Free Press Asks F.C.C. for Broadband Transparency Rules

Sam Gustin writes: After a year of skirmishes with major broadband providers, Free Press, the D.C.-based advocacy group, has asked the Federal Communications Commission to institute new rules requiring greater transparency on the part of internet service providers.

Free Press wants the agency to ensure that broadband providers disclose their network management practices, as well as the minimum speeds offered on their networks. The group says the new rules are needed in the wake of two controversial cases in which broadband companies failed to disclose their practices to consumers.

The first case, in which cable giant Comcast was found by the F.C.C. to have blocked peer-to-peer internet traffic, generated widespread criticism of the company, and became a cause celebre for advocates of network neutrality, the principle that all internet traffic should be treated equally. The second case involved a company called NebuAd, which secretly partnered with several broadband providers to monitor users' traffic as part a new data-mining technique called behavioral targeting.

Free Press wants the F.C.C. to require broadband companies to be more forthcoming with their customers about such practices.

"The pervasive lack of transparency in the broadband industry has opened the door to rampant abuse," said Ben Scott, Free Press policy director. "After recent episodes of secret spying and secret blocking, consumers have good reason to question whether cable and phone companies will respect their privacy and their right to free speech."

"Moving forward," Scott said, "we propose that any service provider that wants to manipulate the connection between Internet users and Internet content has an obligation to disclose what it is doing. Without industry-wide transparency, Internet users are likely to blame service disruptions on their computers or themselves rather than where it belongs -- on their ISP."

These rules are a good idea. As GigaOm's Stacey Higginbotham writes, "When it comes to traffic shaping and network speeds, there's no such thing as too much information."

Customers should have the right to know how broadband companies manage their networks, and what data they are collecting about them. And if the broadband companies have nothing to hide, surely they won't object to greater transparency.