Google’s Lame Defense of its Net Neutrality Pact [GigaOm]

Definitely a week of new challenges (and learning opportunities…) for Google

Here Google is playing the kind of semantic gymnastics that lobbyists deploy so well. In a world where corporate interests (and sometimes their actual lobbyists) write legislation, Google isn’t merely an interested party proposing an idea for network neutrality; it’s a powerful influencer suggesting to overworked and under-informed legislative aids how laws should be written. Unless the FCC takes back control of this process, or Congress stymies any legislative effort because its members are reluctant to touch a hot-button issue during a mid-term election year, Google and Verizon’s compromise will influence policy in a way that common citizens cannot.

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Ironically, Google may have thrown its reputation under the bus with this whole effort, only to see Congress stand by and do nothing because of the coming mid-term elections. Or perhaps Congress will take the framework and bastardize it to an extent that Google will rue the day it tried to move the ball forward on net neutrality at all. Politics are messy, and Google is learning this firsthand.

Google’s Lame Defense of its Net Neutrality Pact