So there wasn’t an agreement between Google and Verizon, as reported by The New York Times, on price tiers. Instead the two companies released a modest proposal and legislative framework for an open Internet. I like the boldness of their end-run around that puny regulatory agency, the FCC, by directing their demands, oops I mean request, to Congress.
Google-Verizon has more advice for the FCC after the jump.
What is astonishing about their plan is the creation of a new Internet—a privatized Internet—that’s given the disturbingly mundane name, Additional Online Services. The two companies pay lip service to the principles of non-discrimination in the old-fashioned and quaint public Internet. But for this new Internet, well, let me quote from the Google-Verizon pact:
These two titans have also decided that the FCC should have a limited role involving those parties that have complaints about this proposal’s consumer protection and non-discrimination elements. The FCC, they recommend, can decide on a case by case basis, but can’t make any rules. That’s right: no rule making on nondiscrimination for our nation’s telecommunications regulatory agency. Maybe Prince was onto something when he declared the Web was over.
You can read the joint agreement below. I’ll have more to say on Google and Verizon’s world view on the wireless Internet, which these two have decided should be treated differently from wired broadband.
Verizon-Google Legislative Framework Proposal
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- Google and Verizon in Talks on Selling Internet Priority (nytimes.com)
- A joint proposal for an open internet (googleblog.blogspot.com)
- Google-Verizon NN pact riddles with gaping loopholes (arstechnica.com)
