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SaveTheInternet has a new video out that breathlessly claims that people only have until July 16th to tell the FCC to keep a "level playing field" in order to "save the Internet!"

• This vacuous "eye-candy" video only says "the Internet is under attack in Washington" but says nothing about what "the attack" actually is, why anyone in their right mind would want to "attack the Internet," what the FCC is actually doing or deciding that needs their input by July 16th, or even why there is a July 16th deadline to act.
• This video propoganda is a disturbingly accurate representation of the vacuousness of SaveTheInternet's whole net neutrality position and crusade.
• It is all form and fear and precious little substance.
• Its scary that they don't even try to inform or educate just incite.  
• It also tells us a lot about what they think of the intelligence-level of average Americans and those on their mailing list -- they obviously just see them as lemings to scare and herd off a proverbial cliff.  
• There is zero respect for people's intelligence in this video propaganda.
• SaveTheInternet sees no need for facts, for information, for context, for balance, or hearing both sides -- just feed the masses the dumbest possible version of a scare message and shout that they have an urgent deadline to act!

This video is damning proof of how vacuous the net neutrality regulation movement has become. View it and weep.

The Washington Post gave a lot of "free" ink to former FCC Chairman Reed Hundt today to push for his Frontline Wireless corporate welfare scheme. The article also provides a "bay window view" of Mr. Hundt's perverted view of "competition."

• Mr. Hundt said: "We're asking the FCC to place conditions on the sale of the license, just like zoning on real estate."
• Competition through zoning regulations!
• This captures the essence of Mr Hundt's "market" views. He has always thought "competition" was much too important to be left to the marketplace.
• Mr. Hundt's entire tenure as FCC Chairman was characterized with a deep distrust of free market forces and a fondness for writing very detailed regulations that heavily tilted the playing field to guarantee his desired outcomes.

Now that his company has $3b in capital and is prepared to raise up to $10b in the next five years, according to the Post, why is he so afraid to compete in the auction like everyone else?

The New York Times article today: "South Koreans Connect Through Search Engine" provides a huge window into what the real source of a search engine's market dominance is. (The article indicates that in South Korea, Naver.com is the leading search engine with 77% share, followed by South Korean company Daum.net with 10.8%, and Yahoo with 4.4%. Google's market share is 1.7% in South Korea.)

• The South Korean example is a particularly helpful set of facts and insights to the FTC and Congress in their journey to understand Google's increasing search dominance and the potential anti-competitive effects of the Google-DoubleClick merger.

Specifically, what makes Google's 1.7% South Korean search market share different from its 90% share in Germany, Spain, 82% share in France, 75% share in the UK, and its 65% share in the US -- given that Google has been competing in the South Korean market since 2000?

Frontline's Reed Hundt is mounting a furious eleventh hour effort to finagle a backroom sweetheart deal for his company from the FCC, in the 700 MHz auction. He attacked the outstanding op ed in the Washington Post by Robert Hahn and Hal Singer in both the Post and in RCR.  Our former Big Government FCC Chairman, Mr. Hundt also apparently has lost his cool and perpsective in railing against the rollout of the new, innovative and already successful iPhone as somehow a market failure that only his company can cure.

A core purpose of NetCompetition.org is to promote a debate of Net neutrality regulation on the merits. SaveTheInternet.com had a recent blog post "Painting over broadband failures with pretty pictures" that prompted me to comment on their blog -- which I have included below:

"If SaveTheInternet followers are truly "open" to diverse points of view that may be different from theirs, I recommend that you consider the mounting evidence that the US is in fact not falling behind but is actually a unique success in promoting facilities-based broadband competition in the world. Please see this link for the four best alternative views on this question:
http://www.precursorblog.com/node/451 .

I strongly recommend the FTC staff report on "Broadband Connectivity Competition Policy" to anyone wanting an objective, well-reasoned, fair, and comprehensive review of the facts and evidence of the net neutrality regulation debate.

I believe the most important sentence in the whole 170 page staff report, which covered an enormous and comprehensive public record on the subject, was on page 11 and again on page 160:

•  "To date we are unaware of any siginificant market failure or demonstrated consumer harm from conduct by broadband providers." [Bold emphasis added]
• I believe that's the best bottomline summary conclusion of the report.

The FTC report can be further well summarized by the following four sentences found on pages 10, 11, 155 and 11 respectively:

• "We recommend policymakers proceed with caution in evaluating proposals to enact regulations in the area of broadband Internet access."
• "Policymakers also should carefully consider the potentially adverse and unintended effects of regulation in the area of broadband Internet accesss before enacting any such regulation."
• "Over time, competition produces the best results for consumers, providing them the lowest prices, the highest quality products and services, and the most choice."
• "The FTC will continue to devote substantial resources to maintaining competition and protecting consumers in the area of broadband Internet access, using a variety of tools."

In closing, I was very impressed with the FTC staff's knowledge, sophistication, and fair representation of both sides' views.

Kudos to Robert Hahn and Hal Singer for their outstanding op ed in the Washington Post "Earmarked Airwaves."

• The editorial cogently presents the fork in the road that faces any major FCC decision: to follow law, which promotes competition and market-driven outcomes, or to freelance and try and "manage" competition and pick winners and losers in advance through "spectrum earmarking."
• FCC history is littered with freelance "managed competition" failures, but two are particularly ignominious and highly relevant to this 700 MHz auction:
• the illegal UNE-P scheme to rig telecom competitive outcomes following the 1996 Telecom Act; and
• the Nextwave auction scandal that kept 30 MHz of prime spectrum fallow and tied up in court for almost a decade.

At its core a spectrum auction is the quintessential type of competition. The auction law's purpose in 1993 was to use market forces, competition, to allocate the public's asset most appropriately, largely because previous FCC spectrum allocation processes were so ineffective, unfair and prone to serious abuse and graft.

• While no process is perfect, a clean competitive auction process has proven highly effective in rewarding US taxpayers and fostering a growing and highly competitive wireless marketplace that greatly benefits consumers.

This 700 MHz auction may be shaping up to be FCC Chairman Kevin Martin's legacy moment: will it be marked by promoting competition and market-based outcomes or will it be marked by standing on the auction scales to ensure the spectrum is "earmarked" to the predetermined, chosen "winner" -- in this case former Clinton-Gore FCC Chairman Reed Hundt's Frontline Wireless company.  

Net neutrality proponents continue to fabricate problems to manipulate public policy to promote government intervention and regulation over free markets.

• They fabricated a non-existent problem that broadband companies wanted to block, degrade and impair users access to the content of their choice.
• Totally bogus. They have produced no evidence to back up their fabricated problem.
• They are up to their old tricks again, trying to fabricate a problem that the US is falling behind on broadband. See Steve Levy's "hook-line-and-sinker" take on US broadband standing in the world in Newsweek.
• This is a fabricated bogus "problem" as well.
• They only cite a biased OECD study that claims the US is 24th in the OECD, but don't mention any of the many counter-arguments why that "study" is way off the mark.
• FCC Commissioner McDowell recently did a great job discrediting the very flawed methodology that the OECD used.  
• The OECD report is a classic example of "How to lie with statistics."
• There is also never a mention by net neutrality proponents of the competing broadband ranking study by The Economist's Intelligence Unit which ranks the US #2 in Internet/broadband in the world.

Fortunately net neutrality proponents have failed miserably in their efforts to date. 

Thank you Tech Daily for flagging a silly blog by MyDD calling for an organizing an "online workers union... to look out for the political interests of online workers. These interests include net neutrality, intellectual property law like DMCA..."

You can see me shaking my head in disbelief now... an online workers union for net neutrality...

Let me highlight just a few of the silly aspects of this idea.

First, organizing bloggers into a union to promote net neutrality?

• Duh! It already exists! 
• The "online workers union" is called Moveon.org and it already has 3 million members, all they have to do is change from political donations and require mandatory union dues.  
• The MoveOn/FreePress folks already operate as de facto union bosses of the net neutrality movement.
• And by the way doesn't MyDD know that the Consumers "Union" already supports net neutrality regulation?

Second, social media technology already allows onliners to organize around what ever idea they want whenever they want. Its a free country and a free and open Internet. Why not create: 

• UnionBosster?
• MyUnionSpace?
• UnionFace?
• Goonion?
• LaeBayr? 
• AmUnionZon?
• AskYourUnionRep.com?
• Wikidarity? 
• eUnionDues?
• SaveUsFromIndividualism?
• OrganizeAgainstYourself?
• Socialized Internet?
• Surely MyDD could "move on" one of these many "online workers union" ideas.

Third, MyDD's idea for organizing eBay sellers is sort of bizarre.

Google's naiveté and cluelessness on antitrust matters continues to amaze me. While Google has ramped up its Washington lobbying presence a ton of late, it is amusing that the company-at-large still does not have a lick of political savvy or common sense.

It is almost as if Google operates having an out-of-body experience, where their leaders think they can float sanctimoniously above the playing field and see everything perfectly, but no one can see them or what they are doing.

What do I mean? Let me put Google's antitrust and political behavior into context.

• Google is ferociously going after Microsoft on antitrust matters. After they recently won a huge concession from Microsoft to make Google's desktop search work better and faster -- a concession not required by the DOJ-supervised committee that oversees Microsoft's competitive behavior -- Google is now asking for Microsoft's antitrust decree not to expire.
• This is classic, hardball, take-no-prisoners behavior that sometimes yields short-term results, but always invites long-term disaster.
• In effect, Google is taunting the antitrust-caged Microsoft tiger, imagining that they are untouchable, invincible and legally superior.

It is amazing to me that Google appears to be unaware and clueless that they have voluntarily walked into their own “antitrust cage" of the FTC review process for approving two of their deals, DoubleClick and FeedBurner.