Nattering Net Neutrality Nonsense over AT&T’s Sponsored Data Offering – Part 23 Broadband Pricing Freedom Series

Net neutrality activists’ criticism of AT&T’s new freebie for consumers called Sponsored Data is nonsensical.

AT&T’s pricing innovation creates a new freebie for consumers and a new freedom for web providers of Internet content, apps and devices that is fully in keeping with any reasonable notion of a free and open Internet.

AT&T’s Sponsored Data offering is no different from other business freebies offered to consumers to market and competitively differentiate their businesses like: Amazon’s free shipping and free Kindle wireless service; Apple’s free messaging and video conferencing; Google’s free Search, Fiber, Maps, Mobile Operating System, and video conferencing offerings; or Yahoo’s free email. A full list of all free and open Internet consumer freebies would be endless.

AT&T’s Sponsored Data innovation is no different from sponsored ads, website sponsors, content sponsors or any other kind of Internet sponsor.

It is nonsensical for net neutrality activists to not be open to yet another free web service. On what reasonable basis is a consumer freebie from AT&T different than a consumer freebie offered by any other competitor in the Internet ecosystem?

How have net neutrality activists let themselves get so comically twisted up in their own free and open Internet rhetoric that they now find themselves opposing more Internet freedom, choices, and freebies for consumers!

Simply, AT&T’s new Sponsored Data freebie is pro-consumer, pro-competition and pro-innovation. It is neither discriminatory nor does it block, degrade or impair a consumer’s legal access to the content, applications or devices of their choice.  

Net Neutrality activists are the ones opposed here to Internet freedom, “innovation without permission,” and consumer choice -- not AT&T.

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Broadband Internet Pricing Freedom Series

Part 1: Netflix' Glass House Temper Tantrum Over Broadband Usage Fees [7-26-11]

Part 2: Netflix' Uneconomics [9-6-11]

Part 3: Debunking the Carping Over Broadband Usage-Pricing [3-1-12]

Part 4: Is Netflix the AOL of Web Streaming? [3-9-13]

Part 5: Consumer Groups' Advocacy Hypocrisy [4-25-12]

Part 6: "Leaf" Vision & Broadband Usage Caps [4-27-12]

Part 7: Broadband Pricing is Naturally Evolving to Usage Tiers [5-17-12]

Part 8: Obsolete Analysis Will Doom DOJ's Antitrust Probe of Cable [6-14-12]

Part 9: Video: Scott Cleland Discusses Netflix' DOJ Complaint [6-19-12]

Part 10: SCOTUS Indecency Ruling's Effect on Net Neutrality [6-20-12]

Part 11: U.S. Net Neutrality Movement in Retreat [7-9-12]

Part 12: FCC Creates "Abundant" Uncertainty [9-17-12]

Part 13: The Real Motive behind Opposition to Broadband Usage Based Pricing [11-14-12]

Part 14: The Uneconomics of Data Cap Price Regulation and Legislation [12-20-12]

Part 15: Wireless Plan Innovation Benefits Consumers & Competition [5-13-13]

Part 16: America's Private Video Market Success [5-16-13]

Part 17: A la Carte Uneconomics [7-25-13]

Part 18: Defending Google Fiber's Reasonable Network Management [7-30-13]

Part 19: "Monopolist" Assertions Devoid of Facts or Economic Understanding [10-2-13]

Part 20: Defending Google Fiber's Broadband Pricing Freedom to Price Discriminate [10-18-13]

Part 21: YouTube is Ultimate a la Carte – My Daily Caller Op-ed [11-14-13]

Part 22: U.S. Wireless Economics Beat EU’s Wireless Uneconomics [12-12-13]