About Scott Cleland
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Obsolete Privacy Law -- My Daily Caller Op-ed and Part I of Privacy Theft SeriesSubmitted by Scott Cleland on Wed, 2013-01-23 08:44Please don't miss my latest Daily Caller Op-ed: "Obsolete Privacy Law" -- here. It is part 1 of a new "Privacy Theft" research series. Net Neutrality's Misrepresentation of Free Speech -- Part 6 Defending First Principles SeriesSubmitted by Scott Cleland on Tue, 2013-01-22 10:19In defense of the FCC's Open Internet Order, which unilaterally mandates net neutrality, four former FCC Commissioners and Professor Susan Crawford argue to an Appeals Court that Verizon and broadband providers should enjoy no broadband freedom of speech under the Constitution. Why are many of the biggest political supporters of net neutrality focusing their legal defense of net neutrality on the constitutional freedom of speech argument and not the main event of the case, the Comcast vs. FCC precedent, i.e. does the FCC have direct statutory authority to regulate the broadband Internet? The reason probably has a lot more to do with politics than the Constitution. That's because the net neutrality movement has long analogized and politically marketed net neutrality to be like an individual's freedom of speech under the U.S. Constitution -- in a desperate attempt to make an arcane regulatory pricing issue relevant to the public and to mask that it is a solution of preemptively restricting freedom without evidence of a real freedom problem. The net neutrality movement has long misrepresented the American Constitutional notion of freedom of speech in the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights in two major ways. The Google Lobby Defines Big Internet's Policy Agenda -- Part 6 Internet as Oz SeriesSubmitted by Scott Cleland on Wed, 2013-01-16 14:53Google not only dominates the web, the Google Lobby also dominates Big Internet's policy agenda in Washington in part via its new proxy, the Internet Association, the self-appointed "unified voice of the Internet economy." Since market dominance attracts antitrust scrutiny, it necessitates lobbying dominance. The FTC's antitrust investigation prompted Google to hire twelve lobbying firms in a week and to rapidly organize them and legions of law and PR firms into one of the top corporate lobbying operations influencing Washington. Tellingly, a Wall Street Journal op-ed lionized "Google's $25 Million Bargain" lobby and Politico got behind-the-scenes to explain "How Google Beat the Feds." What If Microsoft Exited the Search Business? -- My Daily Caller Op-edSubmitted by Scott Cleland on Mon, 2013-01-14 11:46Please don't miss my Daily Caller Op-ed: "What if Microsoft Exited the Search Business?" -- here. Professor Crawford's Obsolete Public Utility Thinking for Broadband -- My Daily Caller Op-edSubmitted by Scott Cleland on Fri, 2013-01-11 09:13Please see my latest Daily Caller Op-ed "Professor Crawford's Obsolete Public Utility Thinking for Broadband" -- here.
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Obsolete Communications Law Research Series: Note: Please see here for a summary powerpoint presentation of the problems with obsolete communications law. Supreme Court's Likely Leashing of "Chevron Deference" Is FCC Game Changer -- My Daily Caller Op-edSubmitted by Scott Cleland on Tue, 2013-01-08 13:21Top Takeaways from FTC's Google Antitrust Decisions -- Part 16 Google Unaccountability SeriesSubmitted by Scott Cleland on Mon, 2013-01-07 11:21Summary of Top Takeaways from the FTC's Google Antitrust Decisions:
1. Google's U.S. search bias win establishes a broad Internet-friendly FTC antitrust enforcement precedent. Top Ten Unanswered Questions on FTC-Google Antitrust Outcome -- Google Unaccountability Series Part 15Submitted by Scott Cleland on Thu, 2013-01-03 11:28The FTC's reported closing of its Google search bias investigation with no real enforceable settlement mechanism and a special new self-enforcement antitrust precedent apparently only available to Google, raises serious questions about the integrity of the FTC's law enforcement process and whether the FTC accords Google with special treatment not available to other companies. This matter raises many more troubling questions than the top ten unanswered questions raised in this piece, but these questions zero in on many of the most glaring irregularities for Congressional overseers, the media and government watchdogs to follow up on. The Uneconomics of Data Cap Price Regulation and Legislation -- Part 14 Broadband Internet Pricing Freedom SeriesSubmitted by Scott Cleland on Thu, 2012-12-20 18:00
The latest attempts to subvert the competitive success of the current free market broadband Internet to advance the fantasy of abundance uneconomics and cost-less Internet commons is the New America Foundation's (NAF) white paper entitled: "Capping the Nation's Broadband Future? Dwindling competition is fueling the rise of increasingly costly and restrictive Internet usage caps;" and Senator Wyden's proposed "Data Cap Integrity Act" to have the FCC effectively price regulate broadband usage and ban traffic discrimination a la "net neutrality." In a nutshell, the NAF paper argues competition, usage-based pricing and the profit motive ill-serve the broadband Internet consumer; thus the Government should prohibit the market-pricing model of broadband data caps. In a nutshell, Senator Wyden's proposed legislation argues that broadband usage and tiered pricing harm consumers by discouraging Internet use, discriminating against high-bandwidth services, and inhibiting innovation because ISPs make money on heavy broadband usage. Thus the Government should price regulate competitive broadband companies to prevent extraction of "monopoly rents." Google's Twelve Days of Christmas -- A SatireSubmitted by Scott Cleland on Mon, 2012-12-17 22:08Please sing to the tune of "The Twelve Days of Christmas." On the twelfth day of Christmas the FTC gave to me: Twelve winkers winking Eleven fibbers fibbing Ten bluffs a bluffing Nine Google's poodles Eight flacks a flacking Seven fawns a fawning Six cov-er-ups No enforce-ment! ... Four lap-dog-gies Three big passes Two lame-ex-cuses Pages |