In a letter to the US Senate Commerce Committee, New York
Attorney General Eliot Spitzer has backed Google, EBay and other
internet companies who are calling for a ban on ISPs cutting deals with some
web firms to give them preferential access to users over their
networks.
California's Attorney General Bill Lockyer has also backed the
pro-neutrality side of the debate,
according to CNET News.com. A spokesman told CNET that although
Lockyer did not endorse any specific bill, he supports Net
Neutrality principles in general.
The battle in the US is between those, largely Republicans, who
want telecoms firms to be able to cut deals with internet firms to
give them faster, preferential access to customers homes, and those
who do not.
Telcos argue that they are entitled to charge firms for this
treatment because they have invested so much in broadband network
infrastructure. Others, largely Democrats, argue that the internet
is based on a principle of equality of information and that telcos
should be banned from offering improved information delivery
service to those who can pay for it.
A number of bills and amendments on the topic are currently
under consideration by US lawmakers. The Communications, Consumers'
Choice and broadband Deployment Act is due to be debated this week,
but the proposed Freedom Preservation Act is likely to be offered
as an amendment to it, outlawing the cutting of special data
delivery deals.
"Congress must not permit the ongoing consolidation of the
telecommunications industry to work radical and perhaps irrevocable
change in the free and neutral nature of the internet," wrote
Spitzer in his letter.
US states elect their attorney generals, who have party
affiliations. Spitzer is a Democrat and is running for election as
governor of New York this autumn.
