Laura Bergus

There’s been quite the dust-up today over the report that Google and Verizon are negotiating prices for tiered network access. I first heard about it via Brett Trout’s tweet, then read that Google and Verizon are denying the story (via Dan Gillmor). Then a News Hour journalist said this Wall Street Journal piece is backing up the New York Times claim of settlement negotiations. (That’s a bit of a stretch, as the WSJ piece emphasizes both Google and Verizon claim to be pushing for a level-playing-field law that doesn’t necessarily control price.)

The truth? Who knows. But Google is smart to determine what it might need to pay to push its content to the top of consumers’ pipes if broadband access remains mostly unregulated. Especially when Verizon is paying the most to bend the ears of those in power.

Confusion arises when people (read: professional journalists) take the rather vague term of “network neutrality,” as is bantered about by lobbyists (read: Google) and embrace the vagueness for the sake of making a story. Today, it’s that Google, one of the world’s biggest internet content providers, is talking with Verizon, a major broadband service provider and Google’s primary handset-based internet access provider, about how Google can ensure its services are delivered to its consumers. Framed that way, the talks make perfect sense. (Remember: Google is now, always has been, and will continue to be, paying someone to get its content from one end of the internet to the other. This is just a question of whether Google can pay more to get better service.)

Wikipedia can tell you what net neutrality is. Net neutrality is not the law. It is a very nice idea that would require a major political commitment by our government to subvert free market principles in broadband access. I’m looking for where Google swore it would never plan for what happens when our government lacks the political will or simply lacks the legal authority to enforce net neutrality for Google’s benefit. I don’t think I’ll find such a promise.

Until Congress gets the courage to enact something to prevent such lawful collusion, or the FCC solidifies its stance with legitimate rules, this is exactly the kind of behavior we should expect from Google and its content and delivery brethren.

Bottom line: this is capitalism at its finest. If you want to protect the internet, you’ve got to be willing to have the government step in. Net neutrality is a socialist idea. I am comfortable with that. The New York Times clearly is not.