While the HandsOff blog just got under way last week, we must point out that we are far from the first blogger to stand up to the pro-regulation faction and ask some pretty interesting questions about what the activists are really leading us toward.

Maybe the most dedicated net neutrality critic is Richard Bennett, a guy who was blogging before there was a blogosphere. He’s a bit more irreverent than we are, but he knows technology as well as anyone else, and probably a lot better than most of the people at Save The Internet.

Last month he took a well-aimed shot at Save The Internet for claiming that 1,500 blogs had taken up their cause in the first couple days that their site was online, based solely on who had linked to them:

But this blog has linked to them, and I don’t support their goals, and neither do the other blogs I’ve cited on this subject. In fact, a scan of the blogs that have been discussing this issue will show you that technical bloggers and free marketeers almost universally oppose the “net neutering” legislation proposed by Google’s coalition, while support is mainly concentrated in left wing blogs who actually are pushing for a government-funded and government-controlled Internet (but not exclusively; some right wing blogs run by people who don’t have technical knowledge — such as the Instapundit — have joined the fray on the wrong side.)

Another who gets it is Matt S., who likes to think of himself as the only Republican in San Francisco. Early in this debate he made one of the sharpest observations yet:

While ‘neutrality’ sounds benign, the proposed legislation would give the FCC powers that it currently does not have. Be clear, there is no neutrality legislation in place and we are doing just fine.

More importantly, from a technical and economic perspective, I am inspired by innovation and experimentation and the free markets which enable them. A neutrality mandate would give the federal gov’t regulatory powers to decide right and wrong at the router level.

You should not be surprised that the loudest advocates of ‘net neutrality’ are those on the far left, including MyDD, and MoveOn. Their arguments are very much in line with things like McCain-Feingold and the old Fairness Doctrine.

Maybe the most surprising critic of net neutrality is a Daily Kos diarist and blogger who goes by the nom de blog Mumon, and even challenged his fellow Kos contributors on the subject. He probably doesn’t agree with us on everything, but he also has the network infrastructure know-how to know “net neutrality” isn’t everything it’s cracked up to be:

Like it or not, some folks will fly first class, and like it or not, many more folks will fly coach. The trick for providers is to make first class cheaper than the competition. (That’s not trivial, and it’s a profoundly interesting problem that I didn’t know how to solve 12 years ago.) … The real issue for “net neutrality” is that an advanced internet needs to be built, financed, and initiated through the government help, like it is in Korea, Japan, and China. That’s why our access charges are so steep relative to these places. Put big pipes everywhere, and the high class QoS services can easily coexist with the best effort folks.

Save The Internet likes to claim that it is the true grassroots effort, but they have their backers in DC and elsewhere as well. They call us “astroturf,” even though we’ve never hidden who we represent. Well, there are a few “little guys” who see through the net neutrality hype.

And these bloggers mentioned here are far from the only skeptics on the Internet, and we thank them for their effort. And as they blog more, we’ll keep pointing out their invaluable work.