Laws designed to protect the neutral and open nature of the Internet would be anti-competitive and harm the consumer, a senior antitrust specialist at the US Department of Justice said this week.

The comments do not bode well for campaigners who want the US government to prevent telecommunications carriers such as AT&T and Verizon creating a tiered internet, where paid-for content is given priority on the network.

A report from the DoJ to the Federal Communications Commission – the body that would be responsible for any legislation protecting ‘net neutrality’ –­ reported that there was little evidence to suggest that consumers would be disadvantaged by a variably priced Internet. The report pointed to example of the postal service, where variable pricing offers the customer more choice, not less.

“Consumers and the economy are benefitting from the innovative and dynamic nature of the Internet,” said Thomas Barnett, the DoJ’s antitrust chief told the FCC. “Regulators should be careful not to impose regulations that could limit consumer choice and investment in broadband facilities.”

The telecommunications carriers that operate the network infrastructure that supports the Internet such as AT&T have seen companies such as Google and eBay become rich on the back of their service without seening much profitability themselves. Charging content providers or consumers for prioritsing traffic would be a way for these companies to capitalise on their IP infrastructures.

But supporters of network neutrality, which include Google, Microsoft, Amazon.com and eBay, argue that allowing the telcos to create a tiered Internet would threaten the open nature of the Internet and make it less popular.

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