Scott Walter, writing in Philanthropy Daily, has more on the vast left-wing conspiracy behind network neutrality regulation that was recently revealed by John Fund at the Wall Street Journal. Walter, who cites new evidence on the “discreet relationship” between the Pew Charitable Trusts and Free Press, wonders why “news journalists” did not report on the connections between several “nonpartisan” foundations, which also include the Ford Foundation, and Free Press? A segment of the journalism profession is a core constituency of Free Press, as has been reported. Pew presents itself as objective, but could it really have a partisan …
Apple Computer co-founder Steve Wozniak has a poignant, but factually problematic, plea for Internet regulation in The Atlantic. Please, I beg you, open your senses to the will of the people to keep the Internet as free as possible. Local ISP’s should provide connection to the Internet but then it should be treated as though you own those wires and can choose what to do with them when and how you want to, as long as you don’t destruct them. I don’t want to feel that whichever content supplier had the best government connections or paid the most money determined what I can watch and for how much. This is the monopolistic approach and not representative of a truly free market in the case of today’s Internet. The free and open Internet Wozniak celebrates actually …
The Federal Communications Commission acted to regulate the Internet by a partisan 3-2 vote. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell warned that there will be pushback. Meanwhile, the courts get another chance to jurisdictional limits on the FCC. Legally, the agency is on shaky ground. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit recently ruled that there are significant limitations on the agency’s jurisdiction to regulate broadband services. Rumors indicate the commission is planning to assert jurisdiction on the basis of somewhat obscure statutory provisions which predate the Internet as we know it, and that were drafted for unrelated …
Over at the Washington Times, Internet regulation is being described as an “unholy scheme.” According to Editor Emeritus Wesley Pruden, this is a first step toward content control. Anyone paying attention can see how this would be a first step toward revival of the so-called Fairness Doctrine, sought by Barack Obama and the Democrats since he first arrived in Washington. The Fairness Doctrine would require broadcasters, definitely including the cable-TV networks, to provide airtime for anyone criticized by someone else on the air. That, too, sounds good to the inattentive and the well-meaning. What could be nicer than never having to hear anyone say discouraging things about you? John Fund at the Wall Street Journal reveals how Internet regulation is backed by some of the …
A writer for the Financial Times takes aim at Google for … what? Google’s ambitions are so sweeping, the theatres in which its campaign is being advanced so dispersed, that it is not always easy to trace the outlines of the broader war it is fighting…. As Allen Weiner, an analyst at Gartner, points out, Google could eventually assume a truly scary cross-media dominance. All the information about user behaviour collected across multiple cloud services, mixed with its core search data, could give it better insight into users than anyone – and the ability to match that with personalised advertising campaigns delivered across different services and devices. Okay, Google is trying to compete. It is trying to be disruptive. It hopes to win. What’s wrong with …
Mortimer Zuckerman, writing in the Wall Street Journal, argues for a new federal bureaucracy to protect against cyber threats. We should think of cyberattacks as guided missiles and respond similarly–intercept them and retaliate. This means we need a federal agency dedicated to defending our various networks. You cannot expect the private sector to know how–or to have the money–to defend against a nation-state attack in a cyberwar. One suggestion recommended by Mr. Clarke is that the government create a Cyber Defense Administration. He’s right. Clearly, defending the U.S. from cyberattacks should be one of our prime strategic objectives. Few nations have used computer networks as extensively as we have to control electric power grids, airlines, railroads, banking …
This Gmail user who writes for the Daily Mail apparently doesn’t think she should have to receive targeted ads in exchange for free email service. The adverts were being specifically targeted at me because of what I had written in a private email to a friend. Though I found the discovery deeply creepy, I carried on using Gmail, noticing all the time that I couldn’t write anything to anyone without Gmail offering me comments, suggestions and temptations. As the article points out, only machines read and process the data — and the information isn’t sold to nor shared with advertisers. So what’s the point? That Google may somehow fail to safeguard the data? The company could pay dearly if that were to happen. Or that some among us are easily persuaded and …
FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski has outlined a new plan for imposing network neutrality regulation on broadband providers. The draft rule is not yet public, but it sounds really rather reasonable as described by Genachowski. Broadband providers would have a “transparency obligation” so consumers and innovators know basic information about how networks are being managed. Blocking would be prohibited, so consumers and innovators can send and receive any lawful Internet traffic Broadband providers could not unreasonably discriminate in transmitting lawful Internet traffic. Broadband providers would have meaningful flexibility to manage their networks to deal with harmful traffic and to address network congestion. Aside from a transparency requirement and a basic no blocking …
<script type=”text/javascript” src=”http://video.foxbusiness.com/v/embed.js?id=4433985&w=466&h=263″></script><noscript>Over at Fox News, Discovery Institute Founding Fellow George Gilder argues green laws hurt the economy.<a …
Simple in theory, tricky in practice You want to save the world; you have a clear and simple idea. If it weren’t for the details! Ah, the pitfalls of regulation. From the Wall Street Journal, Seeking to be a leader in protecting online privacy, the European Union last year passed a law requiring companies to obtain consent from Web users when tracking files such as cookies are placed on users’ computers. Enactment awaits action by member countries. Now, Internet companies, advertisers, lawmakers, privacy advocates and EU member nations can’t agree on the law’s meaning. Is it sufficient if users agree to cookies when setting up Web browsers? Is an industry-backed plan acceptable that would let users see–and opt out of–data collected about them? Must …
Rumors that the Federal Communications Commission may be planning to enact network neutrality regulation three days before Christmas (see previous post) seem odd in light of a observation President Obama made on Nov. 3 s I reflect on what’s happened over the last two years, one of the things that I think has not been managed by me as well as it needed to be was finding the right balance in making sure that businesses have rules of the road and are treating customers fairly and — whether it’s their credit cards or insurance or their mortgages — but also making absolutely clear that the only way America succeeds is if businesses are succeeding. The reason we’ve got a unparalleled standard of living in the history of the world is because we’ve got a free …
At a Saturday morning panel discussion at the Federalist Society moderated by Chief Judge David B. Sentelle of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, I asked whether any of the panelists feel that the Federal Trade Commission lacks jurisdiction pursuant to the FTC Act to combat against deceptive business practices and unfair competition in the market for broadband services. Parul P. Desai, Policy Analyst at Consumers Union responded that there are limitations on the ability of consumer advocates to litigate which do not apply in actions by the Federal Communications Commission. Maureeen K. Ohlhausen, an attorney with Wilkinson, Barker, Knauer, LLP who has an FTC background, added that those limitations do not apply in the context of the Sherman Act and, I am not quite certain of …
A Federal Communications Commission spokesperson, responding to rumors that the commission may enact network neutrality regulation three days before Christmas, told a publication called The Hill that if government regulates broadband, it’s not “regulation.” Reminds me of former President Richard Nixon’s logic, e.g., if the president does it, it is not a crime. Net Neutrality is about preventing anyone from regulating the Internet. There are some cable and phone companies out there that want to decide which apps you should get on your phone, which Internet sites you should look at, and what online videos you can download. That’s regulating the Internet — and that’s what the FCC is trying to stop. I guess it depends on what the term …
Senator Rockefeller, chairman of the committee with jurisdiction for the Federal Communications Commission, wishes there were something that could be done to cut down on the number of choices Americans enjoy for news, commentary and entertainment: I hunger for quality news. I’m tired of the right and the left. There’s a little bug inside of me which wants to get the FCC to say to Fox and to MSNBC “Out. Off. End. Goodbye.” Would be a big favor to political discourse, our ability to do our work here in Congress and to the American people to be able to talk with each other and have some faith in their government and more importantly in their future. We need slimmed down channel packages that better respect what we really want to watch. Rockefeller and I …
Speaking of Tim Wu, in a recent New York Times interview the author of The Master Switch says he thinks capitalism “by its nature, is about conflict, and ultimately the life and death of firms.” He adds that some entrepreneurs are not motivated by money or comfort. Instead, they are motivated by power, and the information industries offer possibilities unavailable to people who sell orange juice or rubber boots, a power over people’s minds. Wu is referring to men like Steve Jobs of Apple and Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, one or both of whom he deems an “information emperor.” To argue that Jobs and Zuckerberg crave power over people’s minds is almost to equate them with some of the fictional villains in James Bond or Austin Powers films. And that sort …
George Gilder writes that the campaign to reduce greenhouse gasses wastes scarce and precious technological and entrepreneurial resources indispensable to the nation’s future, in today’s Wall Street Journal. About whether green companies create new jobs, Gilder says, In a parody of supply-side economics, advocates of AB 32 envisage the substitution of alternative energy sources that create new revenue sources, new jobs and industries. Their economic model sees new wealth emerge from jobs dismantling the existing energy economy and replacing it with a medieval system of windmills and solar collectors. By this logic we could all get rich by razing the existing housing plant and replacing it with new-fangled …
Comcast executive David L. Cohen had this to say in remarks at the Brookings Institution: The Internet is too big and too important for government to ignore… and it is too complex and too dynamic for government to regulate intrusively. Let?s learn from the Internet itself – it is flourishing as a self-governing, self-healing ecosystem, and the more we can take advantage of that model, coupled with reasonable, consensus-based regulation, the better. TEXT, …
Ryan Singel explains why Google may not dominate the net, at Wired. And it has nothing to do with antitrust scrutiny of the company’s activities, such as the flap over Google’s purchase of ITA Software. Google slayed Microsoft and Yahoo in the battle for search supremacy but it has been slowly losing momentum in what may turn out to be the real war — the one for the display ad revenues — to an unlikely foe: the dorm-room-born Facebook. At a recent conference sponsored by the Technology Policy Institute, Robert W. Crandall and Charles L. Jackson shared a draft of a paper they are working on analyzing the IBM, AT&T and Microsoft antitrust cases. Crandall and Jackson argue that in each of the three cases, the ultimate source of major changes in the competitive …
Prof. Tim Wu has a provocative essay in Saturday’s edition of the Wall Street Journal, arguing in effect that a company which is successful is by definition a monopoly that should be regulated. Fortunately, the antitrust laws don’t punish companies that are successful as a result of superior skill, foresight and industry; only those who engage in anticompetitive conduct. That would not include Google, Facebook, eBay, Apple nor Amazon so far as I know. Every businessperson dreams of a monopoly advantage. The pursuit of a monopoly advantage either justifies the high rent that a retailer pays to an airport or the owner of a shopping mall in exchange for an exclusive right to serve coffee or ice cream on the premises, or it summons investment and innovation to offer a superior …