Nick Gillespie on Net Neutrality: Don't Let the FCC Ruin The Internet

When it comes to demands for "Net Neutrality" as the only means of keeping the Internet free and open, Nick Gillespie isn't impressed. He writes:

Reports of the imminent death of the Internet's freewheeling ways and utopian possibilities are more wildly exaggerated and full of spam than those emails from Mrs. Mobotu Sese-Seko.

In fact, the real problem isn't that the FCC hasn't shown the cyber-cojones to regulate ISPs like an old-school telephone company or "common carrier," but that it's trying to increase its regulatory control of the Internet in the first place.

Under the proposal currently in play, the FCC assumes an increased ability to review ISP offerings on a "case-by-case basis" and kill any plan it doesn't believe is "commercially reasonable." Goodbye fast-moving innovation and adjustment to changing technology on the part of companies, hello regulatory morass and long, drawn-out bureaucratic hassles.