Search engine giant Google has publicly warned it will challenge any attempt to infringe on access to its content under antitrust law, according to Google vice-president and "Internet evangelist" Vinton Cerf.
Speaking during a press conference in Bulgaria, Cerf stated that if Congress does not pass effective protections for "net neutrality," the company will file litigation against any company that blocks or degrades access to its service.
"If we are not successful in our arguments," Cerf said, "then we will simply have to wait until something bad happens and then we will make known our case to the Department of Justice's antitrust division."
Cerf is widely recognized as the "Father of the Internet" for his work designing the network connection protocols the Internet operates on.
Accorded multiple honors for his work in creating and developing technologies for government and industry, Cerf was vice president of MCI for many years before being hired by Google to hunt down new opportunities for them.
The battle over net neutrality threatens to derail passage of telecom legislation currently on the Senate's docket. Senate Commerce Committee chairman Ted Stevens (R-AK), author of the legislation, has admitted that he does not have the 60 votes needed to ensure passage in the Senate.
Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) has put a "hold" on the legislation until amendments protecting net neutrality are added to the bill. A "hold" is considered to be a clear warning of a filibuster.
Although the net neutrality debate has been chiefly regarded as a communications issue, placing it under the mantle of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the concept of placing net neutrality complaints under antitrust law has come up before in the debate.
House Judiciary Committee chairman James Sensenbrenner briefly held up passage of the House's version of the telecom bill on that point, claiming his committee had the proper jurisdiction to address cases of Internet providers favoring one content source over another.
When that effort failed, he co-authored separate legislation designed to protect net neutrality and place it firmly under the Justice Department's authority. That bill passed the Judiciary Committee, but stalled on the House floor.
Cerf has been at the forefront of the battle for net neutrality since it first gained national prominence. In testimony before Congress last year, Cerf stated that network operators did not have the right to tell Internet users who they could or could not connect to, any more than telephone operators could keep customers from calling who they wanted.
