[Infowarrior] - Google, Amazon Win Over AT&T, Comcast on Web Access

[Richard Forno]

Google, Amazon Win Over AT&T, Comcast on Web Access

By Todd Shields - May 05, 2010

http://preview.bloomberg.com/news/2010-05-05/fcc-to-regulate-internet-services-in-victory-for-google-over-comcast-at-t.html

U.S. regulators will claim authority over companies offering Internet access in a setback for AT&T Inc. and Comcast Corp. and a win for Web content providers such as Google Inc., Amazon.com Inc. and EBay Inc.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski plans to say tomorrow that the agency will extend rules used for telephone service to Internet providers, a commission official, who declined to be identified, said today in an e-mailed statement. The agency will pledge to stop short of provisions such as the authority to control rates.

Genachowski wants to set net-neutrality rules that would bar companies from favoring their own Web content and services, a goal sought by consumer advocacy groups. His power to do so was undermined when a U.S. court ruled on April 6 that the agency lacked authority to regulate Comcast’s Internet practices.

The decision by Genachowski will let the FCC “ensure consumers are fully protected against blocking or degradation of websites and applications of their choice by broadband providers,” said Markham Erickson, executive director of the Open Internet Coalition, in an e-mailed statement.

The coalition, with members including Google, EBay and Amazon, and consumer groups urged Genachowski to use the telephone rules in place of the regulations attacked in the Comcast case.

“This is a welcome announcement,” said Gigi Sohn, president of Public Knowledge, a Washington-based consumer advocacy group, in an e-mailed statement.

‘Radical, Unlawful’

Imposing phone rules “would mark a radical and unlawful departure” from 15 years of Internet policy under Republicans and Democrats, executives for AT&T, Verizon Communications Inc. and Time Warner Cable Inc. said in an April 29 letter to Genachowski.

Republicans questioned the FCC’s authority to extend the phone-service rules to the Internet.

“The FCC does not have the authority to regulate management of network congestion on the Internet,” said Lisa Miller, spokeswoman for Representative Joe Barton of Texas, the senior Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which oversees the FCC. Genachowski “should ask Congress” for authority rather than “make an end run,” Miller said in an e- mailed statement.

Representative Henry Waxman of California and Senator Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, who head each chamber’s commerce committee, wrote Genachowski a letter today urging him to consider all options to retain authority over Internet access providers. The Democratic lawmakers said they may back a law giving the agency more power.

Michael Balmoris, a Washington spokesman for Dallas-based AT&T, the biggest U.S. phone company, and Sena Fitzmaurice, a Washington spokeswoman for Philadelphia-based Comcast, the largest U.S. cable provider, declined to comment.

To contact the reporter on this story: Todd Shields in Washington at tshields3 at bloomberg.net