these cable companies would serve AOL content at high speed. AOL had
many Internet customers. These customers would be able to get access to
Time Warner content. The merger was an ideal opportunity, both compa-
nies argued, for synergy in this market. The old and the new would form to-
gether one of the most important media companies in the world.

At the same time, AOL announced its policy on open access had
changed. It, like AT&T, no longer believed that the government should reg-
ulate access. It, like AT&T, believed that the market should regulate itself.[10-38]

///\\\

I'm not sure why people are surprised by flips in corporate policy, any
more than we are surprised by flips of politicians. Corporations have a duty
to their shareholders. Their job is to make money. If the opportunities pre-
sent themselves, they will, and should, change their views. They are not in-
stitutions of public policy. And they don't deserve the attack that would
befall an institution of public policy that so radically, and transparently,
switched sides.

But the other side of this obvious point is that we should not treat
what corporations say is good public policy as what is good public pol-
icy. We should treat them as statements by individuals who are required
by law to be self-serving. This is not just "bias" -- this is legally mandated
bias.

Thus, I discount both AOL's support and AOL's opposition to govern-
ment regulations to support open access as evidence about whether open
access is good policy. The question is not what AOL believes is good for
AOL. The question is what is good for the Internet.

And here again we return to the question, What trend should we expect?
The opponents of any governmental role here argue that the market will
take care of itself. I think that's true -- the market will take care of _itself_.
AOL/TW will build itself to maximize its market power. The question is
what shape that building will take.

///\\\

The danger is what economists would call the problems of vertical
integration -- where one provider controls the full range of services across
the layers I described -- content, logical, and physical.[10-39] Outside the Inter-
net, the danger of vertical integration is less.[10-40] But within a network, the
danger grows. Such integration, a report by the National Research Council
has concluded, "could, if successful, cause a change in the Internet market,

[[165]]

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