March 2010

media notice: Tomorrow’s C-SPAN “Washington Journal” on National Broadband Plan

by on March 16, 2010 · 2 comments

Just FYI.. Tomorrow morning’s “Washington Journal” program on C-SPAN will be devoted to a discussion of the Federal Communications Commission’s new National Broadband Plan. I’ve been invited to appear on the show and I’ll be up against Art Brodsky of Public Knowledge.  The program starts around 8:30 am EST.

Also, here’s the link to the audio (click “Listen” in upper left hand corner of that page) from today’s Diane Rehm Show on NPR featuring a debate between me and Ben Scott of Free Press on the FCC’s plan. It featured call-ins and among the callers were Rep. Cliff Sterns and frequent TLF commenter Brett Glass. They both expressed some reservations about the FCC plan.

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Tom Hazlett on the history and economics of spectrum

by on March 16, 2010 · 0 comments

Tom HazlettNow that the broadband plan is out, and the FCC has its sights set on 500 MHz of broadcast spectrum, come listen to what it all means. In the latest episode of the Surprisingly Free Conversation podcast, Thomas Hazlett, Professor of Law & Economics and Director of the Information Economy Project at George Mason University School of Law, discusses the economics of spectrum. The discussion also turns to the history of spectrum regulation, ongoing inefficiencies in the current system, and suggestions for possible improvements.

Listen to other episodes and remember to subscribe to the podcast using RSS or iTunes.

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C-SPAN Makes Quarter Century of Video Archives Available Online, Free

by on March 16, 2010 · 5 comments

Brian Stelter of The New York Times reports today that “C-Span has uploaded virtually every minute of its video archives to the Internet”:

The archives, at C-SpanVideo.org, cover 23 years of history and five presidential administrations and are sure to provide new fodder for pundits and politicians alike. The network will formally announce the completion of the C-Span Video Library on Wednesday.

That’s just incredible. But, as I recently noted in my essay on, “C-SPAN, Civic-Minded Programming & Public Interest Regulation,” what’s more incredible it that this amazing, unprecedented civic resource has been provided to Americans at zero expense for the American taxpayer.  Many people fail to realize that C-SPAN is a private, non-profit company that is provided as a public service by cable industry contributions. It receives no government or taxpayer contributions whatsoever. From 1979-2009, total license fees paid by cable & satellite companies to support C-SPAN totaled $922 million.

So, next time you hear someone whining about how the private sector fails to provide “public interest programming,” ask them why the government didn’t think of C-SPAN first.  And don’t let them forget how, when C-SPAN first got off the ground, many in Congress fought the idea of public access to the inner workings of government. Thank God some folks in the private sector kept the heat on for access, while also keeping the monetary support flowing for the massive investment necessary to keep this unprecedented public resource alive and growing.

Visit C-SPAN’s amazing — and easily searchable — video archive today: www.c-spanvideo.org/videoLibrary

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National Broadband Plan on Privacy Regulation: Another FCC Power-Grab?

by on March 16, 2010 · 4 comments

I’ve just read through the National Broadband Plan‘s (NBP) section on online privacy (pp. 52-57). I share the FCC’s goal of increasing consumer control over their digital profiles, and applaud the FCC’s call for promoting the development of trusted identity providers and for increased education about identity theft.  But I’m disappointed to see that the FCC is focused on regulatory solutions instead of less restrictive alternatives like consumer education, technological empowerment, increased enforcement of existing laws, or limiting government access to data collected by the private sector.

Given the nature of bureaucracies and the FCC’s sweeping assertions of its own authority in recent years, I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised that the FCC’s primary suggestion is that it should be given a key role in crafting privacy regulations for online services.  But the FCC clearly lacks any statutory authority over the “computing cloud” and Congress has not asked the agency for suggestions on expanding its jurisdiction.

The FCC deserves credit for recognizing something I’ve stressed: the manifold benefits of online data collection and use, especially that targeted advertising can significantly increase funding for “free” ad-supported content and services:

These data are giving rise to something akin to a “digital identity,” which is a major source of potential innovation and opens up many possibilities for better customization of services and increased opportunities for monetization. The value of a targeted advertisement based on personal data can be several times higher than the value of an advertisement aimed at a broad audience. For example, the going rate for some targeted advertising products can be several times the rate for a generic one because consumers can be six times more likely to “click through” a targeted banner advertisement than a non-targeted one. This differential will likely increase as targeting becomes more refined and more capable of predicting preferences, intentions and behaviors.

Firms’ ability to collect, aggregate, analyze and monetize personal data has already spurred new business models, products and services, and many of these have benefited consumers. For example, many online content providers monetize their audience through targeted advertising. Whole new categories of Internet applications and services, including search, social networks, blogs and user-generated content sites, have emerged and continue to operate in part because of the potential value of targeted online advertising.

Unfortunately, the FCC doesn’t acknowledge that these benefits are a critical part of the trade-off inherent in increased regulation of how online service providers collect and use data. Continue reading →

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5 Regulatory Hot Potatoes That Could Derail the FCC National Broadband Plan

by on March 15, 2010 · 8 comments

Beyond the fact that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) decided to release the executive summary of its long awaited National Broadband Plan via a PDF of a scanned printed copy, there are other reasons to be concerned about the agency’s ability to centrally plan one of the most important, fast-moving sectors of our economy.  In this video clip, I discussed some of my general reservations with the idea of a gargantuan government industrial policy for the broadband sector, and in this essay I noted how, from what we’ve see of the plan thus far [Executive Summary], the FCC appears to be engaged in some creative accounting techniques to fund the scheme.

Not everything in The Plan troubles me, however, and I hope to touch on some of the more sensible elements in a future post. But, as I was reading through it, I flagged 5 regulatory hot potatoes in the plan that threaten to derail the entire thing.  In this regard, the parallels between the National Broadband Plan and the debate over health care “reform” are really quite striking. Indeed, it appears the Administration has once again settled upon a “go for broke” (potentially quite literally!) strategy. In both cases, they appear hell-bent and trying to do it all in the form of One Big Plan. Now, I won’t lie to you; such everything-plus-the-kitchen-sink public policy gambits make me nervous based simply on the sheer scale of the undertaking. When Washington tries to regulate massive chunks of the economy using bloated bills and bureaucracies inside the Beltway, it troubles me greatly. But even if the sound of Big Government on Steroids doesn’t raise your blood pressure, one would hope that the prospect of political gridlock and litigation hell would force advocates to scale back their ambitions a tad bit. After all, what good is a plan that can never pass or be implemented?

That’s why I was rather surprised to see these 5 regulatory initiatives teed up in the National Broadband Plan:

(1) Return of the Forced Access Regulatory Nightmare? The Plan says the FCC will, “Undertake a comprehensive review of wholesale competition rules to help ensure competition in fixed and mobile broadband services.” As my friend Randy May of the Free State Foundation notes: Continue reading →

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Just Give Us the Data! Earmarks Edition

by on March 15, 2010 · 1 comment

This morning, a small group of us open government collaborators (joined by others) rolled out a transparency campaign called “Just Give Us the Earmark Data!”

Visitors to EarmarkData.org are encouraged there to sign a petition asking Congress to publish data about earmarks in formats that are useful for public oversight. Developers can also participate in perfecting the data schema that will capture the “earmarks ecosystem” in the best possible way.

There has been a lot of action on earmarks recently. House Democrats announced last week that they would restrict their earmarking only to non-profits. The next day, House Republicans announced that they would forgo earmarking entirely. That’s House Democrats and House Republicans. Don’t assume that earmarking is going to go away.

Whatever happens, our demand is simple: Just give us the data!

If you agree that Congress should make good information about earmarking available, please sign the petition—and pass along the word with a Tweet, a Facebook post, an email, or whatever communication you like!

(If you’re a developer, take a look at the schema and join in the conversation about it on our Google group.)

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media notice: Tuesday’s Diane Rehm Show (NPR) on National Broadband Plan

by on March 15, 2010 · 5 comments

Just FYI.. Tomorrow’s “Diane Rehm Show” on NPRs local affiliate station (WAMU 88.5FM) will feature a debate about the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) National Broadband Plan, which is due out tomorrow. [Here’s the executive summary.]  The show airs at 10:00 locally, but you can listen to the show here online, and I’ll repost a link or embedded audio file once it becomes available.

I’ve been invited to be on the show alongside Ben Scott, policy director at Free Press, Dennis Wharton, spokesperson for the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB), and a few other guests who haven’t been announced just yet. (Here are some of my early musings on the plan: 1, 2.)

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A Busy Week for Tech Policy: Broadband Plan, Privacy Regulation, .COM Anniversary & FTC Authority

by on March 15, 2010 · 5 comments

This will be a busy week for tech policy in Washington! First, tomorrow the FCC is expected to release the National Broadband Plan that it’s been working on since Congress passed the “Recovery Act” passed in January 2009, tasking the FCC with formulating “a detailed strategy for achieving affordability of such service and maximum utilization of broadband infrastructure and service by the public.” Under Chairman Julius Genachowski, the FCC has issued a flurry of inquiries about extending FCC regulation to various aspects of the Internet, as we’ve lamented. Perhaps most troubling is the agency’s open-ended inquiry about regulating the use and collection of data by the private sector on the grounds that concerns about online privacy might slow broadband adoption. For the reasons I laid out in my comments on that inquiry, I very much hope the FCC does not attempt to shoe-horn this regulatory agenda into the Broadband plan. Unfortunately, the just-released executive summary suggests (mid-way down column 1 on page 2) the FCC may take a hard line on this issue.

At the same time that the FCC will be launching its “Five Ten Year Plan” for our infrastructure tomorrow, Verisign will be celebrating the 25th anniversary of the first .COM registration with a Policy Impact Forum in the Reagan Center. The all-start cast includes President Clinton, former FCC Commissioner Reed Hunt, ICANN President Rod Beckstrom, All Things Digital editor Kara Swisher, U.S. CTO Aneesh Chopra, Huffington Post founder Arianna Huffington and… my personal favorite, comedian Mo Rocca! They’ll all come together to celebrate how the private sector—symbolized by .COM—has transformed the Internet from a defense research project to a vibrant marketplace of ideas, goods, services, ads and personal sharing. Talk about Internet optimism!

On Wednesday, the Federal Trade Commission will hold its third and final Exploring Privacy Roundtable. Adam Thierer spoke at the first Roundtable on privacy polls and surveys, something I’ve written a lot about. I talked about the benefits of online advertising, as summarized in my comments to the FTC. We remain concerned that, for all the talk about improving self-regulation, this process is going to lead to increased regulation of data use and collection without first looking to the kinds of “less restrictive” we’ve been emphasizing to address real, non-conjectural harms: user education, user empowerment, increased enforcement, technological innovation at all levels, and enhanced protection from the clearest harm of all, government snooping.

Also on Wednesday (at 3pm), the Senate Commerce Committee will hold a hearing (in SR-253) on “Financial Services and Products:  The Role of the Federal Trade Commission in Protecting Consumers, Part 2.” What’s at stake in this hearing is far more than financial regulation, but how pending legislation already passed by the House—originally the Consumer Financial Protection Act (CFPA), which was reborn as the “Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2009” (HR 4173)—would, if enacted, expand the FTC’s powers to regulate vast swathes of our economy. Continue reading →

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FCC Announces Transparency Plans on a Scanned PDF

by on March 15, 2010 · 10 comments

What struck me most about the executive summary of the FCC’s “National Broadband Plan” is that they published it in one of the most opaque formats going: It’s a PDF scan of a printed document.

This means you can’t cut and paste the bullet point that says:

Increase civic engagement by making government more open and transparent, creating a robust public media ecosystem and modernizing the democratic process.

This and other observations/snark in my recent Cato@Liberty post join Adam’s early comment on the FCC’s incredible cost claims. Undoubtedly, there will be more here at TLF.

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Will the FCC’s National Broadband Plan Really Be Costless?

by on March 15, 2010 · 19 comments

After working my way through the Executive Summary of the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) National Broadband Plan, there are a number of things I find troubling that I will get to in a subsequent post. But here’s the thing about “The Plan” that I found most surprising — even audacious — in its arrogance: The FCC wants us to believe the whole scheme is costless. The agency bases this astonishing claim on the following assumptions:

Given the plan’s goal of freeing 500 megahertz of spectrum, future wireless auctions mean the overall plan will be revenue neutral, if not revenue positive.  The vast majority of recommendations do not require new government funding; rather, they seek to drive improvements in the government efficiency, streamline processes and encourage private activity to promote consumer welfare and national priorities. The funding requests relate to public safety, deployment to unserved areas and adoption efforts. If the spectrum auction recommendations are implemented, the plan is likely to offset the potential costs.

Let me translate: “Pay no attention to all the bills we are racking up, because spectrum revenues shall set us free!”

Perhaps that logic works in the reality-free zone we call the Beltway, but back in the real world this simply doesn’t add up. Regardless of how well-intentioned any of these goals and proposals may be, it should be equally clear that there is no free lunch, even with spectrum auction proceeds fueling the high-tech gravy train. The proposals and programs the FCC sets forth will impose serious economic costs that shouldn’t be so casually dismissed, especially using the weak reasoning that “improvements in the government efficiency” will magically manifest themselves thanks to massive new government intervention in the field. (If you think you’ve heard this one before, you have. See: The current health care debate.)

Moreover, if everything really does hang on the promise of spectrum auction revenues covering the broadband spending binge, well, bad news: The agency is never going to bring in enough to cover what they’ve proposed here. The reason is simple: Most of the spectrum they want to grab is currently occupied by someone else! Continue reading →

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