• by Wendy Davis , Staff Writer @wendyndavis, May 5, 2011

Earlier this year, Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), chair of the House Judiciary Intellectual Property, Competition and the Internet subcommittee, criticized the Federal Communications Commission for engaging in "mission creep" with its net neutrality order.

While Goodlatte said he was concerned that broadband providers might engage in anti-consumer behavior, he said Congress, not the FCC, should make rules regarding the Internet. What's more, he suggested, any attempt by Internet service providers to violate open Internet principles could be handled under antitrust law.

"Antitrust laws alone would not adequately preserve the freedom and openness of the Internet or provide enough certainty and confidence to drive investment in our innovation future," Genachowski said in his written testimony. "Antitrust enforcement is expensive to pursue, takes a long time, and kicks in only after damage is done. Especially for start-ups in a fast-moving area like the Internet, that's not a practical solution."

The FCC's neutrality order, which passed by a 3-2 vote last December, bans all broadband providers blocking sites or competing applications. The rules also ban wireline providers from engaging in unreasonable discrimination. The regulations contain an exception for reasonable network management practices.

Not surprisingly Commissioner Robert McDowell, who dissented from the order, reiterated his belief that open Internet regulations are unnecessary. "Nothing is broken in the broadband Internet access market that needs fixing," he said in his written testimony. "Sufficient antitrust and consumer protection laws exist to prevent and cure any of the contemplated harms outlined in the order."

The House has already voted to prevent the regulations from going into effect, but that vote was largely symbolic given that the Democratic-controlled Senate isn't likely to enact a similar measure.

Meanwhile, Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) attempted to debunk the idea, spread by some GOP members, that neutrality rules mark a government "takeover" of the Internet.

"Net neutrality has been in place since the beginning of the Internet," he said in a speech on the Senate floor on Wednesday.

For instance, he said, "If you buy Rihanna's latest song from iTunes, it downloads as quickly as a song from a friend who has a band in his or her garage. If you send an email to your mother, it arrives in her inbox just as quickly as an email she gets from President Obama."

Franken added that he wasn't a huge fan of the rules that were enacted, which he characterized as a "mediocre compromise" that didn't go far enough. Nonetheless, he said, "The FCC's only goal here is to make sure that the Internet we know and love does not become corrupted and altered by a small number of corporations controlling the last free and open distribution channel we have in this country."