New Bill Ties Net Neutrality to Antitrust Law
Ars technica, May 8, 2008
By John Timmer
Earlier this week, we covered the debate in Congress over a bill that would define net neutrality as part of the nation's official broadband policy and direct the FCC to ensure that it happens. But regulating communications may not be the only way to get net neutrality enacted; a bill introduced today by Representatives John Conyers (D-MI) and Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) treats it as an antitrust issue and amends the Clayton Act accordingly.
The bill, the Internet Freedom and Nondiscrimination Act of 2008, will enter the record as H.R. 5994. The text does not differ significantly from a previous attempt that went by the same name in 2006. The bill is intended to "promote competition, to facilitate trade, and to ensure competitive and non-discriminatory access to the Internet."
It does so by outlawing discriminatory fees for providing content, applications, or services over the 'Net. Internet providers also have to interact fully with the networks of their competitors and provide equal access to all users and any devices they wish to put on the network. Network providers would be allowed to provide favored service to specific types of data but, if they do, they have to provide that same favoritism to anybody transmitting the data, and couldn't charge for it.
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