The Wall Street Journal's Google Hatchet Job > Lessig abandons Net Neutrality stance

But Lawrence Lessig, an Internet law professor at Stanford University and an influential proponent of network neutrality, recently shifted gears by saying at a conference that content providers should be able to pay for faster service. Mr. Lessig, who has known President-elect Barack Obama since their days teaching law at the University of Chicago, has been mentioned as a candidate to head the Federal Communications Commission, which regulates the telecommunications industry.

The shifting positions concern some purists. "What they're talking about is selling you the right to skip ahead in the line," says Ben Scott, policy director of Free Press, a Washington-based advocacy group. "It would mean the first part of your business plan would be a deal with AT&T to get into their super-tier -- that is anathema to a culture of innovation."

But some of those who advise the new president on technology have changed their view on network neutrality. Stanford's Mr. Lessig, for one, has softened his opposition to variable service tiers. At a conference, he argued that carriers won't become kingmakers so long as the faster service at a higher price is available to anyone willing to pay it.

"There are good reasons to be able to prioritize traffic," Mr. Lessig said later in an interview. "If everyone had to pay the same rates for postal service, than you wouldn't be able to differentiate between sending a greeting card to your grandma versus sending an overnight letter to your lawyer."

Microsoft, which appealed to Congress to save network neutrality just two years ago, has changed its position completely. "Network neutrality is a policy avenue the company is no longer pursuing," Microsoft said in a statement. The Redmond, Wash., software giant now favors legislation to allow network operators to offer different tiers of service to content companies.

Yahoo now has a digital subscriber-line partnership with AT&T. Some have speculated that the deal has caused Yahoo to go silent on the network-neutrality issue.

An AT&T spokesman said the company should be able to strike any deal it sees fit with content companies. Yahoo said in a statement that carriers and content companies "should find a consensus on how best to ensure that Americans have access to a world-class Internet."

Richard Whitt, Google's head of public affairs, denies the company's proposal would violate network neutrality. Nevertheless, he says he's unsure how committed President-elect Obama will remain to the principle.

"If you look at his plans," says Mr. Whitt, "they are much less specific than they were before."

said by fAcEtIOUs:

A more interesting part of this WSJ story is that Professor Lessig from Stanford, the darling of the "Internet should be Free" and the anti-telco crowd, has switched positions on Net Neutrality:
»online.wsj.com/article/SB1229292···065.html
....

said by nasadude:

if the article is wrong on the basic premise of the story about google and net neutrality, why should a reader believe their characterization of Lessig's position is correct?

(Quoting Lessig)"There are good reasons to be able to prioritize traffic," Mr. Lessig said later in an interview. "If everyone had to pay the same rates for postal service, than you wouldn't be able to differentiate between sending a greeting card to your grandma versus sending an overnight letter to your lawyer."

So even if you don't buy the WSJ story and their slant on the subject, I doubt they lied about what he said.

The article is an indirect effort to gin up a drama about an alleged shift in Obama's policies about network neutrality.

said by fAcEtIOUs:

Who said the WSJ article is wrong? Karl?...

Who said the WSJ article is wrong? Karl?...

said by Karl Bode:

Two of the Journals five sources dispute what they told the Journal (Whitt, Lessig) and the report itself, while the other comes anonymously from an industry that's spending billions to discredit Google ahead of a renewed network neutrality debate...

Not rocket science.

said by funchords:

I heard the same thing and I'm confused as to what Lessig is talking about.

For $10 more a month, my neighbor buys Comcast's 8 Mbps package, 2 Mbps more than my 6 Mbps package.

Is it fair that 25% more of my neighbor's packets get through than mine? (Obviously, yes.)

Okay, now add border gateway congestion and normal TCP equilibrium has us down to 2 Mbps each. His 8 Mbps modem and my 6 Mbps modem are not the bottleneck. So let's say the ISP does a little preferential hocus-pocus and changes things so that 25% more of my neighbor's packets get through than mine. Wow, that's not so clearly fair or unfair. But once it is understood that both my neighbor and I are winding up with 10% of our packets dropped in that situation, that seems okay.

said by RARPSL:

You are confusing delivery SPEED with delivery CAPACITY.