The CEO of Spanish telecommunications giant Telefonica has said that Google and other search engines should be charged for the amount of traffic they generate.

John W. Daly of Techeye.net reports that, in an interview with Spanish newspaper El Pais, CEO César Alierta openly stated that be believed that companies like Google should pay for generating traffic on his company’s communications network.

“Search engines use our network, without paying for it” said Alierta. He would like search engines to help meet the costs of installation, maintenance and customer service costs of the telecommunications systems that their business depends upon.

Not only does Alierta’s suggestion create a concern for the future of search engine marketing - higher costs for search engines would inevitably drive PPC advertising prices skyward – but it also poses a serious question for net neutrality.

This is the discourse that challenges ISP and telecoms proposals to impose a tiered service model on internet services, where a toll would be charged to websites; proponents of net neutrality say that allowing a toll to be imposed or for companies to purchase better traffic through telecom companies rather than in-house investment would create an unfair business model, stifling competition and innovation online.

John W Daly uses a very fitting analogy for the “severe changes” an end to net neutrality would bring, saying that small start-ups and content providers “would win up on the wood road” whilst large corporations purchase premium services, buying their position in the online market with capital.

Because of the implications for net neutrality, it seems unlikely that Alierta’s comments will amount to anything more than personal opinion; the EU commissioner for the Digital Agenda, Neelie Kroes, has said she will defend net neutrality and that “[internet providers] shouldn’t be allowed to limit the access to service or content out of commercial motivation but only in cases of security issues and spamming”.