THE PENDULUM

The structure of the Internet is in ever-constant motion, and this motion has typically been characterized by rapid expansion. China alone boasted 338 million Internet users in June, courtesy of the China Internet Network Information Center, a greater population than that of the United States. The Internet has become so integral to modern culture and economics that any changes, no matter how small, instigate uproar within the affected communities.

With each redesign, Facebook users create groups protesting the alterations, and earlier this year citizens in Greensboro were so dismayed with the bandwidth limits Time Warner Cable was going to test its users with that their protests helped end the venture in the region.

On Thursday, the FCC took a step toward guiding the direction of the Internet's domestic growth. Approving a proposal based heavily around the premise of net neutrality, the commission unanimously approved to continue putting its plan together, with the next several months to be devoted to collecting public comments, after which a finalized proposal will be put together.

Net neutrality would ensure Internet providers would not be able to block or weaken the connections between their users and select sites. This is a direct response to the belief that many Internet providers have innate conflicts of interest, juggling their Internet services with phone and cable counterparts.

"As American consumers make the shift from dial-up to broadband, their choice of providers has narrowed substantially," Julius Genachowski, chairman of the FCC, said in an address to The Brookings Institution in September.

Without a government endorsement of net neutrality, Time Warner Cable, for example, could stifle its subscribers from accessing sites like Hulu to redirect consumer traffic to its cable offerings. But it's important to differentiate such conduct from the aforementioned limitations placed upon bandwidth.

As opposed to limiting the amount of content a particular consumer can partake of, which the FCC has not taken a stance against, the new proposal would prevent content from being categorically blocked because of certain properties.

This debate has drawn in two major players whose opposition to one another couldn't have been more thematically composed. In one corner is AT&T, a diminished, though still powerful, formerly sanctioned monopoly in telecommunications. In the other sits Google, the young upstart awash in investment, following in line with its "don't be evil" code of conduct and depicting itself as the flag bearer for online entrepreneurs and start-ups.

AT&T is against net neutrality, and Google is a staunch advocate for the FCC proposal. Both are currently lobbying heavily for their respective arguments, doling out letters of endorsement from qualified supporters across Washington.

"Google, to date, has gotten relatively a free pass that they're somehow promoting the public good on net neutrality, as opposed to, what I see, is they're trying to entrench their business model," Robert Quinn, AT&T's senior regulatory lawyer said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal.

Sen. John McCain thrust himself into the heart of the debate on the same day the FCC agreed to move forward with its proposal. Introducing the Internet Freedom Act of 2009, McCain sided with AT&T in preventing government intervention in the markets.

"Keeping businesses free from oppressive regulations is the best stimulus for the current economy," McCain said, though he interestingly left out the possibility of oppressive regulation coming from the private sector, brought to the American public by Internet providers given free reign over, admittedly, their own networks.

The barbs thrown at Google and McCain's own invocation of Google as an example of why the FCC should do nothing on the issue put the typically idolized company in a new light.

Over the course of its history, Google has acquired 51 companies, including significant prizes such as YouTube, Android and Doubleclick, eating up companies left and right to augment its already-profitable advertising revenues. Google Maps was born when Where 2 Technologies was purchased, and Chrome originated from Google's purchase of GreenBorder, a small Internet security company.

No matter how much of an aversion to evil Google may have, it is, as Quinn alleges, always considering its bottom line. Be that as it may, Google's practices don't invalidate the importance of net neutrality. Far from injecting governmental ineptitude into a thriving private industry, the FCC is taking a step to protect that thriving industry, which is made so by the speed at which small start-ups can be launched into profitability. Innovation is typically met with well-earned returns from the formation of online oligarchies, where geographic regions and Internet providers could determine what users can access.

It's already been made clear that service providers are interested only in the redirection of traffic either to its sister organizations, or in limiting the use of their networks to enhance their profitability. And though Google has the same self-serving desires, its profits are enhanced not by the limitation of Internet access, but by its expansion.

By ensuring this expansion doesn't come in the form of half-hearted, nickel and dimed efforts from service providers, net neutrality can help ensure tomorrow's Internet is just as vibrant as today's.