Net Neutrality 2017: Senator Franken Suggests Net Neutrality For Websites And ISPs

While the Republican-controlled United States Federal Communications Commission prepares to roll back net neutrality rules for internet service providers, at least one Democrat is exploring the possibility of expanding such regulations to websites.

Senator Al Franken, D-MN, suggested in a speech and an op-ed that rules requiring neutral treatment of information should be applied to giant tech platforms including Facebook, Google and Amazon.

"As tech giants become a new kind of Internet gatekeeper, I believe the same basic principles of net neutrality should apply here: no one company should have the power to pick and choose which content reaches consumers and which doesn't," Franken wrote in an op-ed for the Guardian. "Facebook, Google, and Amazon—like ISPs—should be 'neutral' in their treatment of the flow of lawful information and commerce on their platforms."

According to Franken, tech companies have consolidated so much power that they have effectively created monopolies in their own industries, leaving internet users with few or no viable alternatives.

Net neutrality prohibits ISPs from throttling or slowing a user’s connection, blocking content, or providing preferential treatment to sites or services that pay extra for it. Such rules were applied to ISPs because most consumers only have the choice of one or two providers in their market. The rules did not extend to websites because users could easily visit any site they so chose as long as net neutrality was being enforced.

Now, as users have grown reliant on just a few major platforms, some are beginning to size up those platforms as potential monopolies. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission can use its antitrust enforcement powers against sites, but Senator Franken is pushing for a new type of regulation that would specifically target the dominant web platforms.

Matt Wood, the policy director of Free Press, told International Business Times "It would be a mistake to say we should apply exactly the same rules to powerful edge companies that we have for the ISPs." Wood also noted that Franken didn't explicitly say that, and while his language may be "a little bit unclear," that his intention is to suggest it's worth looking into the power of massive edge providers.

"We don't want anybody to have the power to dictate somebody else's speech or commerce for them," Wood said.

The senator wrote that while users may not like the fact that their activity on Facebook is used to dictate what kinds of advertisements are displayed in their feed or their web browsing history and information in their Gmail account helps the search giant deliver targeted ads, most people aren’t going to delete their accounts because they have become necessary aspects of the online experience.

He suggests consumers should have more options than to just have to submit to the potentially invasive behavior of the platforms they use.

“Big tech has taken it upon itself to sort through all the viewpoints, news, and entertainment, and decide for us what we should read, watch, buy, or even how we should engage in civil society,” Sen. Franken wrote. “And they’re doing it all under the shadow of complicated algorithms that make little sense to either the content creators whose livelihood depends on them or the users whose everyday decisions they’re controlling.”

The senator warned against the growing amount of traffic that web giants like Facebook and Google handle, noting that reliance on the sites offer the companies leverage in negotiating who gets to use their platforms and how—the same way Amazon used its control over the e-book market against publishers to force them into unfavorable contracts.

During a speech at the Open Markets Institute Thursday, Franken again called for a sort of net neutrality for websites that would help prevent against discriminatory behavior that may harm consumers and organizations that use the platforms.

The Senator has not proposed any specific policy regarding how website and platforms should be regulated, and his position runs counter to what what Democrats once argued in regard to net neutrality—that it applied to internet service providers but not to websites.

International Business Times contacted Facebook, Google, Amazon and the Internet Association—a trade group that represents all three companies—regarding Senator Franken’s comments. Google, Facebook and the Internet Association did not respond at the time of publication. A spokesperson for Amazon declined to provide comment.