To the Editor:

Your editorial “Democracy and the Web” (May 19, 2008) argues for broad new federal regulation of the Internet — a first in Internet history. You say that “if Internet service providers started discriminating among content to make more money or to suppress ideas they do not like,” users will suffer. What you overlook is that there already are laws and regulators poised to deal with any such hypothetical problems. Moreover, the first-time ever federal control of the Internet “pipes” inevitably will hinder the network management (and build-out) needed to handle the torrent of new video and other data rich traffic flooding the Internet. Users (and democracy) then will really suffer when they face higher costs or limited service, or both. Federal control and dumb pipes are not the answer to our broadband needs, especially when the alleged basis of the new laws is speculation.

Mike McCurry
Christopher Wolf
Co-Chairs, Hands Off the Internet