Is Verizon-Google plan boon to spammers?

Google and Verizon set off a blizzard of chatter on the Internet this week when they aired their “open Internet framework.” The framework bars a provider of broadband Internet access “from engaging in undue discrimination against any lawful Internet content, application, or service in a manner that causes meaningful harm to competition or to users.”

Under the proposal, any “[p]rioritization of Internet traffic would be presumed inconsistent with the non-discrimination standard.” “Prioritization” is a euphemism for a service provider acting as a traffic cop for content aimed at the users of their systems.

When pulling the wraps off their proposal, the companies have put a pro-consumer, open-Internet spin on their proposal.

          “Google and Verizon have been working together to find ways to preserve the open Internet and the vibrant and innovative markets it supports, to protect consumers, and to promote continued investment in broadband access,” they said in the preamble to the framework.

But consumer groups aren’t buying the pitch. Their criticisms of the framework are similar to those expressed by the Free Press‘s Joel Kelsey.

          “Google and Verizon can try all they want to disguise this deal as a reasonable path forward, but the simple fact is this framework, if embraced by Congress and the Federal Communications Commission, would transform the free and open Internet into a closed platform like cable television,” he said in a statement.

          “This is much worse than a business arrangement between two companies,” he continued. “It’s 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.”       

          “If codified,” he added, “this arrangement will lead to toll booths on the information superhighway. It will lead to outright blocking of applications and content on increasingly popular wireless platforms. It would give companies like Verizon, Comcast and AT&T the right to decide which content will move fast and which should be slowed down. And it will destroy the open Internet as a platform for small business innovation and job creation, cementing companies’, like Google’s, dominant market power online.”

While the Google-Verizon proposal has generated a lot of heat, one of its implications that appears to have slipped through the cracks is its impact on spam. It could very well result in more of the junk ending up in the inboxes of consumers. That’s because much of the spam circulating on the Internet is “legal” under the broad definition of the framework. And if any content is “lawful,” then it can’t be discriminated against–even if it’s unwanted by the people receiving it.

It’s obvious that is not what the framework’s authors intend because in the “network management” section of the proposal, they state that broadband providers can employ “any technically sound practice…to address traffic that is unwanted by or harmful to users.”

But here’s the rub. The framework actually turns on its head how Internet service providers operate now. Now, if provider one receives spam from provider two, provider one can turn off the spigot from provider two. Then it’s incumbent on provider two to persuade provider one to turn the spigot on again.

Under the framework, when provider one turns off the spigot, a purveyor of “legal” spam can go running to the FCC to challenge that decision.

          “Even if the ISP can show that they have users complaining about his stuff, so the network management exception applies, the FCC, being a government agency, is likely to tell the ISP not to block anything until they rule on his complaint, which could easily take months, if not years, during which time the spam continues to flow,” explained John Levine in a column posted at CircleID.   

          “Although network neutrality sounds like a good idea, it’s not, because it breaks the underlying model of the way the Internet works,” Levine maintained.

          “It’s certainly true that in most parts of the country, there’s only one or two viable broadband ISPs, the phone company and the cable company, and they can’t be trusted to run the network the way their users want,” he continued. “But the right way to address the excessive market power isn’t to regulate the ISPs, it’s for the FCC to put the rules back the way they were in the early 1990s, so telcos and, ideally, cable companies have to provide the underlying connections to any ISP on the same terms, so we have enough competing ISPs that if you don’t like one, you can just switch to another.”

          “This isn’t a pipe dream–countries including the UK have done exactly that, with the result that their residents have a wide range of ISPs, who provide faster service at lower prices than we get in the US,” he added.”