With so many varying definitions of Net neutrality cruising the blogosphere, coming up with a single sensical definition is like nailing Jello to the wall. Given Stanford Prof. Larry Lessig’s comments at this month’s 10th Annual Gilder/Forbes Telecosm Conference, the nailing just got even tougher.

Here’s the background: George Gilder’s annual telecosm schmooze-fest for the technophiles featured a session, “Broadband Brawl: A Debate Over Net Neutrality.”

The Discovery Institute’s Hance Haney asked the Stanford neutrality regulation advocate whether a broadband provider should be allowed to auction rights to its default search bar. The search engine that paid the highest price would have its product load immediately for millions of the broadband provider’s customers. The other search engines would then have to coax those customers to switch.

LESSIG: … I’m totally fine [with that]. It’s end-to-end competition and that’s exactly what we should be encouraging.

Source: Telecosm video podcast

Lessig’s response is 100 percent accurate and 100 percent exasperating. He’s right that with the tab for U.S. broadband build-out at $40+ billion and counting, content providers and carriers should be exploring deals to defray direct costs to users.

Unfortunately, such common sense would be a clear-cut violation of federal law if the neutrality regulations he (and other regulators) champions pass Congress. Check out the clear language of Section 12 of the Snowe-Dorgan bill, which provides that broadband providers shall:

“enable any content, application, or service made available via the Internet to be offered, provided, or posted on a basis that… is at least equivalent to the access, speed, quality of service, and bandwidth that such broadband service provider offers to affiliated content, applications, or services made available via the public Internet into the network of such broadband service provider.” (Emphasis ours)

Source: Library of Congress

So the Good Professor is right about the benefits of mutually beneficial agreements. The Internet’s distinction between content and carriage is already crumbling under the weight of its own obsolescence. But having the Feds regulate this anachronism would only prop up a nonsensical business model.