I wrote to my Senators and
Congressional Representative recently to encourage them to support “net
neutrality” of the Internet. I argued
that the Internet is the Information Age equivalent to the national road system
in the Industrial Age: a public service that must be equally available to all
citizens.
One
Pennsylvania Senator responded, in part, “Like many
Americans, I support an Internet free from government control. While I
understand the concerns expressed by those who support net neutrality
regulations, I believe that such federal mandates would unduly inhibit this
industry's investment in new technology and job creation.”
His response raised some questions for
me. One is the definition of the parties
involved. The Senator talked about “government control.” I see government as an agency of the
citizenry. In that sense, “government
control” is “citizen control”—it means that U.S. citizens, through the agency
of our elected representatives, should control public resources like the
Internet, just as we control our interstate highway system. It is worth noting that the Internet emerged
from projects—ARPANET, for example—that were funded by U.S. tax dollars through
the Department of Defense and other agencies, including some in the United
Kingdom, France, and Switzerland. Much
of the research was conducted at public universities. The first web browser was developed at the
University of Illinois, for instance. Over
time, the system was made increasingly available to for-profit companies.
While I am not entirely sure what the
Senator includes in the phrase “this industry,” my own sense is that the Internet
itself is not an industry. Instead, it is an infrastructure sort of like an online town square or agora—a
meeting space where both social and business transactions of many kinds can be
conducted. That—rather than the Internet
itself—is where “industry” comes in. Some
of the industry actors in this arena are major corporations and commercial
retailers who are not responsible to citizens but to their investors. Their
decisions are made on the basis of what will better enrich their stockholders
and leadership. As a result, it is
important that we protect citizen rights and interests in the process of making
the Internet attractive to businesses.
The policy goal is to balance citizen rights with citizen access to
services.
Commercial exploitation of the
Internet may lead to “investment in new technology,” but that will not
necessarily lead to jobs for Americans.
The Internet makes make location irrelevant. While commercial use of the Internet is sure
to create jobs, there is no reason to assume that those jobs will be in the
United States. Our concern should not be
simply the potential for the Internet to create jobs by creating commerce. It should be to ensure that all citizens have
equal access to services—for-profit and otherwise—that may be available online.
While it makes good sense for the
public, through our government, to encourage use of the Internet for a variety
of business concerns, the underlying public interest issue—the issue that our
Federal government must address as it encourages commercial applications—should
be to ensure that any commercial use of the Internet treats all citizens fairly
and equally. Our goal must be to ensure
that the Internet remains openly accessible to all citizens and, at the same
time, that it provides effective and secure access for groups that may want to
deliver products/services to people. This
requires that we make a distinction between these products/services and the
basic information highway structure itself.
In this light, it is appropriate for
citizens, through our government representatives, to set some rules for how the
Internet is maintained and made available to all citizens and, in the process,
to create an environment that ensures that the Internet can be used
appropriately for profit-making purposes while, at the same time, protecting
general access for all and ensuring that it is used for the public good. It is a bit amazing that, this long into the
Information Revolution, public officials cannot see the value of public access
to the new communication environment.
There is room for both public access and profit in this
environment. The incredible success of
both Apple and Amazon.com—both trillion-dollar corporations now—is evidence
that we can use the technology for both service and profit without hurting
either. Policy makers need to find the
new middle ground and not get caught up in “tribal” oppositions. We need to work together to find the common
ground on which future innovations will be built.
