Scattered Work

The Decline and Fall of Net Neutrality

The Wall Street Journal unleashed a firestorm yesterday with its article on the apparent collapse of the net neutrality coalition that included — well, just about everyone except the telecoms: free speech advocates, major technology companies, the FCC, and the Obama administration. As I was reading it, a couple of things jumped out at me. First, the Journal claimed that Lawrence Lessig had recently softened his position on net neutrality. A Stanford Law  professor, Lessig founded Creative Commons, an organization dedicated to promoting and defending a set of licenses providing voluntary, less restrictive alternatives to current copyright. As a well-known advocate of open source software and free culture (and an Obama advisor, the Journal is quick to point out), it would be quite a blow indeed were he to abandon net neutrality.

Luckily, a hop over to Lessig’s blog clarifies his stance (which, he says, hasn’t changed in years):

I distinguish between “zero price regulations” (such as Markey’s bill (which I say I am against)) and what I called “zero discriminatory surcharge rules” (which I say I am for). The zero discriminatory surcharge rules are just that — rules against discriminatory surcharges — charging Google something different from what a network charges iFilm. The regulation I call for is a “MFN” requirement — that everyone has the right to the rates of the most favored nation.

This is precisely the position that the Journal breathlessly attributes to me today. It represents no change — no “softening” no “shift” in my views.

Now no doubt my position might be wrong. Some friends in the network neutrality movement as well as some scholars believe it is wrong — that it doesn’t go far enough. But the suggestion that the position is “recent” is baseless. If I’m wrong, I’ve always been wrong.

Ars Technica, with their own quick response, points out that what Google is trying to do — the lynchpin of the article — does not seem to violate net neutrality principles in the first place. They point to a helpful post from Google’s Public Policy blog, which addresses the WSJ directly:

Some critics have questioned whether improving Web performance through edge caching — temporary storage of frequently accessed data on servers that are located close to end users — violates the concept of network neutrality. As I said last summer, this myth — which unfortunately underlies a confused story in Monday’s Wall Street Journal — is based on a misunderstanding of the way in which the open Internet works.

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Despite the hyperbolic tone and confused claims in Monday’s Journal story, I want to be perfectly clear about one thing: Google remains strongly committed to the principle of net neutrality, and we will continue to work with policymakers in the years ahead to keep the Internet free and open.

P.S.: The Journal story also quoted me as characterizing President-elect Obama’s net neutrality policies as “much less specific than they were before.” For what it’s worth, I don’t recall making such a comment, and it seems especially odd given that President-elect Obama’s supportive stance on network neutrality hasn’t changed at all.

Unfortunately, the Journal’s article succeeded in stirring up dust rather than clarifying the issues. The type of “edge caching” that Google is attempting does raise some important questions about how close ISPs should be to major content providers. But rather than delving into the possible impact of this particular innovation, the Journal tries to paint a picture of the demise of the net neutrality coalition that just isn’t based in reality, as far as I can tell.

UPDATE: To be fair, a WSJ blogger did follow up with a more balanced and detailed discussion of edge caching. He points to yet another post on Wired, which offers some helpful insights:

So is the WSJ right? Well, while it seems logical to argue that edge caching gives those that use it an unfair fast lane on the web, the reality is that, without edge caching, the whole web might be quite a bit slower.

Tags: edge caching, Google, Lawrence Lessig, net neutrality