By David Hatch
(Friday, November 9) Digital rights advocates are urging the FCC to crack down on media giants such as AT&T, Comcast and Verizon Communications that allegedly have acted as content gatekeepers in violation of FCC guidelines promoting a neutral Internet.
Pending before the agency are two petitions filed by public-interest groups and universities requesting stronger regulation after recently reported incidents.
In an ironic twist, however, organizations that have championed network neutrality amendments in Congress are focusing on the FCC right now and rejecting the idea of amending legislation -- at least if the choice is adding language to bills on "broadband mapping."
The underlying legislation is designed to improve FCC data collection on subscriptions to high-speed Internet service. The public-interest advocates are concerned that such amendments might scuttle the measures, considered essential to fostering broadband deployment. Sources were unaware of any neutrality amendments being planned.
"We are not advocating any net neutrality amendments" on the mapping bills, said Art Brodsky, the spokesman for the advocacy group Public Knowledge. Craig Aaron, a spokesman for the advocacy group Free Press, added that his group wants the legislation to stay "as clean as possible."
At the FCC, Free Press and Public Knowledge filed a Nov. 1 complaint alleging that Comcast is degrading access to file-sharing applications such as BitTorrent that enable Web surfers to share movies and other video programming. They argue that Comcast has an economic incentive to interfere with technologies that compete with its own services.
"Comcast does not, has not and will not block any Web sites or online applications, including peer-to-peer services, and no one has demonstrated otherwise," David Cohen, executive vice president of Comcast, said in a statement. "We engage in reasonable network management" that is consistent with FCC policies, he added.
Separately at the FCC, a broad coalition of academics, Internet advocacy groups and watchdogs filed a Nov. 1 request for a "declaratory ruling" clarifying that intentional degradation of an Internet application violates "reasonable network management." Signers of the filing include Harvard University's Berkman Center for Internet and Society, the Consumer Federation of America, Free Press, the Media Access Project and Public Knowledge.
In addition to Comcast's activities, the groups are concerned that an AT&T webcast censored lyrics sung by Pearl Jam that criticized President Bush and that Verizon censored pro-abortion wireless text alerts. Both companies previously have apologized for the incidents, but spokesmen with AT&T and Verizon were not immediately available to comment on the filing.
The FCC previously launched a "notice of inquiry" to review whether network neutrality violations are occurring and whether regulatory action is warranted. The inquiry, however, has been criticized for lacking rulemaking authority.
In an Oct. 26 letter, Sens. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D.,and Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, urged Senate Commerce Chairman Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, to hold hearings on net neutrality. A source said scheduling issues could delay such action until early next year.
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