Declan McCullagh of CNET has a very insightful piece called: "Missing : Politicians who take a clear stand on tech" where he spotlights that net neutrality is not on either the Democrat or Republican tech policy agendas.

• It is not at all surprising that the Congressional Republican agenda does not have Net neutrality on its agenda, since Republicans almost universally see net neutrality for what it is: an unnecessary and dangerous back door attempt to regulate the Internet for the first time.
• However, it is suprising and downright embarassing that Moveon.org and Google, eBay, Amazon, Yahoo, and IAC could not manage to get net neutrality on the Congressional Democratic tech policy agenda.
  

Google's net neutrality hypocrisy only grows.

• The International Tribune reports that Google has entered an Internet advertising revenue sharing arrangement with broadband ISP China Telecom.

It will be fun to hear Google's explanatory gymnastics on this one! 

• How can Google say with a straight face that is for net neutrality here in the U.S. when it cuts non-neutral broadband ISP arrangements with China Telecom on top of aiding and abetting the Chinese Government in censoring what the Chinese people can access from the Internet?
• Do as Google says...

I listened in to SaveTheInternet's conference call with reporters in celebration of their one year anniversary.

• It was an illuminating "window" into the nature and status of the current Net neutrality "movement."

Senator Dorgan (D-ND) author of the pending Dorgan-Snowe Bill was the keynote and star.  

• He framed net neutrality as  "Internet freedom" and "open architecture" and breathlessly stated that "the future of the Internet is at stake." 
• He announced that he was seeking a hearing on his legislation with the goal of moving it to the Senate floor implying he had the votes to pass it.
• He also anticipated and asked himself the core question of "why is the legislation needed?"
• His only answer was to read the December 2005 Business Week quote by then SBC Chairman Ed Whitacre about how it was "nuts" for Google to use its pipes for free.
• I was stunned that he as the keynote and the name author of the legislation that he could not come up with a more recent or better piece of "evidence" or at least come up with a real world example of a problem or instance he is concerned about.
• This is obviously all politics; they have no substance or they would present it.

Craig Newmark was second to speak and he asserted everyone he knew was for NN. (I guess we should give up now.)

Curt Monash in his blog suggests a "third way" for net neutrality to go -- applying regulation to the "JeffersonNet" or "bandwidth-light" parts of the Internet while not applying it to the "EdisonNet," the more "communications-rich" applications where regulation would be an impediment.

• Others have picked up on this thread, Slashdot, and Computerworld, intrigued with the middle way or third way thinking.
• Before people get carried away that there is merit in this wishful thinking thread of discussion -- lets add a dose of reality.

With all due respect, the "middle way" thinking is seriously flawed because it assumes a compromise between views with equal merit.

• Fast forwarding to a compromise of what or how much the Internet is regulated assumes the case has been made for any new regulation of the Internet.
• That case has not been made at all.
• Net neutrality is a pathetic ragtag collection of buzzword-blackmail assertions, unsubstantiated allegations and bogus claims.
• Sure the net neutrality side would like to compromise because they have lost in every official and legal forum they have raised the issue.
• Sure they would like to compromise because that would give desperately-needed validation to a bankrupt idea that is on the ropes.
• Sure they would like to get the proverbial "camels nose under the tent."

In order to talk net neutrality compromise, net neutrality proponents have to make the case that they have legitimate concerns to begin with.

Listening to the House and Senate Democrats in yesterday's congressional hearings say "there can be no debate" "or dispute" that the U.S. is falling behind in broadband, when House and Senate Republicans, expert witnesses and the Administration were debating the validity of that very point directly before them, indicates that this "debatable point" is the exact type of "assessment of the facts" for which the Congress created the GAO to sort out.

Congressional Democrats appear to be embracing the findings of the OECD on broadband as gospel when the OECD has obvious competitive motive to put EU countries in the best light and the U.S. in the worst light.

I always knew Moveon.org was a powerful political force, but I just learned how powerful -- Moveon.org was the second largest Political Action Committee (PAC) in the US in 2006, according to the Washington Post "In The Loop" column by Jeffery H. Birnbaum.

• Moveon.org, with its 3 million person email list, was the second-largest PAC with $27.7 million, after Emily's List at $34.1 million. Political MoneyLine was the cited source. 

Moveon.org's political clout combined with its zealousness for promoting net neturality regulation and the front-loaded 2008 political process mean net neutrality will likely remain on the "techcom" political agenda as a key issue for the foreseeable future -- despite getting repudiated by the House, Senate, Supreme Court, FCC, FTC, NTIA, Maryland, Michigan to only name the most prominent forums that rejected regulating the Internet.

Google just announced a new so called "service" for you: "Web History."

• https://www.google.com/accounts/ServiceLogin?hl=en&continue=http://www.google.com/history&nui=1&service=hist

You know what gives me the creeps about this?

•  Google is trying to act like this computerized "intimacy theft," the systematic spying and mass archiving of the intimate private search lives of Americans for the benefit of the highest bidder -- is for the average American's benefit. 
• Please don't insult our intelligence.
• Reportedly 9 of 10 Google users think their search histories are private information.
• Uh oh.
• These unsuspecting and trusting Americans are being treated as suckers by Google.

How do we know Google does not sell or give access to this extremely intimate info to the government or the highest bidder?

• Just like 9 of 10 Americans don't know their intimate privacy is being stolen, I'll posit that 9 of 10 Google users will never avail themselves of this so called "service."

You know what gives me the most creeps about Google's Web History service?

The WSJ reported DoubleClick Inc. "Defends its deal with Google" by "pledging that the information it collects about, and for, its graphical-advertising customers won't be shared with Google after the acquisition later this year."

Let's be real here. They really do think everyone is stupid.

• First, Doubleclick is being bought by Google so what Doubleclick says now doesn't matter after the transaction closes.
• To be taken seriously this pledge needs to made by Google in writing and enforceable as part of the transaction contractually or by court decree.
• It is unlikely that Google will agree to this restriction because Google knows that it can simply change the DoubleClick policy and harmonize it with Google's very loose privacy policy on a going forward basis.
• This public pledge is also a swiss cheese committment.
• With weak privacy policies like Google's, it's about "sins of ommission" what they don't say or commit to, not "sins of commission" what they actually say in their byzantine privacy policy.   

Privacy issues are Google's achilles heel. Google is growing so fast and is so profitable largely because they are most aggressively arbitraging privacy law and american's privacy expectations. The FT said Google's brand is now number 1 in the world.

It is very interesting and ironic that when Former FCC Chairman Reed Hundt was at the FCC he strongly advocated that "Spectrum Flexibility will Promote Competition and the Public Interest" in an article in IEEE magazine with Greg Rosston in the December 1995 issue.

• "...we must stop over-regulating commercial uses of licenses for spectrum use."
• "...in the digital age, innovation is far to rapid for anyone to predict accurately what the best use of the spectrum will be five years from now."
• "The Commission should require that market failures be clearly shown and any restrictions on flexibility narrowly targeted to deal explicitly with the failure."

While I often disagreed with then FCC Chairman Hundt when he diverted from promoting market-based competition by picking winners and losers through hyper-regulation, I must commend Mr. Hundt's logic and policy explained in detail in his IEEE monograph in 1995.  

• Its too bad that he no longer appears to support that pro-competition and pro-taxpayer stance anymore.

Ironically now, Mr. Hundt would financially benefit greatly, if the FCC rigs the 700 MHz auction to lower the value spectrum by requiring a license holder agree to net neutrality.

• The taxpayer would be the biggest loser if the FCC decides to restrict and heavily regulate some of the 700 MHz spectrum up for auction with net neutrality.

The primary impetus behind the 1993 Democratic Congress that passed the law requiring spectrum auctions is that the taxpayer was routinely being fleeced by the FCC granting spectrum by other processes than auctions.

Google turned in another awe-inspring financial performance in 1Q07. Pick your news report for the basics. All you need to know is revenue growth was up 63%. Wow!

• Derek Brown of Cantor Fitzgerald said in the Washington Post today:
• "I am basically convinced that no company in history has put up the type of finanical performance that Google has put up from a growth and financial perspective for as long as they have done it."
• It's hard to disagree with him. There is no other example.
• They are a jugernaut.
• What I questioned in my recent 10-page analysis of the Google-Doubleclick merger, was whether all of that success is legitimate given rampant click fraud and Google's systematic theft of its core inputs -- copyrighted content.

Let me translate some of the earnings call: