The Media and Democracy Coalition, the leading advocates for the FCC to effectively take over management of the Internet and the American broadband industry are gathering on Capitol Hill 11 am Wednesday (Rayburn 2123) to present their policy recommendations to the FCC for a "Bold Practical National Broadband Plan." 

Here are some questions the panelists should be asked:

January 27, 2010

For Immediate Release

Contact: Scott Cleland

703-217-2407

Media@GoogleMonitor.com

GoogleMonitor.com Launches Today

My NPR Online op-ed: "Net Neutrality Regulations Compromise Freedoms" makes the case why the FCC Chairman's proposed net neutrality regulations are likely unconstitutional in multiple dimensions. 

If you like the op-ed please click on the "Recommend" check button above the title or at the end of the piece, that is in the link below, because that will keep the op-ed posted longer than otherwise.

• http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113297709

My proposed title, which was supplanted for space concerns, was: "Taking Freedom From Some Takes Freedom From All."

• Below is the text of my NPR Online op-ed.

"Net Neutrality Regulations Compromise Freedoms

DOJ's 28-page Statement of Interest to the Court responsible for deciding the fate of the Google Book Settlement speaks volumes. 

First, it ensures the current proposed settlement is effectively dead.  

With due to credit to "Ripley's Believe it or Not!^®," so much odd and bizarre is happening in Washington in the "name" of "wireless innovation" and competition that the topic calls for its own collection of: "Believe it or Not!^®" oddities.

My latest Google antitrust white paper, "Googleopoly IV: The Googleopsony Case," is the first antitrust analysis which connects-the-dots between Google's search advertising selling monopoly and Google's information access buying monopoly or "monopsony" by explaining and documenting how Google is harming competition in digital: news, books, broadcasting, artwork, documents, and analytics; and harming consumers seeking quality digital information that is not free.

There's been scant analysis of how the Google Book Settlement process has been altered going forward given recent major developments:

With the German Government just the latest angry hornet joining the growing swarm of opposition stinging the Google Book Settlement, how did Google's book digitization initiative go so wrong? 

If one listened to Google, their problem is two-fold:

• First, it is just a bunch of Luddite ingrates who are too small-minded to grasp Google's magnanimity to humankind and world knowledge.  
• Second, without competitors spreading misinformation, there would only be a world chorus of gratitude.

As I have asserted many times before in this blog, Google is its own worst enemy.

"The settlement as it exists now is absolutely silent on user privacy" said Angela Maycock of the American Library Association at a Google Book Settlement panel per the San Francisco Chronicle.

• This should not be surprising because privacy is simply the flip side of the anti-competitive concerns surrounding the Book Settlement.

I posit that privacy protections were not included in the Book Settlement for two big reasons -- the first reason is more privacy related and the second reason is more competition related. 

First, Google is a big adherent of the Web 2.0 movement that believes that transparency is a more important value than privacy.

Google's latest defense of its Book Settlement in Europe has provided an illuminating window into Google's own cultural-self-awareness of Google's dominant market power over books/content.

In August 23 New York Times:

• “We believe that we are helping the industry tremendously by creating a way for authors and publishers to be found,” said Santiago de la Mora, Google’s head of printing partnerships in London.

• “Search is critical. If you are not found, the rest cannot follow."

The strong implication from Google here is that authors were in proverbial "nowheres-ville" before Google "discovered," copied and indexed them -- proving that Google is the real value creator here... not the author of the content/book.