Imagine a network of private highways that reserved a special lane for Fords to zip through, unencumbered by all the other brands of cars trundling along the clogged, shared lanes. Think of the prices Ford could charge. Think of what would happen to innovation when building the best car mattered less than cutting a deal with the highway’s owners.

A few years ago, Tim Wu, a professor at Columbia Law School and a leading thinker about the evolution of the “information economy,” warned members of the House judiciary committee that this could be the fate of the Internet. Companies offering broadband access, he said, should not be allowed to discriminate among services online. If they did, the best service would not always win the day. “It’s not who has a better product,” he explained. “It’s who can make a deal with AT&T, Verizon, Comcast or Time Warner.”

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Continua qui: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/09/business/economy/net-neutrality-and-economic-equality-are-intertwined.html