A few days ago, Lauren Weinstein announced the formation of an organization called “Network Neutrality Squad,” an “open-membership, open-source effort, enlisting the Internet’s users to help keep the Internet’s operations fair and unhindered from unreasonable restrictions.”
This, I assume, is a part of his proposal to create an infrastructure for collecting and processing metrics associated with network neutrality, which I find to be a generally good idea. ISPs should be held to their Terms of Service and their Terms of Service should conform to customer expectations, including expectations with regard to neutrality (or non-neutrality), along with all the other dimensions of Internet access service that matter.
Needless to say, the founders of this group (at least the ones I know and what I know of them) probably favor government regulation of broadband service in the name of ‘net neutrality. An early correspondent reveals what I view to be an upside down view of the world, writing:
[B]ecause ISPs are not currently subject to common carriage rules they can pretty much do anything they want as long as they conform to their published terms of service which are usually written to allow just about anything the ISP cares to do.
The solution to the problem is matching Terms of Service to consumer expectations. That’s what Terms of Service are for; they’re a contract reflecting the agreement between the company and the consumer. Common carriage regulation would be a mistake.
Consumers can and do push back against ToS they don’t like. This was done again recently when one dimension of AT&T’s ToS was found to be ridiculous. The Internet is a communications medium, and the community of users is well-equipped to name, shame, and punish violators of consumer interests and demands.
Whatever the ideology of the project, I suspect that any legitimate deviation from consumer expectations it turns up will be corrected by market processes long before regulation ever could. If the project unwittingly helps market processes conform Internet service provision to consumer demands, all the better.
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.