A report from The Wall Street Journal has gotten numerous people talking recently. The article says that network neutrality is losing major supporters. One of the prominent figures that the WSJ says is losing support for network neutrality is Google because, allegedly, they are negotiating with internet service providers for preferential treatment. Other claims include Microsoft and Yahoo withdrawing from a coalition to keep the network neutral, that Lawrence Lessig is also “shifting gears” on the subject and that advisers to President Elect Barack Obama who support network neutrality are now changing their views on the subject. Quite a news story and certainly news to many including some of the figures that were mentioned in the story.

Epicenter points to a Google blog posting which didn’t exactly fill the posting with praise for the Wall Street Journal. Richard Whitt called the news article “confused” and denied making comments about Obama advisers, suggesting that the Obama teams stance really hasn’t changed. Whitt also said that the company is currently setting up caches for ISPs to help speed up web page loading times, improving the network by delivering content closer to the user – not interfering with competing traffic.

BoingBoing points to Lawrence Lessig’s blog posting. Lessig said that the story was a “made-up drama” and that his views on network neutrality isn’t new. His view is that internet service providers have a right to charge different rates for different services.

BoingBoing updated the posting to include a blog posting explaining in depth why the Wall Street Journals article is “bogus”.

What makes this story so scandalous is the fact that the Wall Street Journal has been around for years and, as such, collected so much credibility that pretty much everything printed in the Journal is perceived as fact. These people go from casual readers all the way up to University scholars which have used articles from the Journal to write scholarly articles (which works its way down to essay pieces written by College and University students) No doubt that the accuracy of the Journal is currently being brought into question by some, though it’s also possible that the Journal is written by human beings who will eventually screw up sooner or later.

It may seem like a bit of nostalgia for some. In 2006 in the US, there was a bill that could have changed the internet to have so-called ‘fast-lanes’ and ’slow-lanes’. The questions lawmakers were tackling was whether telecommunication companies had the right to prioritize traffic. Google, at the time, was called a “freeloader” and some Internet Service Provider companies wanted to charge websites a fee to have their traffic prioritized. The claim was that as traffic on the internet increased, so would the stress on the general network.

File-sharing wasn’t spared from the debate either. Networks, namely BitTorrent, were blamed for a large amount of stress on ISP networks. BitTorrent tried to implement the Cache Discovery Protocol which would allow popular kinds of traffic to be cached, thus reducing network stress.

More predominantly, many ISPs chose to simply block or shape the traffic instead. This sparked outrage by content creators, among many others and intensified the network neutrality debate.

Apparently, the BBC liked the idea of caching traffic and proposed a caching system to reduce the network load for ISPs for their iPlayer. Some have suggested that the BBC pay for the additional traffic load.

There was a further suggestion that fiber optics be laid in through existing infrastructure like sewers. Some say it’s an interesting possible solution.

Via NewTeeVee.

Christopher Heaton-Harris, a British MEP is calling on the European parliament to disconnect those who ‘infringe copyright’ from the internet and install filters on Internet Service Providers. Some notable points include the following:

whereas new forms of production, distribution and consumption offering new
emerging in the contemporary information society and they are generating new
cultural goods and services that need protection from piracy, (Amendment 20, recital E)
[...]whereas appropriate and effective protection of copyright and related rights is an
essential instrument for creators in terms of enabling them to be fairly remunerated
for their creative efforts, and within the context of the commercial exploitation of
their works, and whereas this protection is therefore indispensable to the survival of
the cultural industries, (Amendment 20, recital Ea)
[...]calls for a Community approach taking account of the specific nature
of the digital era, the importance of safeguarding European cultural diversity, small
stakeholders and local repertoires, on the basis of the principle of equal treatment; (Amendment 61, paragraph 5b)
[...]Urges the Commission to oblige all those active in the sector to join forces and seek solutions equitable to all with the aim to develop the offer of legitimate online content and to make sure that all the involved stakeholders act responsibly. In the event that adequate solutions have not been found within a reasonable period of time that should not exceed 1 year, calls on the Commission and the Member States to adopt legislative measures obliging Internet service providers to cooperate in the fight against online piracy. This cooperation of Internet service providers should include the use of filtering technologies to prevent their networks being used to infringe intellectual property, the removal from the networks or the blocking of content that infringes intellectual property, and the enforcement of their contractual terms and conditions, which permit them to suspend or terminate their contracts with those subscribers who repeatedly or on a wide scale infringe intellectual property; draws Member States’ attention on this point to the fact that legislative measures which oblige Internet services providers to cooperate in the fight against online piracy would be more effective than the legal pursuit of users who infringe intellectual property; (Amendment 80, Paragraph 9a)

Heise online points to comments made by the The Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII) saying that European citizens should contact their Parliament Member. The posting on Digital Majority says, “This is emulating the bad ideas coming from the French government and Vivendi-Universal, as it has been proposed by the movie and the music industry in the recent Olivennes report.

A move to apply filters on Internet Service Providers isn’t exactly new. ZeroPaid reported that, in the United States, NBC