing super-fast to manipulate their customers' usage habits if Ballmer forks over enough cash. This declaration says nothing about that kind of behaviour!

      Perhaps it gets overlooked so much because it's difficult to create a car/road traffic analogy that expresses it.