The US Senate rejected the temptation to intervene in the market for internet services. I am waiting to hear from various quarters of how this is evidence of a conspiracy of telcos and cablecos and their power to manipulate legislators.
I don’t subscribe to that view. But, I’m willing to wait for the Oliver Stone movie before forming a final opinion.
The lack of a good catchy phrase to summarize their position is one of the challenges that internet infrastructure folks have had in their efforts to communicate their position.
‘Net neutrality’ is a catchy phrase around which their opponents rally. So is ‘Save the Net.’
Who wouldn’t want to save the Internet? Shame on you if you don’t. But let’s face it, ‘save the internet’ and ‘net neutrality’ are too simplistic to accurately describe an issue loaded with far more subtle complexities.
As described in a recent article by The Heritage Foundation
In recent months, the net neutrality controversy shifted focus after several major telephone companies announced their intentions to offer priority service to content providers for a fee that would enable these providersāsuch as Internet phone service operators, broadband video providers, and othersāto purchase express service.
The article notes the irony of Yahoo! being a member of a coalition advocating net neutrality regulation. Yahoo! plans to offer a similar ācertified e-mailā service for a fee. Yahoo! has already announced a deal with Research in Motion to provide preferred access to Yahoo! services on BlackBerry wireless devices.
Randy May has used the term “Net Neutering” to describe the impact of net neutrality.
Rendering broadband providers perfectly neutral by dictating that they be nothing more than dumb pipes, unable to treat any applications or content that use their network facilities in any way differently, would, in fact, neuter the Net.
I’m sure we’d manage to get by in a world with Net Neutrality legislation. But it could get boring being stuck with just plain vanilla. It would be like life in Pleasantville in the B&W. We’ll save that metaphor for later.
In the meantime, suggestions for a positive catch phrase?