Net Neutrality

Net neutrality

When Larry Lessig of Stanford University, and Scott Wallsten and Robert Hahn of the American Enterprise Institute and David Farber of Carnegie Mellon Universit gathered at an AEI-Brookings Joint Center forum to discuss net neutrality, they were able to agree on at least one point: we don’t know exactly what is meant by net neutrality. Wallsten and Hahn, who oppose some of the policies that are promoted under the banner of net neutrality, agreed that rhetorically the term is a success. On its surface, who can object? The Internet is a boon to society, and neutrality is an appealing principle. Lessig, who presents himself as an advocate of net neutrality, claimed that much of the opposition to the concept comes from people who misunderstand the term. Farber contributed a healthy skepticism toward all claims and wisely pointed out that we have to be careful about making policy geared to the current Net infrastructure because we can be sure that it will be very different in a few years.

All the participants did such a good job that I left with no simple recommendation for what to do. All I can say is that this is an important subject that needs to be broadly studied and discussed. A good way to begin is to read the following two papers.


Hahn/Wallsten paper: http://aei-brookings.org/publications/abstract.php?pid=1067

Lessig paper: http://www.aei-brookings.org/admin/authorpdfs/page.php?id=1254