The new media diversity battlefront

Abstract

All online activity must be treated equally, argues MARGARET SIMONS A NEW front has opened in the battle for media diversity ? and this one has more long term implications than the changes to cross media ownership regulation presently proposed by the Howard government. The battle is being fought in the United States, where legislation is presently before the Senate that would end network neutrality ? the principle that all online activity must be treated equally, and that intenet service providers must allow the smallest blog to be viewed just as easily and quickly as the largest corporate website. Tim Berners-Lee,who is generally credited with inventing the World Wide Web, has said: ?The internet is increasingly becoming the dominant medium binding us. The neutral communications medium is essential to our society. It is the basis of a fair competitive market economy.? Network neutrality goes to the heart of defining what kind of thing the internet is ? a public resource, similar to the broadcasting spectrum ? or a private toll road and shopping mall, owned and controlled by big telephone companies who are entitled to charge extra for premium access. Network neutrality has become a rallying point for an odd coalition of lobby groups from across the political spectrum, together with big ?content? based companies, such as Google and Amazon. They are pushing for legislative amendments to prohibit charging extra for ?premium? treatment on the internet. They argue that if network neutrality dies, then those sites that earn the most money will dominate independent and not for profit operators. Bloggers, podcast sites, internet based publications and ?citizen journalists? would see their costs skyrocket to gain sufficient favoured status to post and share audio and video content. Favoured sites will become easier to find, and faster to open and use. Some sites may be blocked altogether. Startups and entrepreneurs could be muscled out of the marketplace by big corporations that pay internet providers for dominant placing on the web. Political organizing could be slowed by a handful of dominant internet providers who ask advocacy groups to pay "protection money" for their websites and online features to work correctly. Dominant internet companies like AT&T, or in the Australian context, Telstra, could block access to more affordable providers for online video and phone calls. The outcome of the debate will have profound implications in Australia. According to the local head of internet research company Hitwise, Sandra Hanchard, if network neutrality ends, the web of connections that makes the internet what it is will fundamentally alter. This will affect Australia even if there is no local legislation ? but in fact the American debate is being closely watched by Telstra and Optus, as well as the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. Hanchard argues that if a telephone company is able to privilege its own content or the content of its commercial partners over the independent players then it is likely to distort the market, quite possibly stifling the development of new applications and content. Even the big content based companies such as Google are vulnerable. They rely on all the small players for ?referral traffic? and advertising revenue. Consumer generated media, Hanchard says, is just getting off the ground. ?Businesses are still exploring the marketing applications of this, and it could be a great shame if this was nipped in the bud by lack of legislation to protect net neutrality.? Opponents of network neutrality argue that the ability to impose variable charges for different levels of service is necessary if telephone companies and others are to have the incentive to invest in the infrastructure necessary for the internet to develop. They compare the internet to the conventional postal service, where you have always been able to pay for express service. On the other side of the argument, those who have an interest in content argue the internet is best seen as being like a utility such as electricity. You pay for what you use, whether you plug in a toaster or a television. It is none of the electricity company?s business how you use their product. At present the USA legislation is stalled in the Senate. Senators who support network neutrality have put a ?hold? on the bill ? an informal measure that effectively prevents it from being brought on for a vote. Meanwhile both sides are lobbying hard. There are reports of ?push polling? by telephone companies claiming that there will soon be ?an internet price hike? because big companies like Microsoft and Google are ?wasting? bandwidth. On the other side, the Save the Internet coalition has collected more than a million signatures on a petition, and had some success in lobbying the Senate. Most commentators believe the internet content companies are doing best at mobilising public opinion, but the phone companies are better at swaying opinion where it counts ? in Washington. ? Margaret Simons is a freelance journalist and author, presently writing a book about the media to be published by Penguin. ? Follow this link for Wikipedia?s say, together with hotly disputed discussion page on whether or not the article is sufficiently ?neutral?. Photo: Bryce Kroll/iStockphoto.co