The Obama administration seems to be working to pull defeat from the jaws of victory on the president’s “Sunlight Before Signing” campaign promise. Whitehouse.gov sometimes posts bills as “pending” before they get out of Congress, when it’s premature to ask the public for a final review.
The problem is particularly acute today, as I note in a Cato@Liberty post:
H.R. 1586 is a “shell bill” that Congress has been batting back and forth, and it has covered various subject matters in its busy life. It indeed started out as a bill to tax the bonuses of executives in TARP-subsidized firms. When it passed the House, though, it had become the “Aviation Safety and Investment Act of 2010.” And this week it was amended in the Senate to contain a potpourri of spending and revenue programs. (WashingtonWatch.com cost estimate: $125 per U.S. family.)
Lets say a high schooler has been assigned by her teacher to monitor the bills President Obama receives from Congress. From the White House’s pending legislation page, she clicks on a link to find a bewildering hodgepodge of bill versions on the Thomas page for the bill. (Click on the image at right to see a screen capture.)
And none of the bill versions has passed Congress! Thomas, the Library of Congress’ legislative tracking service, tells visitors that the last bill listed is most recent. But the current version of the bill is item four of six, referrred to as the “XXXXXXAct ofXXXX.” Thanks to Whitehouse.gov, our high schooler is misled into believing that President Obama will soon sign a tax on bonsuses given to TARP-slurping executives when in fact a variety of other policies may soon pass.
If you’re as fascinated as I am by the interplay of privacy, identity and innovation, I hope to see you at the pii2010 conference in Seattle, August 17-19! Organized by the folks who’ve put on the top-notch Tech Policy Summit since 2003, and co-sponsored by The Progress & Freedom Foundation (among others), this event offers a truly unique perspective on privacy—not just another policy food fight, but a true roll-up-our-sleeves, in-depth seminar on what to do about privacy, especially through technological innovation.
I’ll be on the “pii & Digital Advertising: Navigating the Regulatory Landscape” panel on the 18th at 10am, giving my usual talk about the need to be careful about the trade-offs inherent in privacy regulation. Check out the detailed agenda here.
TLFers Larry Downes and Carl Gipson will also be attending, so we’re planning a long-overdue “Alcohol Liberation Front” happy hour after the conference on August 18—details to be announced soon.
Check out the discussion around the #pii2010 hashtag on Twitter. And register today! Mid-August is supposed to be paradise in Seattle, and the week of the conference also happens to be Seattle GeekWeek, so there are a bunch of other events worth checking out in town before and after the pii2010 conference.
At ten A.M. Pacific this morning, CNET News.com asked if I could write an article unraveling the legal implications of a rumored deal between Google and Verizon on net neutrality. I didn’t see how I could analyze a deal whose terms (and indeed, whose existence) are unknown, but I thought it was a good opportunity to make note of several positive developments in the net neutrality war this summer.
Just as I was finishing the piece a few hours later, another shocker came when the FCC announced it was concluding talks it had been holding since June with the major net neutrality stakeholders. It’s possible the leaked story about Google and Verizon, and the feverish response to it, whipped up by the straggling remnants of a coalition aimed at getting an extreme version of net neutrality into U.S. law by any means necessary, soured the agency on what appeared to be productive negotiations. Or maybe they’ve just gone as far as they can for now. Continue reading →
As Steve Titch discusses below, Google and Verizon, two of the leading antagonists in the long-running drama over FCC net neutrality regulation, may be about to call a truce. According to numerous media reports, the two firms have or soon will agree to a compromise framework for regulation, which would provide for a limited degree of regulation by the FCC.
The exact provisions of the compromise are unclear. Reportedly, however, the plan would ban Internet access providers such as Verizon from blocking content outright, while allowing them to offer prioritized service for a fee. The provisions would not apply to wireless Internet access, which would be kept mostly free of regulation.
While Google and Verizon have long been adversaries on this issue, it’s been no secret that the two have been working together to craft out common ground. The two in fact, filed joint comments in the FCC’s rulemaking on the issue earlier this year, and the CEOs of the two firms even jointly authored a Wall Street Journal op-ed on broadband policy.
The incentives for both are clear. With federal courts earlier this year rebuffing the FCC’s attempts to impose regulation, it was no doubt clear to Google that nothing could happen without a compromise. Moreover, the “big is bad” tenor of the debate no doubt gave Google – one of the largest firms in our galaxy – reason to rethink. For Verizon, a deal would provide some policy certainty, much-needed given the vast investments in broadband it is making. And since the firm has always disavowed any desire to block wireline content, the new rules would come at little apparent cost.
Today I appeared on CNBC’s “Power Lunch” to debate Net neutrality issues and the specific role of pricing in this debate. Specifically, the producers wanted to know whether websites should be allowed to pay a higher fee to allow consumers faster access to their sites or should it be equal for every website. The show was partially a response to the rumors that the may be some sort of deal pending between Verizon and Google about prioritized services. On the program, I was up against Craig Aaron of Free Press. During the discussion I made several points, many of which first appeared in my 2005 essay on “The Real Net Neutrality Debate: Pricing Flexibility Versus Pricing Regulation.” Here are the key points I tried to get across:
In a free-market economy, companies should be able to freely set prices for goods and services without fear of government price controls.
This isn’t about consumers paying more for basic Internet access or having their connections “slowed down”? This is about whether the government will allow some broadband services to be differentiated or specialized for unique needs, such as online gaming, live event telecasts, secure telepresence conferences, telemedicine, etc.
Differentiated and prioritized services and pricing are part of almost every industrial sector in a capitalistic economy. (ex: airlines, package shipping, hotels, amusement parks, grades of gasoline, etc.) Why should it be any different for broadband?
It’s always important to remember that there is no such thing as a free lunch. Something has to pay for Internet access. It doesn’t just fall like manna from heaven. Differentiated services may help in this regard by allowing carriers to price more intensive or specialized users and uses to ensure that carriers don’t have to hit everyone – including average household users – with the same bill for service. Why should the government make that illegal through Net neutrality regulation?
Heavy-handing tech mandates – especially Internet price controls – could have a profoundly deleterious impact on investment, innovation, and competition. After all, there can be no innovation or investment without a company first turning a profit. We don’t want to return to the era of rotary-dial regulated monopoly, in which our choices were few and our services were standardized and rudimentary. We should let our current experiment with facilities-based, head-to-head competition continue.
The buzz in telecom policy circles this morning is the word that Verizon and Google are close to an agreement that will allow the search giant to purchase from Verizon a faster tier for delivery of its bandwidth heavy services, notably YouTube, its video-sharing site.
If the two companies reach an agreement, it could be a death blow to the entire “non-discriminatory” idea behind network neutrality: that no service provider should be give favored treatment to any service or application. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski has made it a mission to get the “non-discrimination” principle encoded into law, to the point of calling for reclassification of broadband ISPs as regulated telecommunications carriers.
If Verizon sets up tiered pricing for Google applications, the non-discrimination genie is out of the bottle for good. It would be a direct “I dare you” challenge to the FCC to block it. Armageddon indeed. Adding to the significance is that Google itself is party to the deal. Until today at least, Google has been the loudest company behind the call for a non-discrimination rule, even as one-time allies have fallen away (the latest being Amazon.com).
Could net neutrality rules be unconstitutional? Maybe so, says Daniel Lyons of Boston College Law School. In a piece released last week by the Free State Foundation (based on a more extensive research paper for Boston College last March) he argues that rules of the sort being considered by the FCC may constitute a taking of property under the Fifth Amendment.
The idea that a regulation could be considered a “taking” is certainly nothing new. For decades, courts have recognized the concept of “regulatory takings,” rules so restrictive that they constitute a seizure of property under the Fifth Amendment. But Lyons doesn’t just argue that “net neutrality” is a regulatory seizure in some abstract sense. He argues that neutrality rules would constitute a very real seizure of tangible, albeit invisible, property.
It’s not often that you see advice on Internet privacy sandwiched between articles on “4 Times it Pays to Splurge” and how to “Be a Full-time Mom with a Part-time Passion.” But online privacy is such a hot topic that even Redbook, the women’s magazine, has a story in its August issue. The article is an informed, well-balanced look at providing practical tips (well it should be, I was interviewed for it!) on being secure and private when on various Internet sites:
If you’re a LIVE-LIFE-OUT-LOUD GIRL (i.e., you offer a play-by-play of your life to your 1,000 Facebook friends, blog readers, and Twitter followers), these are the guidelines you — and everyone — should follow:
On your social networking profiles, take the time to check out the privacy settings and decide whom you want to have access to what information. The risks here aren’t great, but do you really want your cousins to read about your sex life, or your frenemy to see photos of the party you didn’t invite her to?
If you’re on a public wireless network, like at Starbucks, don’t do your online banking or log on to other sites that contain sensitive information about you. Other users accessing the network might be able to access it.
Teach your kids about the risks of sharing personal information on the Web. If it feels appropriate for your child, bring up the countless cases of tweens’ and teens’ personal photos and videos that have ended up in the wrong inboxes because of how easy it is to forward email. Have a conversation about what sites they’re visiting online, and make sure they’re staying safe by signing up for a free limiting service such as AOL Parental Controls, which allows you to log in and monitor their activity. Check with your wireless carrier for similar services on your kids’ phones, too.
It’s not likely that the UAE and Saudi governments will pick a fight with every company in a global industry. Nor is it likely they would ban all electronic messaging, knowing their monarchs would be forced to back down after a few days of embarrassing international criticism.
It’s time for these governments to stop bullying a company that’s investing heavily to bring connectivity, content, and commerce to their own citizens. It will only lead to a larger fight where everyone loses.
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology. Learn more about TLF →
Lets say a high schooler has been assigned by her teacher to monitor the bills President Obama receives from Congress. From the White House’s pending legislation page, she clicks on a link to find a bewildering hodgepodge of bill versions on the Thomas page for the bill. (Click on the image at right to see a screen capture.)
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.