More on Net Neutrality and Comcast:

Level 3 Communications, a central partner in the Netflix online movie service, accused Comcast on Monday of charging a new fee that puts Internet video companies at a competitive disadvantage.
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A recent study found that at peak times, Netflix represented 20 percent of Internet download traffic in the United States. That makes it a de facto competitor for incumbent distributors like Comcast and Time Warner Cable, which are eager to protect both the subscription television business and the emerging video-on-demand business.
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Nonetheless, on Monday night, public interest groups that have steadfastly opposed the combination of Comcast and NBC Universal argued that the Level 3 case proved that Comcast would discriminate against competitors if it could.

“On its face, this is the sort of toll booth between residential subscribers and the content of their choice that a net neutrality rule is supposed to prohibit,” said Harold Feld, legal director of one such group, Public Knowledge, in a statement.

Mr. Stortz said Level 3 would be approaching government regulators this week and “asking them to take quick action to ensure that a fair, open and innovative Internet does not become a closed network controlled by a few institutions with dominant market power that have the means, motive and opportunity to economically discriminate between favored and disfavored content.”

Mr. McGuire, of Gartner, said, “There is no law here. There are only guiding principles. F.C.C. clarity on this kind of thing is going to be required.”

Without laws on the books to specify that internet service providers provide what is legally considered a “utility”, like phone service, rather than a “service”, it will be perfectly legal for companies that provide both internet service and cable television content to block similar services from other providers. in other words, bye-bye Netflix.

It’s only a short hop from that to companies controlling access to news content. This is baaaaaaad stuff.