Good piece in The Economist this week on the specter of “net neutrality” regulation. The London-based magazine, which is pro-market in a British sort of way, hasn’t hesitated to support competition rules in the past (it was an avid supporter of the Microsoft prosecution). But in an editorial in this weeks issue, it warned against overly-prescriptive net rules, arguing:
An overly prescriptive set of net-neutrality rules could prove counterproductive. For a start, it would mean that all new network construction costs would have to be recouped from consumers alone, which could drive up prices or discourage investment. Ensuring “neutrality” could require regulators to interpose themselves in all kinds of agreements between network operators, content providers and consumers. If a network link is too slow to support a particular service, does that constitute a breach of neutrality? Strict rules could also hinder the development of new services that depend on being able to distinguish between different types of traffic, imposing a “one size fits all” architecture on the internet just as engineers are considering novel ways to improve its underlying design.
The piece does allow that some basic rules could be in order. Alas, one would think that a magazine based in Europe would know more than most that limited and simple regulations all too often turn into expansive and complex rules.
Still worth reading (subscription required).
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.
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