FTC on Net neutrality: No new laws needed

[Brian Warkoczeski]

FTC on Net neutrality: No new laws needed

By Declan McCullagh, www.cnet.com

June 28, 2007

The lifelong bureaucrats at the Federal Trade Commission are hardly a 
bunch of Hayek-quoting, Ron Paul-voting libertarians.

Which is why it's worthwhile to note the conclusion that the FTC reached 
on Wednesday about  Net neutrality: No new laws.

It took the FTC a mere 169 pages to arrive at that result in its new 
report on the topic, probably one  of the most exhaustive treatments of 
Net neutrality to date. It concludes: "We recommend that  policy makers 
proceed with caution in evaluating proposals to enact regulation in the 
area of  broadband Internet access."

Translated from government-speak, that means there's no need for 
extensive regulations of the sort  that the Republican-controlled 
Congress considered, and rejected, last year. The Democrats have  not 
tried to resuscitate the legislation this year.

The FTC says, sensibly enough: "Industrywide regulatory 
schemes--particularly those imposing  general, one-size-fits-all 
restraints on business conduct--may well have adverse effects on 
consumer  welfare, despite the good intentions of their proponents."

True to form, the FTC isn't recommending a hands-off approach. The staff 
report notes that it  shares antitrust enforcement with the U.S. Justice 
Department and is "well-equipped to analyze  potential conduct and 
business arrangements involving broadband Internet access." It also says 
that  "current federal consumer protection law" can address deceptive 
marketing practices by Internet  service providers.

Commissioner Jon Leibowitz, a Democrat, published what amounts to a 
dissenting opinion He said  that existing antitrust law may not be 
"adequate to the task" of Internet broadband regulation.

The report drew praise from Tim Muris, who was forced to be circumspect 
while heading the FTC  but can speak speak more freely now that he's 
back teaching at George Mason University's law  school in Arlington, Va.

"Net neutrality is a meaningless term, lacking a rationale or analytical 
basis to impose new  regulations on the Internet," Muris said. "Some 
government actions, while seeking to help  consumers, harm them instead. 
As the FTC report today detailed, robust competition and dynamic  
business models pervade the Internet."

In contrast, pro-regulation groups, who would like to see the Federal 
Communications Commission  receive the power to enforce Net neutrality 
rules, attacked the FTC report.

It "falls far short in its analysis of a competitive market and the 
related issue of Net neutrality," said  Public Knowledge, which has 
pressed Congress to give the FCC that authority.