The Internet has come a long, long way since the early days, when it was closed to the public, just sending an image through e-mail required the use of several command-line utilities, and there was no such thing as the World Wide Web. Those of us who were online anytime from the start through the early 1990s look back nostalgically on an Internet which had no spam and relatively few idiots, but had no web either.

Some people want that Internet back. Strangely, one of them seems to be Vint Cerf, the so-called “father of the Internet.”

The issue at hand is network neutrality, the idea that Internet service providers should not discriminate betweeen one site and another when delivering content through their networks. It’s actually been a very confusing issue for several years, and while the government has taken little action on it to date, Congress is considering network neutrality bills again this year.

While network neutrality is, in general, usually a good idea, some Internet providers have recently proposed to charge some sites a premium in order to deliver their content to you even faster than they do already. A few, if you believe this hype, actually want to block sites entirely if they don’t pay up. While I don’t think it’s a particularly good idea for both ends to charge content providers to deliver their traffic, and I suspect the idea would fail in a free market, the proposed legislative solution is likely to be much worse than the currently nonexistent problem. The government has done such a horrible job with every other type of communications since the creation of the Federal Communications Commission that I hardly want to think about the nightmare that would result with it trying to control the Internet.

Up and coming libertarian site Truth in Tech points out some more reasons why Congress should not legislate network neutrality. Here are a few of them:

So we have four whole examples of [ISPs blocking sites], FOUR, let me repeat that FOUR examples in the history of the entire internet! And that’s supposed to scare us? [Knock] out the two Canadian examples and your down to two. Factor in the “Who still uses AOL” argument and your down to one local ISP in North Carolina who didn’t even have the chance to see if their customers would object before the FCC stepped in and stopped them. . . .

If your ISP decided to throttle speed to websites unless they pony up cash would you stick with them? Probably not! For the sake of argument lets say that every single ISP starts throttling bandwidth, wouldn’t that open the market for a new ISP that didn’t? . . .

These reasons put the ISP’s into a “cold war” type situation, who ever fires first stands the biggest chance of loosing [sic]. Let’s say for example, AT&T were to break NN, what would happen. If the their customers really aren’t happy with that then they will switch to Verizon. Therefore Verizon wins and AT&T loses. However AT&T might decide let’s break NN but lower our service fee. Now people can make a choice do I want to pay more for the best speeds to every site or do I want to pay less and tolerate lower speeds? . . .

Are they Monopolies? Technically no, however what you do have in most major areas of the country right now is Government sponsored/allowed duopolies. What this means is you have one major cable provider and one major telecom. Is this bad for the consumer? Yes. Does it make it hard to switch in the short term? Yes. But how does throwing another bad law at an existing bad law help? . . .

[Legislated network neutrality] would prohibit specialty ISPs from ever starting. What do I mean by specialty ISPs? The easiest example would be something like “The Disney ISP” some sort of kid friendly ISP that parents could get for their kids that blocks access to any content even remotely adult oriented and sends the parents reports of what sites their kids go to who the chat with and full chat transcripts. Some thing like that would be very handy to non-tech savvy parents that want to protect their children on-line. [Legislated network neutrality] however would prevent someone from even thinking about starting an ISP like that though.

Just like I can’t hold a gun to your head and tell you how to decorate your house or who to let in. We as a society cannot morally hold a gun to the ISP’s head and tell them how to run their business.

[Finally, legislated network neutrality] would force the companies who built and now maintain these facilities to provide bandwidth free of charge to their competitors? How can anyone justify that? — Truth in Tech

While Cerf testified (PDF) before Congress in February that “The best long-term answer to this problem is significantly more broadband competition,” he also said that control of the Internet should be given to the FCC, rather than to network participants: “Congress should ensure that the FCC has all the tools it needs to maximize the chances for long-term success in this area.” What?

If you want a more extended policy analysis of network neutrality legislation, try this Cato Institute analysis, in which they also point out that network neutrality regulations would allow companies to game the system to their advantage and to the disadvantage of everyone else.

You call that saving the Internet? I call it destroying the Internet in its infancy. We don’t need any stinking regulations.