Congress is wading into the network neutrality debate.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, a Michigan Democrat, introduced a bill Thursday that would subject internet service providers to antitrust penalties if they block or discriminate against legal traffic on their networks.

Network neutrality is the idea that all legal content, applications, and services on the internet should be treated equally. It became a hot topic after Comcast, the nation's largest cable company was caught degrading legal peer-to-peer traffic on its network.

The company didn't help its case by paying people off the street to stack a public hearing on the subject at Harvard in February.

Congress and the Federal Communication Commission are investigating the company over what it calls its "reasonable network management" practices. Comcast did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the new legislation.

"The Internet was designed without centralized control, without gatekeepers for content and services," Conyers said in a statement. "If we allow companies with monopoly or duopoly power to control how the Internet operates, network providers could have the power to choose what content is available."

Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren, a California Democrat who represents Silicon Valley, is cosponsoring the bill, the Internet Freedom and Nondiscrimination Act of 2008. It mirrors similar legislation introduced in the Senate by Olympia Snowe, a Maine Republican, and Byron Dorgan, a North Dakota Democrat.

Consumer groups praised the new legislation.

"The bill squarely addresses the issue of the enormous market power of the telephone and cable companies as the providers of 98 percent of the broadband service in the country," said Gigi B. Sohn, president of Public Knowledge, a consumer advocacy group.

Markham Erickson, Executive Director of the Open Internet Coalition, said network discrimination has "reduced consumer choices about how to use the Internet and chilled innovation by entrepreneurs and application developers."

by Sam Gustin