Share
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Flipboard
Print
Email

Democracy & Technology Blog Regulate the competition

Hance Haney
October 23, 2009
Net Neutrality

Although he favors regulation of broadband service providers, Google CEO Eric Schmidt thinks it would be a terrible idea for the government to involve itself as a regulator of the broader Internet, according to the Washington Post.

It is possible for the government to screw the Internet up, big-time.

For one thing, regulation isn’t easily contained. For another, if the government “screws” Internet access, the Internet as a whole could suffer.
Google’s continuing support for network neutrality regulation underlines the fact that Google has a higher market share than any of the broadband service providers it seeks to regulate. Google is the subject of an antitrust probe; broadband service providers are not.

Hance Haney

Director and Senior Fellow of the Technology & Democracy Project
Hance Haney served as Director and Senior Fellow of the Technology & Democracy Project at the Discovery Institute, in Washington, D.C. Haney spent ten years as an aide to former Senator Bob Packwood (OR), and advised him in his capacity as chairman of the Senate Communications Subcommittee during the deliberations leading to the Telecommunications Act of 1996. He subsequently held various positions with the United States Telecom Association and Qwest Communications. He earned a B.A. in history from Willamette University and a J.D. from Lewis and Clark Law School in Portland, Oregon.