Net neutrality supporters to protest at Google HQ

IDG News Service - Five left-leaning groups that want the U.S. government to create formal network neutrality rules are organizing a rally for Friday to protest a recent proposal by Google and Verizon Communications.

Organizers of the protest, which will be held at Google's headquarters in Mountain View, Calif., hope that it will persuade Google, which has long voiced support for net neutrality, to abandon the joint proposal with Verizon. Critics of the Google/Verizon net neutrality proposal have called it a weak alternative to other efforts aiming to prohibit broadband providers from selectively blocking Web traffic. The organizers include Free Press and MoveOn.org.

Meanwhile, Google offered a defense of the proposal, released Monday, saying the suggestions do not mean the company is backtracking on its support for net neutrality.

"Google has been the leading corporate voice on the issue of network neutrality over the past five years," said Richard Whitt, Google's Washington telecom and media counsel, wrote on the company's public policy blog. "No other company is working as tirelessly for an open Internet."

But groups pushing for formal net neutrality rules have made little progress for "several years now," Whitt added.

"At this time there are no enforceable protections -- at the Federal Communications Commission or anywhere else -- against even the worst forms of carrier discrimination against Internet traffic," he said. "With that in mind, we decided to partner with a major broadband provider on the best policy solution we could devise together. We're not saying this solution is perfect, but we believe that a proposal that locks in key enforceable protections for consumers is preferable to no protection at all."

Earlier this year, a U.S. appeals court threw out an FCC decision prohibiting Comcast from slowing peer-to-peer traffic, leaving the agency's authority to enforce informal net neutrality principles in doubt.

Whitt's blog post addressed several criticisms of the proposal, including fears that the two companies are trying to impose their will on the rest of the U.S.

"Our two companies are proposing a legislative framework to the Congress for its consideration," he wrote. "We hope all stakeholders will weigh in and help shape the framework to move us all forward. We're not so presumptuous to think that any two businesses could -- or should -- decide the future of this issue."

Organizers of the rally at Google's headquarters are urging the FCC to "not let Google be evil," in form letters circulating since Google and Verizon released their proposal.

"People are upset because we've seen what happens when we let big companies regulate themselves or hope they'll do the right thing," says a form letter to the FCC on SavetheInternet.com, a Free Press site focused on net neutrality.