THE INTRODUCTION OF THE INTERNET GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT ACT OF 1999 -- HON. RICK BOUCHER (Extensions of Remarks - May 05, 1999)

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HON. RICK BOUCHER OF VIRGINIA IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES WEDNESDAY, MAY 5, 1999

Mr. BOUCHER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today with my Virginia colleague BOB GOODLATTE, with whom I am privileged to cochair the Congressional Internet Caucus, in the introduction of two bills which taken together will address the major challenges confronting the Internet today.

Heretofore, congressional debates on issues affecting the Internet have been ad hoc and have addressed single issues only. The legislation we are introducing today will provide the first comprehensive framework for debate by the Congress of the major current Internet policy challenges.

The passage of both bills will truly promote the growth and development of the Internet:

First, passage of the legislation will result in greater broadband deployment and an increase in the speed by which people connect to the Internet from their homes and their places of work. Telephone companies will be required to file plans with state public service commissions for the deployment of DSL services in all local exchanges where the deployment is both technolgicially feasible and economically reasonable. Today, only 50,000 subscribers nationwide have DSL service. Our legislation will result in those numbers increasing dramatically.

We also seek to encourage competition in the provision of DSL services by reducing the regulatory burden on the offering of DSL for telephone companies which agree to make reconditioned loops for the provision of DSL services available in a timely fashion to competitors.

To ensure an increase in Internet backbone capacity and to stimulate competition in the offering of backbone services, the legislation enables Bell Operating Companies to carry data across LATA boundaries to the extent that the data is not a voice-only service, whether or not the Bell Operating Company has obtained approval to offer inter-LATA services under section 271 of the 1996 Act. This provision will strongly encourage investment in the Internet backbone and the creation of greater competition among Internet backbone providers. That competition is essential to assure the retention of the current peering arrangements which promote low-cost Internet services.

Our legislation gives legal voice to the policies of Internet Service Providers which are designed to protect their facilities from bulk mailings of unsolicited electronic advertisements. Spam can seriously degrade the performance of the Internet and clog the facilities of Internet Access Providers to the disadvantage of all users. In some instances, Internet Service Provider facilities have even crashed due to the onslaught of spam. If service providers have restrictive policies concerning the
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use of their facilities by spammers, those policies should be enforced, and our legislation provides the mechanism for the enforcement.

Our legislation also makes it a criminal offense intentionally to falsify Internet domain, header information, date or time stamps, originating e-mail addresses or other e-mail identifiers or intentionally to sell or distribute any computer program which is designed or produced primarily for the purpose of concealing the source of routing information of bulk unsolicited electronic mail. This provision strikes at the practice of bulk e-mailers who through the use of specially designed software change the origination information in e-mail messages as each small cluster of messages is sent. That practice is used to defeat the blocking software of Internet Service Providers which deflects from their facilities large volumes of messages originating from a single source.

The legislation will encourage electronic commerce by giving full authorization to properly authenticated electronic signatures. A variety of laws require a written document with a written signature for the enforceability for certain kinds of contracts. Our legislation will give full legal effect to contracts constructed online and prevent either party from disavowing the contract due to the absence of a physical written signature, if the identity of the contracting parties is properly authenticated and if certainty is created that the text of any document they construct has not been changed. The legislation sets forth specifics for obtaining that authentication.

We propose to create a new right of privacy for Internet users. In response to the growing practice of web site operators of collecting information from web site users either directly through a registration form or indirectly through the implantation of a ``cookie'' on the user's hard disk, the legislation requires that all web site operators post their information collection and use policies in a conspicuous manner so that web site users will be informed of the information collected and the use to which that information is put and have an opportunity to exit the web site without any information being collected if the visitor objects to that collection and use of information. The provision will be enforced by the Federal Trade Commission.

Finally, we propose to assure that all Americans retain complete freedom to select the Internet access provider of their choice. As the Internet has grown and developed, most Americans have connected to the Internet over telephone lines. While the telephone company has provided the transport, everyone has been free to select the company that will provide the Internet access. Even in instances where telephone companies offer both transport and Internet access services, the law has protected the right of the telephone company's customers to select an Internet access provider other than the telephone company.

Unfortunately, as the cable industry begins the deployment of cable modem services, a different model is being pursued. At the present time, there is no federal law restricting the ability of cable companies to package their transport services and their affiliated Internet access services and require that customers purchasing high-speed transport also purchase the cable company's affiliated Internet access service. The largest cable multiple system operators are, in fact, bundling transport with Internet access and requiring that the affiliated Internet access services be purchased by cable modem customers.

There are more than 2,000 Internet access providers nationwide. The vast majority of the ISPs are startup companies who have brought a new level of entrepreneurship to the telecommunications industry. Many of them will become the competitive local exchange carriers who will offer competition not only in the provision of Internet access, but in the offering of local telephone service and other telecommunications services as well. They will be important contributors to the competitive local exchange industry we envisioned when we wrote the Telecommunications Act of 1996.

But these ISPs are severely threatened by the deployment by cable television companies of broadband Internet transport connections which also bundle affiliated Internet access services. The broad bandwidth of these services will surely attract a large clientele, much of which will be the existing customer base of independent ISP's.

If the cable television companies are permitted to force their cable modem customers to purchase their affiliated Internet access services as a condition of subscribing to their high speed transport service, many independent ISP's will be foreclosed from a large portion of their existing customer base and from market growth opportunities. The legislation we are offering today assures that this anticompetitive practice will not occur and that all Internet transport platforms in the future will be open, much as telephone company transport platforms are open today.

I am pleased to be participating on a bipartisan basis with Representative GOODLATTE in offering this legislation, the enactment of which will assure that the Internet more rapidly achieves its potential to be the multimedia platform of choice for the delivery of voice, video and data.
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