Google And Verizon Lay Out Proposal For New Internet Regulations

08/11/10

Chief Executive of Google, Eric Schmidt said of the plan, ''Our basic goal was to set aside this very divisive debate and realize we're very dependent on each other.''

The plan, released in a two-page document that was made public, is composed of seven parts that would grant customers equal access to all content on the public Internet, provided that the content is legal. Additionally, the proposal would give the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulatory authority.

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With wired broadband Internet playing such a large part of today's economy, the legal sector has yet to catch up to the internet's exponential growth over the past twenty years. Internet service providers may have to change their methodology where it comes to charging websites and web content creators fees to decide traffic speed by offering faster connections. Also up for debate is the right of service providers to intentionally slow down traffic.

The Universal Service Fund (USF) was created by the FCC in 1997 after the first major overhaul of the United States telecommunications law: the Telecommunications Act of 1996. The USF seeks to offer quality Internet services at affordable rates as well as to increase the accessibility of advanced telecommunications services throughout the Unites States. Google and Verizon's plan supports an increase in financing towards the USF. The companies hope that increased financing for the USF will eventually offer Internet to all parts of the country that don't currently have access to the Internet.

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However, some analysts are heavily criticizing the pact. A political advisor with Free Press, a nonprofit media-reform group, says that the proposal will construct ''tollbooths on the information superhighway.''

According to Joel Kelsey, the plan ''[is] a signed, sealed and delivered policy framework with giant loopholes that blesses the carving up of the Internet for a few deep-pocketed Internet companies and carriers.''

Another analyst, Andrew Jay Schwartzman, the policy director of the Media Access Project, a nonprofit law firm, says that the document ''falls far short of protecting the needs of American Internet users.''

However, Jan Dawson, the chief telecom analyst for Ovum, a research firm, claims that, ''Google and Verizon have done what the FCC has so far failed to do.'' Last week, the FCC gave up its attempts at brokering a deal among phone, cable TV and Internet companies, including Google and Verizon.