FCC

Great satire is rare.

• Today's Wall Street Journal Editorial satire on Google entitled "Search and Destroy by Holman Jenkins" is truly GREAT satire.

Please read it and laugh out loud and shout ouch!

The pen is surely mightier than the algorithm.

The Precursorblog was shut down for most of today because we were hit by yet another targeted and malicious denial-of-service attack.

• March 2nd of this year we were shut down for a half day by a different kind of denial-of-service attack.

It appears that some net neutrality zealots may "say" they oppose any "blocking, degrading or impairing" of access to any Internet content -- but I guess that only applies to people who agree with them.

Last time this happened, I appealed to Moveon.org's, SaveTheInternet and FreePress to denounce this attack on free speech, but alas, they said nothing.

Please read FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell's outstanding op-ed in the Wall Street Journal today. It eviscerates the sloppy thinking and weak evidence of net neutrality/open access proponents that are trying to manufacture a national broadband problem/crisis to justify their  new Big Government "National Broadband Policy."

This op-ed is particularly timely given the current  and tightly coordinated attempts by liberal House and Senate Democrats to establish the groundwork for an abandonment of competition and free market policies in communications and replace it with a new "National Broadband Policy" which is the liberal codeword for a Big Government-managed broadband sector.

You can tell a lot about the true soul of people by how they treat the vulnerable and disadvantaged; do they naturally seek to help and protect those in need or do they instinctively seek to exploit others weaknesses for their own monetary or other gain?

• Or after a disaster, do people help with supplies, water, and a helping hand or do they opportunistically price gouge or seek to make a quick buck off of others misfortune? 

Despite Google's infamous words in its "Don't be evil" motto, its actions recently in dealing with the job-loss ravaged town of Lenoir, North Carolina gives us a sad and disappointing glimpse into the real soul of Google -- the Silicon Valley titan and leading brand in the world.

BusinessWeek just published an outstanding government/human interest story called: "The High Cost of Wooing Google" where it chronicles the story of how Google exploited the "down-on-its-luck" town of Lenoir, North Carolina with hardball negotiating tactics to extract :  "a package of tax breaks, infrastructure upgrades, and other goodies valued at $212 million over 30 years, or more than $1million for each of the 210 jobs Google said it eventually hoped to create in Lenoir."

The BusinessWeek article continued:

Anyone who hasn't read Google's letter to the FCC today  on the 700 MHz auction -- you have to -- its an absolute hoot! 

• I am amazed that a company so rich and successful in business could be so arrogant, impolitic, and ham-handed in Washington!  

First Google, despite what you may think, the US Government and FCC policy is not "for sale."  (And even if you think it is, at least try to be less obvious about your cynicism in public.)

• Does Google actually think "committing" to a minimum bid of $4.6B in the 700 MHz auction in return for its demands for a change in the 1993 auction law is somehow acceptable behavior for a publicly-traded company?
• Google is crassly and ham-handedly saying that their opening bid to effectively "buy" FCC policy starts at $4.6B!
• Hello Google! You "bid" at the spectrum auction not at the FCC for policy favors. One type of "bidding" is perfectly legal the other is not.
• As only dotcom billionaires can do, Google is disrespecting the FCC as just another type of "hired help" where it just needs to negotiate their "price."
• Any supporters of Google should be mortified at Google's disrespect for, and cheapening of the FCC policy process. Google should be ashamed and embarassed by this crass letter and tactic.  
• (It seems that Google is so used to buying off content providers that sue them for IP theft with "revenue sharing arrangements" that they seem to think they can buy-off whomever they want.)   

Second, the demand in their letter oozes with arrogance. Let's parse the final and operative sentence of Google's letter to see just how arrogant.

I highly recommend a great ComputerWorld article: "Google's cookie expiration plan called worthless."

Google has made a big mistake thinking that web users are stupid and won't test and check their blanket assertions. Here are a couple of quotes from the great ComputerWorld article:

• "After listening to feedback from our users and from privacy advocates, we've concluded that it would be a good thing for privacy to significantly shorten the lifetime of our cookies," [Google's]Fleischer said.

What's wrong with this picture?

• Broadband is being adopted faster nationally in the US than most any analogous product in modern U.S. history.  
• The U.S. has more facility-based broadband competition than any country in the world.
• The Bush Administration goal of making broadband available to all Americans has been achieved.
• The recent FTC report on Broadband Connectivity said:  "To date we are unaware of any significant market failure or demonstrated consumer harm from conduct by broadband providers."
• "Nearly half of all Americans have broadband Internet connections in their homes, largely because of increasing use among minorities and the poor, according to an annual survey by the Pew Internet & American Life Project. ... Four out of 10 African-American adults have broadband access at home, compared to 15% two years ago."

What's wrong with this picture? Nothing! 

Cesar Conda wrote a great editorial highlighting the "Broadband Triple Threat" National Review Online.

• Its an informative read and dead on.

Please don't miss Holman Jenkin's great Wall Street Journal editorial on Google: "Sort of Evil."

I particularly like his new term for net neutrality/open access regulation: "business model chauvinism." Dead on.

• Google is lobbying for laws and regulations which will advantage their business model and further their dominance of Internet advertising, and also to "block, degrade and impair" any other business model from competing with Google.
• Simply, Google has a very sophisticated strategy to foreclose potential competition to Google.

He also points the spotlight on what Google is really doing in organizing groups to view broadband companies as the big public enemy for things they might do in the future, and how that conveniently distracts people from scrutinizing Google's own increasing dominance of online advertising and the business model of the Internet. 

It didn't take long for the Empire to Strike back! Shortly after the release of Googleopoly, Ed Black, President and CEO of the Computer and Communications Industry Association, which represents Google, put out a critical press release on my Googleopoly white paper entitled:  "Merger Report Unconvincing." 

• As I predicted on my blog this morning:"I expect to be attacked personally for my analysis and conclusions here, just like I was attacked by Bernie Ebbers and WorldCom as "the idiot Washington analyst" for having the audacity to be the only analyst in the country willing to predict, and stick to my guns, that the government would block the WorldCom-Sprint merger."

As expected they tried to discredit the messenger because they don't like the message. Standard operating procedure from my debate opponents.