FTC: Tread Lightly Online
By Staff -- Multichannel News, 7/8/2007 8:00:00 PM
Washington — The Federal Trade Commission has issued a staff report urging caution relative to Internet regulation — a go-slow approach immediately rejected by groups eager for Congress to slap network-neutrality curbs on cable operators and other broadband-access providers.
The bulky, 170-page report accepted many of the arguments made by cable and phone companies that government intervention was unjustified because competitive forces were working to produce many consumer benefits, including innovation in the content community and network investment by access providers.
“This report recommends that policymakers proceed with caution in the evolving, dynamic industry of broadband Internet access, which generally is moving toward more — not less — competition. In the absence of significant market failure or demonstrated consumer harm, policymakers should be particularly hesitant to enact new regulation in this area,” said FTC chairman Deborah Platt Majoras.
Free Press research director S. Derek Turner, speaking on behalf of the SavetheInternet.com coalition, slammed the FTC report.
“Millions of Americans can’t access or afford high-speed-Internet services, and the United States continues to slip in every global ranking of broadband progress. The same phone and cable companies whose anti-competitive policies created this sorry situation are now proposing to become gatekeepers over Internet content and services. But the FTC seems content to stand on the sidelines,” Turner said.
But the cable industry took a more favorable view.
“We commend the agency for comprehensively examining the competitive forces, both economic and policy, at work in today’s Internet,” National Cable & Telecommunications Association CEO Kyle McSlarrow said in a statement. “As the leading provider of residential broadband in America, cable welcomes this thoughtful report.”
Corporate supporters of net-neutrality regulation include Amazon.com, EarthLink, eBay, Google, Intel, Microsoft and Yahoo.
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