Google's 7 net neutrality commandments listed and explained

Last week, we joined the rest of the news and blog world in worrying about what Verizon and Google's net neutrality "deal"
would mean for the future of the Internet. Now, the two companies
iterated a spirit of openness, but it's too early to sigh in relief yet.













Why the worry? While it does look like Google and Verizon have their
priorities straight — enforceable net neutrality with no prioritization
of traffic — yet the full effects of the policy can't be known just yet.
How is wireless to be handled, for example? But we'll get to that in a
moment.

Below is a quick glance at Google and Verizon's proposal for how
Internet content and consumers should be handled. Each one is marked
with either "wired" or "wireless," denoting which — by Google's own language — the rule pertains to. In some cases, neither service is mentioned and we've gone ahead and marked those "unstated."

The 7 Net Commandments


(According to Google and Verizon)

1. Enforceable Openness (Wired): Consumers should "have access
to all legal content on the Internet, and can use what applications,
services, and devices they choose," and the "proposal would now make
those principles fully enforceable at the FCC."

2. Content Equality (Wired): "This means that for the first
time, wireline broadband providers would not be able to discriminate
against or prioritize lawful Internet content, applications or services
in a way that causes harm to users or competition." (This includes paid
prioritization.)

3. Full Transparency (Wired/Wireless): "Broadband providers
would be required to give consumers clear, understandable information
about the services they offer and their capabilities." This would extend
to the likes of developers of applications and companies who are
interested in using a network to reach consumers.

4. Clear FCC Authority (Unstated): "Specifically, the FCC
would enforce these openness policies on a case-by-case basis, using a
complaint-driven process. The FCC could move swiftly to stop a practice
that violates these safeguards, and it could impose a penalty of up to
$2 million on bad actors."

5. "Additional, Differentiated Online Services": This is where
it gets a little hairy, though Google sells it hard as important to
innovation. The company wants to make it so "broadband providers can
work with other players to develop new services" and gives Verizon's
FIOS network as an example, which is a hybrid television/Internet
service. These additional services would have to be made clear to the
consumer, and the FCC would still oversee the development of these
services to protect this idea of an open Internet.

6. Developing Wireless (Wireless): Google sees the wireless
space as something that is still forming and should be treated
differently than wireline services, and, as such, "under this proposal
we would not now apply most of the wireline principles to wireless,
except for the transparency requirement." That means those first two
commandments — enforceable openness and content equality — would not
apply to the wireless space. Hopefully this proposed transparency would
keep companies from taking advantage of the consumer through wireless.

7. Broadband For All: Google supports the "reform of the
Federal Universal Service Fund" and "deploying broadband in areas where
it is not now available." This is mostly just tacked-on. Only time will
tell what happens with this one.

In the end, Google sees this as giving the FCC the clear, defined
power the company thinks the agency needs to be effective, "while also
allowing broadband providers the flexibility to manage their networks
and provide new types of online services." It also helps foster
innovation in the space, which Google CEO Eric Schmidt said is crucial as "An open Internet allows for the next Google to be created."

Where's there's still some concern
is this division between wired services and wireless. Speaking to the
New York Times Media Access Project analyst and senior vice president
Andrew Jay Schwartzman voiced
this issue most succinctly: "The plan raises as many questions as it
answers. For example, it does not disclose the standard to be used in
resolving consumer complaints. One question that the plan does
definitively answer is that the non-discrimination proposal would never
apply to wireless. That alone makes this arrangement a non-starter."

The policy isn't law yet, of course. We'll have to wait and see how things will shake out.