Congress

Read Eli Noam's recent FT editorial "TV regulation will become telecom regulation", becuase if he is right (and I don't think he is) you should be afraid for the future, very afraid.

I have always respected Professor Noam of the Columbia Business School even if I often don't agree with him. He is a rare person who sees this complex space as a whole and has clarity of thought. 

His basic point is that TV regulation will become to resemble telecom regulation more are and more. He concludes that "the present debate over net neutrality is a harbinger of more to come."  Â 

I wanted to make sure folks did not miss a classic comment by a leading net neutrality proponent last week which shows their stubburn refusal to acknowledge the reality and "proof" of competition.

In Communications Daily last week in the lead article on the AT&T-Bell South merger was the following quote:

• "Public Knowledge Pres. Gigi Sohn, another coalition member, said  AT&T should abide by conditions longer than proposed. Conditions should last until competition can be proven, which probably would be for "a very long time,' she said." [bold added for emphasis]

Until competition can be proven? Hello? Gigi you are obviously ignoring all the existing proof and playing the Washington game of "moving the goalposts." 

Robert Scoble of Naked Coversations fame (great book Robert! Thank you.) posted a very interesting 7 minute video of Google's Lobby on his widely read Scobleizer Blog:

• "Here’s a silent video (I was shooting some “B Rollâ€? at Google the other day and thought it would make a fascinating video for you to watch). What is it? It’s the lobby of building 41 over at Google’s headquarters. It’s a little more than seven minutes long. What does it show? The cool screens where you can sit and watch random searches that are being done on Google right then."

After initial fascination like Scoble with reading real random searches as they were occurring, upon reflection I found it very troubling. Why its interesting is exactly why its troubling. It's interesting because none of us in the public domain ever get to see what anyone else is searching for at a specific point in time, because that is potentially very personal/private search information -- which I thought until now -- was supposed to be guarded as private information by Google. 

What's troubling is that if Google handles American's private information so cavalierly as to use it for perfomance art in public, what other private information are treating cavalierly that we don't know about? 

Is anyone else troubled that Google doesn't see anything wrong with "search peeping" or a public "search peep show?" What do privacy advocates think?

 Â 

What's going on at ItsOurNet? 

On the ItsOurNet.org website under "The coalition" section, Microsoft is no longer on the list of: "These organizations support legislation to achieve net neutrality:"

Google, eBay, Amazon, Yahoo are still listed, what happened to Microsoft which was one of the five big companies bankrolling the effort?

• Why no press release or blog about this interesting development? Cat got their tongue?

Could the organization be getting a little too radical, regulatory, government intrusive, or anti-market-forces for their taste?

Net neutrality proponents love to wax eloquently about respecting the "principles of democracy and freedom' -- for others that is -- but not themselves, becuase that would interfere with accomplishing their agenda. Apparently, for many net neutrality proponents, the "ends justify the means." Â Ã‚ 

The Itsournet coalition is effectively "mugging" the AT&T-Bell South merger over net neutrality. They are pressuring the Democratic Commissioners to hold up the merger which has already been approved by the DOJ and all the states, over a "fifth net neutrality principle."

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/fd88803c-6232-11db-af3e-0000779e2340.html

Legislation would favour socialism over capitalism

 By Scott Cleland

Published: October 23 2006 03:00 | Last updated: October 23 2006 03:00

From Mr Scott Cleland.

Sir, I have to challenge Lawrence Lessig's gross misrepresentation of net neutrality legislation in his article "Congress must keep broadband competition alive" (October 19).

Prof Lessig asserts that net neutrality legislation is "not a massive programme of regulation. Itis instead a very thin rule for broadband providers that forbids business models that favour scarcity over abundance".

First, the most draconian form of regulation possible is a ban. Second, Prof Lessig's vision of net neutrality is a "socialised internet" that would effectively outlaw capitalism for broadband in America. A fundamental incentive of capitalism is competitive differentiation and innovation which creates "scarcity" but also stimulates demand and growth. Under Prof Lessig's theory and logic, patents and trademarks should be outlawed because they "favour scarcity over abundance". That is their purpose, in order to encourage innovation, commerce and economic growth.

In sum, Prof Lessig's "very best network neutrality legislation" favours socialism over capitalism.

Scott Cleland,Chairman, NetCompetition.org(an e-forum on net neutrality funded by broadband companies),

McLean, VA 22102, US

For those who truly believe in the principle of net neutrality, you may be troubled to read the New York Times article "We're Google. So sue us." The article provides an allegation of Google effectively blocking a small competitive search-engine/website. (Searchopolist Google's share of the sarch market is 50+% and rising steadily at the expense of faltering #2 Yahoo and fading fast #3 Microsoft.)

It will be interesting to hear what SavetheInterent, Common Cause, ItsOurNet, and the many other organizations that purport to support net neutrality on principle have to say about this. Let's see if net neutrality is truly a "principle" or just a political and competitive double standard as it unfortunately appears to be.

After seeing how unabashedly one-sided and biased the preview of Moyer's show was on Net Neutrality which I described in my Blog last week -- I can't say I was surprised that the actual show proved to be equally unabashedly one-sided and biased. Â 

So what's the objective basis of my assessment of bias?

• If you listen to the program, you will find that they devoted just under 37 minutes to Net Neutrality (excluding the segments on fiber, municipal wireless and media consolidation) and out of that time only two opponents of net neutrality regulation Mike McCurry of Hands of the Internet and Chariman Fred Upton of the House Commerce Subcommittee) got less that three minutes of air time.
• To be fair to Mr. Moyers even though he was not fair in his program,  Mr. Moyers would sometimes say in his leading questions... Opponents of Net neutrality say... however, those bones were hardly enough for a fair airing of this important topic.

This was not journalism, but basically a paid advertisement that was not fully disclosed.

Its highly instructive to see the bright line where consensus behind net neutrality breaks down and why.

There is very strong consensus behind the non-binding net neutrality principles enuciated in the August 5, 2005 FCC Policy Statement. In short, the commission unanimously agreed that the FCC has the jurisdiction necessary to ensure that "IP-enabled services are operated in a neutral manner." 

Specifically, the Commission adopted the following four principles:

The Financial Times' recent video interview with Google CEO Eric Schmidt about Youtube was very instructive in how transformative Google believes the purchase of Youtube is for Google's identity.

By far the most interesting and important thing Google CEO Schmidt said was: "We see ourselves as a technology provider and a distribution network."

Whoa! Did anyone else catch the huge significance of Google's new self-description of its identity as a "distribution NETWORK?" This is very new just since the purchase of Youtube. To drive home this point I have copied below Google's quick profile from its website of what Google says Google is -- and there is no mention of being a "distribution NETWORK." To date, Google has represented itself as the "world's best search engine," a company focused on "search services" and its mission as "organizing the world's information and making it universally accessible and useful." 

Why I find this so interesting is what type of "distribution NETWORK" does Google see itself becoming? And as a new "distribution NETWORK" with 50+% share and rising of the search business, will Google agree to the same "NETWORK neutrality" principles that they believe all other NETWORKs should abide by?

Does Google still truly believe in NETWORK neutrality now that they have transformed themselves into a self-described "distribution NETWORK" company?

Isn't what's "good for the google good for the gander"?

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