Net Neutrality

Google's Sr. VP Vint Cerf, took his call for effectively nationalizing America's broadband infrastructure to a new level of freedom-crushing, Big Government expropriation by calling for the forced structural separation of competitive phone and cable companies into wholesale and retail arms, per the CBC News.

Where does one begin in addressing this self-serving, outrageous and clearly socialist proposal?

First, Mr. Cerf is calling for a policy that would treat the country with the most facilities based broadband competition in the world by far... as if it were a proven monopoly guilty of monopoly abuses!

I testified this morning on Internet Privacy issues before Chairman Markey's Internet Subcommittee. My Testimony.

My message was straightforward:

A recent study by the Leichtman Group found 70% of American broadband subscribers are very satisfied with their service, and relatively few are actually seeking faster Internet access.

• This suggests the drumbeat for a national broadband industrial policy, because America's Internet is too slow and falling behind the rest of the world, is just empty rhetoric and wishful assertions by Big Government types.
• As I have blogged before, the facts are not the friends of those screaming for de facto nationalizing the Internet.  

Bottom line:  The more one learns about the facts about what benefits American broadband consumers actually enjoy, and what they demand in the future, it is not what the Big Government folks claim.  

I got to wondering why so many supposed "public watchdogs" are AWOL on Google's threat to privacy, when I was reading the LA Times excellent editorial where they ponder the question: "Why is Youtube Hoarding Data?" 

Other than the New York Times last year taking Google to task for StreetView in "Watching your every move?" the editorial boards around the country have be uncharacteristicly silent on Google's unprecedented collection of more private information on more people than any time in history, while being ranked worst in the world on privacy by Privacy International.  

The FCC is reportedly considering putting "the burden on the network operator to prove that its network practices are reasonable" in its net neutrality proceeding on Comcast's network management, according to today's top story in Washington Internet Daily.

• Assuming that this report is accurate, and assuming that an FCC majority would approve such a shift of the burden of proof, let me explain why such an FCC ruling would be a profound assault on the freedoms that Americans hold most dear.   

It would be supreme irony, if in the supposed name of "Internet Freedom," the FCC somehow ruled that network operators had no freedom to manage their private property, enter into contracts or pursue business without prior permission from the FCC.

New facts from independent sources continue to undermine the political charge that the U.S. is falling behind in broadband, the thinly-veiled charge that Big Government proponents use to justify the need for a national broadband industrial policy to replace the current free-market national Internet policy.

• A new report by Nielsen, the independent market research firm: "Critical Mass: The worldwide state of the mobile web"
  • Ranks the U.S. #1 out of the 16 countries they measure in mobile Internet usage penetration -- ahead of the UK, Germany, France and Italy and others. 
  • The report also concludes that penetration of 3G-broadband-capable handsets is greater in the U.S. than in the EU (28% vs 25% of consumers respectively.)

Why are these new independent findings important?

First, broadband mobility is as important to Americans as stationary broadband speed.

Today's announcement by Vonage, the independent VOIP leader, who is collaborating with Comcast to address reasonable network management of Internet services, is more tangible and compelling evidence that market forces continue to work well in meeting consumers needs -- and that there is no market failure for the FCC to address with stifling net neutrality regulation.

The Internet has thrived because of Congress' wise bipartisan Internet policy set into law in 1996: "It is the policy of the United States to preserve the vibrant and competitive free market that presently exists for the Internet..., unfettered by Federal or State regulation."  

The FCC needs to continue to:

Don't miss the Op Ed by Richard Bennett today in the San Francisco Chronicle on net neutrality, Google's leadership of the issue, privacy, and the Google-Yahoo partnership.

• As usual, Richard is insightful, incisive and interesting.

Where's the free speech outrage when Google, the Internet's Ultimate gatekeeper, blocks free speech on the Internet in clear violation of the FCC's net neutrality principles?

• Many bloggers "received a notice from Google last week saying that their sites had been identified as potential “spam” blogs. “You will not be able to publish posts to your blog until we review your site and confirm that it is not a spam blog,” the Google e-mail read" per the New York Times Bits blog by Miguel Helft.      

Google's well-known dominant share of the search market makes Google the Internet's primary gatekeeper and self-appointed organizer of the world's information. As I have written repeatedly, Google has more unaccountable power over the world's information than any entity in the world, see here, and here.

A new article/study by Harvard Business School Professor Anita Elberse challenges the validity of the Silicon Valley mantra/theory that the Internet created a new "long tail" of demand for niche products that would ultimately undermine and overwhelm the offline trend towards "big hits."