Profitable to favor your competitor
DirecTV and Verizon’s FiOS service have recently announced app stores modeled directly on Apple’s App Store, notes the New York Times. This doesn’t seem consistent with the rationale for the proposed “Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2009,” (H.R. 3458) introduced by Reps. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) and Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.), which assumes that broadband service providers will discriminate against unaffiliated applications in the absence of heavy-handed regulation. Internet access service providers have an economic interest to discriminate in favor of their own services, content, and applications and against other providers. A network neutrality policy based upon the principle of nondiscrimination and consistent with the history of the Internet’s development is essential to ensure that Internet services remain open to all consumers, Read More ›