[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 64 (Wednesday, May 5, 1999)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E868-E869]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


  THE INTRODUCTION OF THE INTERNET GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT ACT OF 1999

                                 ______
                                 

                           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

[[Page E869]]

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.

                          ____________________