• Ars Technica, Tuesday, August 4, 2009 2:13 PM

Last week, Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) introduced the "Internet Freedom of Preservation Act of 2009" a new bill that aims to keep Internet service providers from blocking, interfering with, discriminating against, or impairing or degrading in any way access to lawful content from any lawful application or device. The measure would also forbid ISPs from imposing a charge on content providers that goes "beyond the end-user charges associated with providing the service to such a provider." In the case of Google vs. AT&T and Apple, AT&T doesn't have to let Google "use its pipes for free," but, as Ars Technica's Nate Anderson says, it can only collect money that is owed through "customary peering and transit arrangements."

Markey has pushed similar net neutrality legislation before, as an amendment rather than a standalone bill. Neither method has yet proved to be successful. However, as Anderson notes, with a new president and a new FCC chair in place, "the idea's political fortunes may have shifted as well."

If passed, the bill would place rulemaking and enforcement of network neutrality squarely in the hands of the FCC, which Anderson says would be faced with the "unenviable task" of figuring out what constitutes "reasonable network management". According to the bill, such management must be "narrowly tailored" and the techniques used must be "the least restrictive, least discriminatory, and least constricting of consumer choice available."

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