Internet neutrality, which has become the subject of debate for Senators looking to overhaul the nation’s telecom law, is the idea that Internet service providers must charge the same price for bandwidth regardless of how bandwidth-intensive the content is.
While ISPs such as Verizon, AOL and Yahoo have endorsed legislation that would discard net neutrality, a host of content providers and search engines, such as Cerf’s employer Google, have been lobbying legislators to pass a telecom bill that would codify the doctrine.
Cerf argued in favor of net neutrality, saying that the Internet needed common carrier protection, otherwise networks would charge companies a premium to reach users, a model contrary to the original premise behind the Internet.
Cerf’s argument, though aimed at his opponent, Farber, also took shots at AT&T CEO Ed Whitacre, who said in a Business Week interview that he wasn’t going to give away his network to companies like Google.
Farber, who argued against regulation of the Internet, called Whitacre’s comments “the shot heard ‘round the net.”
Explaining his opposition to government regulation, Farber suggested that increased laws would serve only to “cripple” the fast-changing technology that drives the Internet. Instead, Farber said, government agencies such as the Department of Justice, the Federal Trade Commission and the Federal Communications Commission already have enough power to deal with so-called bad actors that wield Internet access as an anti-competitive tool.
While both men took opposite positions, each may have arrived at the same place with respect to adult content online. Farber suggested that increased government regulation could mean a point of entry for Congress to regulate content in a manner akin to how it regulates broadcasts and would like to do with cable.
“It would be irresistible for Congress to stop if it decided that it really doesn't want X-rated content on the web,” Farber said.
Although not going as far as Farber, Cerf, and by extension Google, have aligned themselves with a vast coalition of websites that include Craigslist.org, Gun Owners of America and MoveOn.org, all of which banded together to form the Save the Internet Coalition in April, amid fears that ISPs could win the right to charge different rates based on content.