When the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted last month to study new rules preventing Internet service providers from prioritizing certain content along their networks, it reinvigorated a national debate on “net neutrality,” a term coined in 2003 by Columbia Law School professor Timothy Wu.
Wu continues to be on the front lines of the debate, having recently signed a friend-of-the-court brief urging the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to uphold sanctions against Comcast, the country’s largest cable provider. The sanctions were put in place by the FCC because Comcast was blocking access to certain web traffic.
Net neutrality embodies the principle that the flow of all information along computer networks should be free of restrictions, principally those that would give priority to companies able to pay more for faster service. That means that a home video sent by a person to family around the world would move along wired or wireless networks with no less priority than the traffic of well-heeled corporate clients who could pay for priority service.
In explaining his support for net neutrality, Wu has used the analogy of the nation’s electric grid, which doesn’t distinguish between electricity running a household toaster or an industrial mainframe computer.
In the Comcast case, the company agreed not to discriminate against content on its network, but is still challenging the FCC’s authority to take action on matters of net neutrality. Major service providers, such as Comcast and AT&T, contend that not only does net neutrality trample free market rights, it leaves money on the table that providers could use to upgrade networks and create other innovations.
Wu responds by turning again to the electric grid analogy. “It did not discriminate and has supported giant waves of innovation in the appliance market,” he says, countering in the brief that failure to enforce net neutrality would stifle the Internet as an engine of innovation and economic growth.
President Obama has put his support behind net neutrality. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski (CC '85), who served as Obama’s campaign adviser on technology issues, is nevertheless planning to move cautiously during a 60-day comment period ending Jan. 14.
“The rise of serious challenges to the free and open Internet puts us at a crossroads,” Genachowski told an audience at The Brookings Institution in September. “We could see the Internet’s doors shut to entrepreneurs, the spirit of innovation stifled, a full and free flow of information compromised.”
Wu remains involved during this comment period. Along with several other leading IP law professors, he sent a letter to the Washington Post, expressing concern that current language in the FCC's proposed rules would not sufficiently restrict the future actions of internet service providers.
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