Net neutrality is no sham

The fact checkers at the DI should be recalled from summer vacation to save Mr. Bambenek from further publicly embarrassing himself. Bambenek demonstrated supreme ignorance and misled readers in his Friday column on net neutrality, a crucial Internet safeguard.

Net neutrality prevents cable and telephone companies from controlling what Web sites users can access based on who pays them the most. Bambenek clearly learned nothing from his interview with Free Press (a lead net neutrality defender). His bizarre polemic was shot through with glaring contradictions. He claims that net neutrality is a conspiracy against corporate America when its biggest backers are Google, Yahoo, Intel and Amazon.

He claims that net neutrality is a liberal conspiracy when it's supported by not only mainstream organizations such as AARP, League of Women Voters and the American Library Association, but also right-wing groups like the Christian Coalition, National Religious Broadcasters and Gun Owners of America.

He claims that net neutrality advocates lack credibility on technology issues when they count among their chief backers the inventors of the Internet and WWW, respectively, Vint Cerf and Tim Berners-Lee.

If Bambenek bothered to examine empirical evidence, he'd realize how broad the support for net neutrality is. Even corporate shills for telecom industries avoid the kinds of misleading arguments he's espousing.

Victor Pickard
UIUC Institute of Communications Research