Nevada could become first to regulate Internet traffic

Nevada could become the first state in the nation to mandate the physical route government data takes as it travels the Internet under a bill being considered by the Nevada Legislature. The bill's sponsors, Assembly Majority Leader Paul Anderson (R-Las Vegas), and state Sen Mo Denis (D-Las Vegas), argue their measure is critical for cybersecurity because it would keep government Internet traffic confined to the state, instead of allowing that data to travel traditional paths that often include out-of-state connection points.

But both critics of the bill and independent Internet security experts said the measure would do just the opposite, creating a single-point bottleneck that could make data more vulnerable to attack and would defeat the Internet's greatest strength, that it is decentralized with an almost infinite number of traffic routes. So far, Senate Bill 289 has just one public supporter: Las Vegas-based data center giant Switch. The company, which has become increasingly politically connected in recent years and contributed heavily to both state Assembly Majority Leader Anderson's and state Sen Denis' campaigns, already stores data for various government agencies and is well positioned to become the in-state traffic router should the bill pass -- a potential economic boon for the company.