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By Andrew Noyes
© National Journal Group, Inc.
Antitrust law is the best way to preserve a free, open Internet and correct market distortions, House Judiciary Chairman Conyers said at a Tuesday hearing of his panel's Antitrust Task Force that examined calls for Congress to stop communications giants from potentially blocking or degrading competing content carried on their high-speed Internet networks.
But if Congress enacts "net neutrality" legislation, "it won't be because we've decided to regulate," the task force chairman said. "It's because Internet service providers have imposed their own regulations on the Internet." Lawmakers should proceed cautiously and only if "we've clearly documented the existence of a problem that needs regulating," he said.
Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., a former panel chairman, stressed the committee must continue to exercise its jurisdiction. If the Energy and Commerce Committee is allowed to guide the debate, "you'll see a regulatory structure over the Internet that is not going to be good for the American public, artists and others who use the Internet as an essential means of communication."
Conyers and Sensenbrenner sponsored a bill in the last Congress that would have amended the Clayton Antitrust Act with respect to competitive and nondiscriminatory access to the Internet. The introduction of similar legislation is being considered this year, a Conyers aide said.
Energy and Commerce Telecommunications and the Internet Subcommittee Chairman Edward Markey, D-Mass., introduced a bill in February with Rep. Charles (Chip) Pickering, R-Miss., that takes a different approach. It would require the FCC to assess whether broadband providers have engaged in discrimination and would instruct the commission to hold a series of competition and consumer protection summits.
Rep. Steve Chabot, R-Ohio, ranking member of the panel's Antitrust Task Force, said the Web "has changed the way we communicate, learn and do business" but legislation is not always the right answer. "The heavy hand of government could deter investments in innovation that would enable networks to advance in the future," he said.
Network neutrality advocates and strange bedfellows Michele Combs of the Christian Coalition of America and the American Civil Liberties Union's Caroline Fredrickson urged members to pursue legislation to set a national, nondiscrimination policy. Combs' group typically prefers a light touch by government, but in this case, broadband firms are engaging in the same kind of censorship as the Chinese government, she argued.
Scott Cleland, president of the telecom analysis firm Precursor and chairman of Netcompetition.org, which is backed by AT&T, said calls for Internet free speech are a smokescreen for trying to get the government to mandate an "information commons" -- the idea that Internet infrastructure and content should be public and not private property.
Christopher Wolf and Mike McCurry, co-chairs of the Hands Off the Internet coalition, which is supported by AT&T and others, issued a statement saying legislation would stop the progress that "makes Internet access widespread and affordable" and consumers could end up footing the bill for upgrades to the system.
Meanwhile, Motion Picture Association of America chief Dan Glickman Tuesday railed against net neutrality efforts at an entertainment industry conference in Las Vegas. His speech at the ShoWest summit marked the first time he has spoken out on the issue on behalf of major movie studios.
"Government regulation of the Internet would impede our ability to respond to our customers in innovative ways, and it would impair the ability of broadband providers to address the serious and rampant piracy problems occurring over their networks," Glickman said.
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