Net Neutrality Or Net Neutering Should Broadband Internet Services Be Regulated

The subject of this book – whether or not to extend traditional telecommunications regulation to high-speed, or broadband, access to the Internet – is perhaps the most important issue facing the Federal Communications Commission. The issue is contentious, with academics and influential economic interests on both sides. This volume offers updated papers originally presented at a June 2003 conference held by the Progress and Freedom Foundation. The authors are top researchers in telecommunications.

Since its popularization in the mid 1990s, the Internet has impacted nearly every aspect of our cultural and personal lives. Over the course of two decades, the Internet remained an unregulated medium whose characteristic openness allowed numerous applications, services, and websites to flourish. By 2005, Internet Service Providers began to explore alternative methods of network management that would permit them to discriminate the quality and speed of access to online content as they saw fit. In response, the Federal Communications Commission sought to enshrine "net neutrality" in regulatory policy as a means of preserving the Internet's open, nondiscriminatory characteristics. Although the FCC established a net neutrality policy in 2010, debate continues as to who ultimately should have authority to shape and maintain the Internet's structure. Regulating the Web brings together a diverse collection of scholars who examine the net neutrality policy and surrounding debates from a variety of perspectives. In doing so, the book contributes to the ongoing discourse about net neutrality in the hopes that we may continue to work toward preserving a truly open Internet structure in the United States.

This second edition of eCommerce Economics addresses the economic issues associated with using computer-mediated electronic networks, such as the Internet, as mechanisms for transferring ownership of or rights to use goods and services. After studying this book, students will recognize problems that arise in the electronic marketplace, such as how to gauge the competitive environment, what products to offer, how to market those products, and how to price those products. They also will understand the conceptual tools required to evaluate the proper scope of public policies relating to electronic commerce. Core topics covered in the book include the underpinning of electronic commerce and the application of basic economic principles, including the theories of perfect and imperfect competition, to the electronic marketplace. Building on this foundation, the book discusses virtual products, network industries, and business strategies and conduct. Additional key topics include Internet advertising, intellectual property rights in a digital environment, regulatory issues in electronic markets, public sector issues, online banking and finance, digital cash, international electronic trade, and the implications of e-commerce for aggregate economic activity.

This book discusses the pros and cons of information and communication (ICT) neutrality. It tries to be as objective as possible from arguments of proponents and opponents, this way enabling readers to build their own opinion. It presents the history of the ongoing network neutrality debate, the various concepts it encompasses, and also some mathematical developments illustrating optimal strategies and potential counter-intuitive results, then extends the discussion to connected ICT domains. The book thus touches issues related to history, economics, law, networking, and mathematics. After an introductory chapter on the history of the topic, chapter 2 surveys and compares the various laws in place worldwide and discusses some implications of heterogeneous rules in several regions. Next, chapter 3 details the arguments put forward by the participants of the net neutrality debate. Chapter 4 then presents how the impact of neutral or non-neutral behaviors can be analyzed mathematically, with sometimes counter-intuitive results, and emphasizes the interest of modeling to avoid bad decisions. Chapter 5 illustrates that content providers may not always be on the pro-neutrality side, as there are situations where they may have an economic advantage with a non-neutral situation, e.g. when they are leaders on a market and create barriers to entry for competitors. Another related issue is covered in chapter 6, which discusses existing ways for ISPs to circumvent the packet-based rules and behave non-neutral without breaking the written law. Chapter 7 gives more insight on the role and possible non-neutral behavior of search engines, leading to another debate called the search neutrality debate. Chapter 8 focuses on e-commerce platforms and social networks, and investigates how they can influence users’ actions and opinions. The issue is linked to the debate on the transparency of algorithms which is active in Europe especially. Chapter 9 focuses on enforcing neutrality in practice through measurements: indeed, setting rules requires monitoring the activity of ICT actors in order to sanction non-appropriate behaviors and be proactive against new conducts. The chapter explains why this is challenging and what tools are currently available. Eventually, Chapter 10 briefly concludes the presentation and opens the debate.

The question of governance of the Internet is increasing in significance. The United Nations' World Summit on the Information Society, held in two phases in 2003 and 2005, provoked heated debate, and the resultant meetings of the Internet Governance Forum that followed this have been the subject of growing public and media interest. Yet governance of the Internet is multifaceted, complex, and far from transparent, and there has been little written about the subject which is detailed, systematic, and non-polemical. This book focuses on the issues involved in the ongoing development of Internet governance, and the challenges associated with developing and applying governance structures at a global level based on bottom-up, consensus-seeking decision-making procedures, without direct foundation in a treaty frame-work. Leading academics and practitioners studying and working in the area of Internet governance explore such issues as how the engineering of infrastructure matters, how legitimacy is gained and retained by governance organizations, and whether elements of such organizations can provide a model for other organizations to emulate. They examine the tensions inherent in Internet governance, such as government control versus digital libertarianism; commercialism versus civil society ideals; interests of developed countries versus interests of developing countries. The book will be of interest to academics, researchers, and students of Information and Communications Technology, legal aspects of ICT, and Organization Studies, as well as legal practitioners, government bodies, NGOs, and others concerned with Internet governance.

After 25 years of industry restructuring, regulatory reform and deregulation across many industrial sectors in many countries, it is an appropriate time to take stock of the impacts of these reforms on consumers, producers and overall economic performance. This book contains the latest thinking on these issues by a distinguished international group of scholars. It s a collection of essays for our time that is well worth reading. Paul L. Joskow, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, US The most exciting development in the study of regulation in the past quarter century is research on the incentives that are created by the details of the procedures for creating and enforcing regulatory rules. This book brings together a rich collection of studies that collectively advance our understanding of the effect of regulatory governance on the performance of regulated firms, with important lessons about how to design more effective regulatory instruments and processes. Roger G. Noll, Stanford University, US Cycles of poorly-designed or weakly-enforced regulation, disappointing performance and political over-reaction are now familiar to students of regulated industries. Nourished by recent developments in the economics of incentives, including their transaction costs and property rights dimensions, and written by renowned experts in the field, Regulation, Deregulation, Reregulation is a must-read for all those interested in the economics and politics of regulation. A timely book, the publication of which coincides with the designing of a post-subprime regulatory framework for the financial industry. Jean Tirole, Toulouse School of Economics, France Building on Oliver Williamson s original analysis, the contributors introduce new ideas, different perspectives and provide tools for better understanding changes in the approach to regulation, the reform of public utilities, and the complex problems of governance. They draw largely upon a transaction cost approach, highlighting the challenges faced by major economic sectors and identifying critical flaws in prevailing views on regulation. Deeply rooted in sector analysis, the book conveys a central message of new institutional economics: that theory should be continuously confronted by facts, and reformed or revolutionized accordingly. With its emphasis on the institutional embeddedness of regulatory issues and the problems generated by the benign neglect of institutional factors in the reform of major public utilities, this book will provide a wide-ranging audience with challenging views on the dynamics of regulatory approaches. Economists, political scientists, postgraduate students, researchers and policymakers with an interest in institutional economics and economic organization will find the book to be a stimulating and enlightening read.

"The debate of the so-called "net neutrality" has been under the spotlight in the US for many years, whereas many believed it would not become an issue in Europe. However, over the past few months the need to revise the current regulatory framework to encourage investment in all-IP networks has led to greater attention for net neutrality and its consequences for investment and competition. After the Commission adopted a "light-touch" approach to the issue at the end of 2007, the European Parliament has started to reconsider the issue, and it is reportedly considering a move towards more pro-neutrality rules. This paper summarises the main issues at hand in the net neutrality debate and the views expressed by advocates and opponents of the neutrality principle. The problem is described from a multi-sided market perspective, stressing the role of network operators as intermediaries in the "layered" architecture of all-IP networks. Finally, the paper discusses whether the European regulatory framework and its interaction with ex post competition policy are likely to solve many of the concerns of net neutrality advocates without any need for ad hoc regulation; and whether currently proposed solutions are likely to prove welfare-enhancing and conducive to a better regulatory environment for future e-communications."--Cover.