ution advanced IM-based applications. To remedy this harm, we impose a condition requiring AOL Time Warner, before it may offer an advanced IM ("Instant-Messaging")-based application that includes streaming video, to provide interoperability between its NPD-based applications and those of other providers, or to show by clear and con- vincing evidence that circumstances have changed such that the pub- lic interest will no longer be served by an interoperability condition. (Emphasis added) In short, both the Federal Trade Commission and the Federal Commu- nications Commission perceived a potential threat from vertical integra- tion in the AOL-Time Warner merger, and both imposed conditions designed to limit the potential harm from such integration. Unfortunately, these conditions also limited the benefits from AOL-Time Warner's invest- ment in broadband content because AOL-Time Warner must provide other ISPs access to its cable modem customers and it must design certain content packages to be compatible with rivals' content. It is certainly pos- sible that these conditions contributed to AOL-Time Warner's poor per- formance since the merger. 32 Whether the restrictions on AOL-Time Warner and the regulatory requirements placed on the ISPs may eventually yield benefits in excess of their costs cannot be determined at this early stage of the development of broadband. However, the history of United States antitrust policy and reg- ulation in matters involving new technologies and vertical integration does not provide grounds for optimism.3 This hostility to vertical integration in broadband is quite widespread, especially among lawyers and engineers who observed the birth of the Internet and its subsequent rapid growth. Many of these observers believe that the Internet was a success because of common standards and an "end- to-end" architecture that allows anyone to interconnect with essentially a static, "dumb" network using nonproprietary protocols. This reasoning derives from the observation that the Internet develop