Last week’s slap on the wrist for Comcast was one of the more curious chapters in the incoherent effort to regulate the Internet in the United States. The Federal Communications Agency reprimanded the largest U.S.  cable TV operator  for interfering in data exchanges between its customers. Comcast had slowed transfers between users of BitTorrent on the grounds that the sending of large files (often illegally-copied music and video) was clogging up its network.

The FCC did not fine the company for its actions but said its targeting of peer-to-peer applications like BitTorrent was discriminatory. The agency also chided Comcast’s failure to let customers know what it was doing. The company, hardly satisfied despite getting off scot-free, announced it would consider appealing the decision. “We believe that our network management choices were reasonable, wholly consistent with industry practices,” Sena Fitzmaurice, a spokeswoman for the company, said in a statement. “We are considering all our legal options and are disappointed that the commission rejected our attempts to settle this issue without further delays.”

An appeal would open a can of worms because the FCC has no clear authority to regulate the Internet. And its efforts so far have not worked very well. Consider the cost of Internet access in the U.S., one of the highest in the industrialized world.  For a triple-play subscription in Paris with Free, a French provider, I pay $45 for 70 TV channels, many of them high-definition, Internet access (20 megabit download speed) and free telephone service to more than 70 countries.

That’s about a third of what I pay in New York for services that include much slower Internet access. One reason: competition. A hesitant FCC never truly enforced rules that were meant to make Internet access a competitive sport. Instead of forcing carriers to allow independent Internet Service Providers (ISPs) access to their facilities, the big players delayed and obfuscated until many of the ISPs were practically out of business.

The Comcast case touches uneasily on the issue of Internet “neutrality,” which may be why Comcast is considering an appeal. Proponents of “neutrality” argue that all Internet traffic should be treated equally. Internet service providers say they should be able to charge different rates for different types of traffic and limit transmission rates, on the grounds that a few users can monopolize and slow the system.

Congress has considered enshrining net neutrality into law, an option that other telecom companies are not excited about. Last week, many supported the FCC’s decision, pointing out that the issue was resolved without the input of legislators.

The U.S. has rightly allowed the Internet to flourish with as little regulatory interference as possible. But was we have learned from the mortgage crisis and the Internet bubble, self-correction can elude the players in a heated market. At some point, the U.S. Congress will have to set some rules for the Web and provide the FCC the guidance it needs to create rules that make sense.