Last night it was a little surprising to see the FTC saying that there was no need for regulation of net neutrality. The FTC's Deborah Platt Majoras apparently said that there was no evidence of market failure in this area and that a combination of antitrust laws and the ability for customers to complain if they feel access speeds are impeded should be enough to protect net neutrality.
What the FTC is not addressing is that these companies have been on good behavior because they have had to be on good behavior. They are ignoring that this gives the power to the copper and fiber owners to slow down traffic that either isn't their own customer traffic or traffic that is deemed as being too bulky in bandwidth.
It is always amazing when an agency just assumes that big companies will do the right thing just because there hasn't been evidence of any wrongdoing. The quote from the CNN article is almost baffling: "To date we are unaware of any significant market failure or demonstrated consumer harm from conduct by broadband providers," said Majoras. "Policy makers should be wary of enacting regulation solely to prevent prospective harm to consumer welfare, particularly given indeterminate effects on such welfare of potential conduct by broadband providers."
Read the rest of the piece at 24/7 Wall Street.
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