roduce a less favorable environment for competition and innovation in the market for Internet content and applications. Some regulatory proposals attempt to preserve the transparency of the Internet by regulating last-mile providers' relationships with end users. Other proposals seek to regulate last-mile providers' relationships with network and content providers. Some call for mandating interconnection of broadband networks along standard- ized interfaces such as TCP/IP. 1 Others argue in favor of a presumption that any discriminatory access agreements are anticompetitive, leaving the precise regula- tory requirements to be developed over time through case-by-case adjudication.2 Although these proposals vary considerably in both their terminology and details, they can comfortably be aggregated within the broad rubric of 'network neutrality." The term "network neutrality" is something of a misnomer. Adoption of any standardized interface has the inevitable effect of favoring certain applications and disfavoring others. For example, TCP/IP routes packets anonymously on a "first come, first served" and "best efforts" basis. Thus, it is poorly suited to applications that are less tolerant of variations in throughput rates, such as streaming media and See, e.g., Lemley (1996); Lessig (2002); Werbach (2002); Cooper (2003); Solum and Chung (2004); Wu (2004); cf. Speta (2002), proposing mandatory interconnection among backbone carriers. 2 See, e.g., Weiser (2003b); Lessig (2005). Networks in Telecommunications VoIP, and is biased against network-based security features that protect e-commerce and ward off viruses and spam. Contrary to what the nomenclature might suggest, network neutrality is anything but neutral. Indeed, using regulation to standardize interfaces would have the unfortunate effect of forcing the government to act as the central planner of the technological evolution of the network. There can be no question that interoperability provides substantial economic benefits. Making Internet applications and co