NEW YORK TIMES – TECHNOLOGY
By CLAIRE CAIN MILLER and BRIAN STELTER
In an emerging battle over regulating Internet access, companies are taking sides.
Barry Diller, head of the Internet company IAC/InterActiveCorp, called the Google-Verizon proposal a sham.
Facebook, one of the companies that has flourished on the open Internet, indicated Wednesday that it did not support a proposal by Google and Verizon that critics say could let providers of Internet access chip away at that openness.
Meanwhile an executive of AT&T, one of the companies that stands to profit from looser regulations, called the proposal a “reasonable framework.”
Most media companies have stayed mute on the subject, but in an interview this week, the media mogul Barry Diller called the proposal a sham.
And outside of technology circles, most people have not yet figured out what is at stake.
The debate revolves around net neutrality, which in the broadest sense holds that Internet users should have equal access to all types of information online, and that companies offering Internet service should not be able to give priority to some sources or types of content.
In a policy statement on Monday, Google and Verizon proposed that regulators enforce those principles on wired connections but not on the wireless Internet. They also excluded something they called “additional, differentiated online services.”
In other words, on mobile phones or on special access lanes, carriers like Verizon and AT&T could charge content companies a toll for faster access to customers or, some analysts worry, block certain services from reaching customers altogether.
Opponents of the proposal say that the Internet, suddenly, would not be so open anymore.
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