FCC's Network Neutrality Proceeding Means More Work For State Department

The FCC's actions on network neutrality, particularly if it classifies broadband as a Title II service subject to mandatory access provisions, could create work for the State Department, according to Ambassador Philip Verveer, assistant secretary of state and U.S. coordinator for international communications & information policy.

"I can tell you from my travels around the world and my discussions with figures in various governments around the world there is a very significant preoccupation with respect to what we are proposing with respect to broadband and especially with respect to the net neutrality." Ambassador Verveer said that the proceeding "is one that could be employed by regimes that don't agree with our perspectives about essentially avoiding regulation of the Internet and trying to be sure not to do anything to damage its dynamism and its organic development. It could be employed as a pretext or as an excuse for undertaking public policy activities that we would disagree with pretty profoundly."

He says he has tried to assuage his counterparts' concerns over the proceeding. "But [the concern] is there, and depending upon what happens with respect to the net neutrality proceeding, it may well end up having an effect that will cause us at the State Department to have to engage in a lot of discussions with our foreign counterparts."

The thrust of Verveer's brief speech, whose brevity he said was in inverse proportion to the importance of the subject, was the impact of cloud computing on privacy and intermediary liability.