The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that “Sen. Obama is a supporter of legislation that would guarantee ‘network neutrality.'” Sen. McCain reportedly prefers a “market-based” approach, meaning that he opposes neutrality rules. We all love markets, but ask yourself how much a market there is in broadband services where you live. About half the country has zero or one choices, and virtually all the rest at most two, DSL and Cable. Hard for the free market to operate in a monopoly-duopoly world. In the absence of real broadband competition and consumer choice, the service providers have to be regulated to prevent them from using their carrier power to dictate content.

The story reports that Obama has reassembled some of the Clinton telecomm brain trust, including Reed Hundt, who had nice things to say about Blown to Bits. I suppose McCain just asked Cindy? (See the earlier post, McCain and Google.)

This entry was posted on Monday, June 23rd, 2008 at 1:22 pm and is filed under Censorship and free speech, The Internet and the Web. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.