Email
|
Printer-Friendly
Conyer’s Matter of Antitrust
From Multichannel News, March 14, 2008
By Ted Hearn
House Judiciary Committee chairman John Conyers (D-Mich.) has signaled renewed interest in using antitrust law to protect free speech and market competition on the Internet.
In public comments Wednesday, Conyers expressed concern that cable and phone companies would use their dominant positions in the Internet-access market to distort political discourse and commercial activity, especially by charging fees to carry different types of content or traffic.
“If Congress acts, it will not be because we have decided to regulate. It will be because the Internet-service providers have imposed their own new regulation on the Internet, and are interfering with its healthy growth,” Conyers said at a network-neutrality hearing held by the Judiciary Committee’s Antitrust Task Force.
About 96% of residential users rely on subscriptions to cable or phone company services for access to the Internet, Conyers said, leaving consumers with “monopolies or duopolies in most areas of the country.”
To read the article, click here.
This article is from Multichannel News. If you found it informative and valuable, we strongly encourage you to visit their Web site and register an account, if necessary, to view all their articles on the Web. Support quality journalism.
This article relates to:
Issues
Internet and Broadband |
Campaigns
 |
Save the Internet
Join the Fight for Internet Freedom! |
|
This article is copyrighted material, the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.