Acting FCC Chairman Michael Copps declared yesterday in a speech celebrating the 75th anniversary of the FCC and the Communications Act, that it was time to think “more rigorously” about the impact of the migration of communications to the Internet and “how to ensure that as the Internet becomes our primary vehicle for communicating with one another, it protects the public interest and informs the civic dialogue that America depends on.”
“In the beginning was the Word,” said John Something-or-other. Well, the word here is “public interest” and—make no mistake about it—this is the beginning of a wholesale attempt to impose the regulatory regime of the broadcast era onto the Internet.
As Adam Thierer has pointed out, the “public interest” is really no standard at all—just so much hot air.
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.