After network neutrality, will we need "Google neutrality?"

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has mounted a recent push to turn network neutrality "principles" into official regulations—and in doing so has stirred up the net neutrality hornet's nest once again. The issues involved are thorny when you wade deep into the weeds, but consumer-level support for network neutrality seems largely driven by simple principle: AT&T should not be "speeding up" websites with deep pockets, leaving everyone else to languish in the slow lane. This was famously what AT&T Chairman Ed Whitacre wanted to do back in 2005 when he declared that Internet companies would not be able to "use my pipes free." The scheme that he envisioned was a basic bit of price discrimination; charge extra fees to those who could afford to pay in order to maximize profits. But here's the thing—price discrimination happens all the time (US college fees vary widely based on one's ability to pay, for instance). And while ISPs are one obvious chokepoint on the Internet, they aren't the only one. Massive search engines like Google can easily become another, and it might not be long before the government needs to think about other forms of "neutrality."