Verizon & Google Want to Kill the Open Internet -- Media Mogul Confirms Their Bad Intentions

By Rep. Alan Grayson, AlterNet
Posted on August 20, 2010, Printed on August 23, 2010
http://www.alternet.org/story/147921/

"[Barry] Diller asserted that the Google-Verizon proposal "doesn't preserve 'net neutrality,' full stop, or anything like it." Asked if other media executives were staying quiet because they stand to gain from a less open Internet, he said simply, "Yes."" New York Times, August 12, 2010

The Verizon-Google Net Neutrality Proposal begins by stating that "Google and Verizon have been working together to find ways to preserve the open Internet." Well, that's nice. Imagine what they would have come up with if they had been trying to kill off the open Internet.

Actually, you don't have to imagine it. Because that's what this is. An effort to kill off the open Internet.

Much of the coverage of the Verizon-Google Proposal has focused on only one of the proposal's many problems: the fact that the proposal allows wireless broadband carriers -- like, say, Verizon, for instance -- to discriminate in handling Internet traffic in any manner they choose. They can charge content providers, they can block content providers, and they can slow down content providers, just as they please. That sure doesn't sound "neutral."