Lessig's Neutrality
2:50 Pm -- I don't have scientific poll results to back me up, but I think a lot of people have the wrong impression of Lawrence Lessig's net neutality views.
The Stanford University professor has long been a champion of various Internet freedoms, but he's not a net neutrality purist -- that is, he doesn't believe every bit on the Internet must be treated equally.
That puts him at odds with much of the net neutrality crowd, but his point -- one I agree with -- is that a carrier should be allowed to offer better service at a higher price. "Productive discrimination" is the phrase he used at April's Federal Communications Commission (FCC) shindig at Stanford. (See Net Neutrality Gets Its Hearing.) I think a lot of people, in claiming Lessig is on their side, ignore that point.
Others apparently never realized it, as Lessig himself points out in a small screed this morning. Lessig got cited in today's Wall Street Journal article about Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) potentially undercutting net neutrality with a proposal to "create a fast lane for its own content" -- something Google, in a blogged response to the story, denies doing.
Lessig seems most peeved that he's being accused of changing his stance. "If I'm wrong, I've always been wrong," he concludes.
— Craig Matsumoto, West Coast Editor, Light Reading
The Stanford University professor has long been a champion of various Internet freedoms, but he's not a net neutrality purist -- that is, he doesn't believe every bit on the Internet must be treated equally.
That puts him at odds with much of the net neutrality crowd, but his point -- one I agree with -- is that a carrier should be allowed to offer better service at a higher price. "Productive discrimination" is the phrase he used at April's Federal Communications Commission (FCC) shindig at Stanford. (See Net Neutrality Gets Its Hearing.) I think a lot of people, in claiming Lessig is on their side, ignore that point.
Others apparently never realized it, as Lessig himself points out in a small screed this morning. Lessig got cited in today's Wall Street Journal article about Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) potentially undercutting net neutrality with a proposal to "create a fast lane for its own content" -- something Google, in a blogged response to the story, denies doing.
Lessig seems most peeved that he's being accused of changing his stance. "If I'm wrong, I've always been wrong," he concludes.
— Craig Matsumoto, West Coast Editor, Light Reading
