It has been an exciting week in the world of net neutrality. This week, Julius Genachowski, the Chairman of the FCC, announced the Commission’s intention to enter into a formal rulemaking process to codify the four principles of net neutrality currently in use and to add two more principles. The additional principles include a statement that consumers must be able to access the lawful content of their choice, subject to reasonable network management. Essentially, ISPs cannot block traffic to say, NBC Video, just because they have a partnership with Hulu. However, they still may prioritize all video content over all file sharing in order to manage the use of the network. In addition, networks must be transparent about what they are doing to manage traffic. This would give small business and direct response marketers more information about how consumers are experiencing online offerings like video advertising. Specifically, if you are providing an application for wireless devices or making videos available on sites like YouTube, you will know if some of the network providers are slowing certain services during peak hours. You will then be able to adjust your content delivery accordingly.
This plan still faces major hurdles. Although President Obama and several influential members of Congress have come out with statements supporting the open Internet, it is early in the process and various obstacles remain. Several influential Senate Republicans have sponsored an amendment that would prevent the FCC from using its funding to create rules on net neutrality or to take enforcement actions relating to net neutrality. There is also major opposition from wireless service providers who are concerned that they will have to allow any device on to their network by ending exclusive deals that only allow some phones to connect to any given network.
For more information on ERA’s government affairs efforts, click here.
Tomi Turner is ERA’s legislative manager.
In the first half of this year, I talked about retailers 
