Codebreaker

Net Neutrality news roundup

Larissa Anderson Aug 17, 2010

The evolving conversation about net neutrality in wake of the Google/verizon policy proposal now includes a letter to the FCC from four Democrats in Congress.  In their letter dated August 16th(PDF), Edward Markey (D-Mass.), Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.), Jay Inslee (D-Wash.) and Mike Doyle (D-Pa.) urge the FCC to take formal action and consider four items:

1. The FCC must have oversight authority for broadband access services.
2. Paid prioritization would close the open Internet.
3. Wired and wireless services should have common regulatory framework and rules.
4. Broad “managed services” exceptions would swallow open Internet rules.

This week, Commissioners Michael Copps and Mignon Clyburn will be in Minneapolis, Minnesota this week to hear from the public about this issue.

Online, the debate continues. We’ve been covering the story – you can hear from Google and Verizon here and we’ve explored what this proposal means for us as we watch YouTube videos and search for things online. 

We’re also featuring a number of guest blog posts on the issue – the first one we’ve posted is from David Weinberger of Harvard’s Berkman Center for the Internet and Society. 

Jonathan Zittrain, Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and the Kennedy School of Government, Professor of Computer Science at Harvard’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and co-founder of the Berkman Center, has a substantial breakdown of the issue on his Future of the Internet blog.

Tomorrow, we’ll feature a post from Larry Downes, currently a nonresident Fellow with the Stanford Law School Center for Internet & Society, and later this week, a guest blog post from Christian Sandvig, a Berkman Fellow and visiting research scholar in the Innovation Lab at MIT Sloan. 

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