Surfers should pay congestion charges

[Commentary] Does it make sense to ban businesses from charging higher prices to some customers for giving them preferential treatment over others? That idea lies at the heart of Barack Obama's promised policy towards Network Neutrality on the Internet, a medium that had more than a passing role in his election to the White House. It is a proposal that should be dropped from the new administration's agenda as soon as decently possible. Other countries where the issue has started to raise its head, such as the UK, should also tread carefully before attempting their own regulation. The issue in question is a central one for the information age. It concerns the rights and obligations of the companies that run the communications networks which, collectively, make up the Internet. Should they be permitted to charge higher prices for giving priority treatment to some of the traffic they carry? And conversely, should they be allowed to downgrade the importance of other, lower-paying traffic, or even refuse to carry it? A better option would be for politicians to leave well alone, particularly since legislation in such a fast-changing area could have unintended consequences. Some safeguards may well be needed in two important areas, but these should be left to regulators like the Federal Communications Commission in the US and Ofcom in the UK. One is to prevent network operators from deliberately slowing or blocking the traffic of particular Internet services. A second area for regulatory attention will be to ensure that the quality of the Internet's "slow lane" does not deteriorate.