Lauren Weinstein wrote a post on his blog this weekend entitled Detecting and Proving Network Neutrality Violations. The basic thesis: “Without an appropriately broad infrastructure to collect and process metrics associated with network neutrality, it is difficult to understand how anyone can reasonably assert that we would know if and when violations were taking place . . . .”
Undoubtedly. And such an infrastructure should be built in tandem with give-and-take about what consumers most want and need in terms of broadband Internet access services. That is, we need to know what “violates” net neutrality – or, if some non-neutral broadband network serves consumers better – what violates the rules for that network.
Weinstein challenges: “Not even the anti-neutrality folks should be able to logically argue against what might be termed a ‘trust, but verify’ approach.” (I’ll take “anti-neutrality folks” as a careless formulation meaning “opponents of net neutrality
regulation” – and accept the challenge.)
I think Weinstein is correct in this. The community of Internet users should run a network of monitors to determine when ISPs are deviating from their Terms of Service and customer expectations, including expectations with regard to neutrality (or non-neutrality), along with all the other dimensions of Internet access service that matter.
Given that the Internet is a communications medium, that community is well-equipped to name, shame, and punish violators of consumer interests and demands. Government regulations that freeze network design in law would focus all the discussion on legal and regulatory mandates, not the best network design, or the true interests of Internet users.
Google’s Peter Fleischer commences their call for global privacy standards saying, “As I’ve noted before, everyone has a right to privacy online.” Wrong.
Privacy is a good, not a right. Government standards to protect privacy (if even possible) would be a set of entitlements, not a vindication of rights.
More on what privacy is here.
At a time when most people agree that Google or Apple have replaced Microsoft as the tech industry’s top player, government regulators on two continents are going retro, pushing old antitrust arguments. This backward-looking thinking threatens innovation for all companies and needs to stop now.
While the technology community has moved from obsessing over operating systems to focusing on Internet search and digital media government regulators are stuck in the past, wasting taxpayer time and money. A case in point is a group of states, led by California’s Attorney General and former governor Jerry Brown. This week, they told a federal judge that Microsoft’s “market power remains undiminished,” a statement that must make the execs at Google and Apple giggle with glee. For those who see the transition to Web-based services taking off, it’s a total joke.
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Read more here.
This week the Federal Communications Commission failed to muster 3 votes to deregulate the broadband access services of Qwest Communications, as it has already done for Verizon in early 2006. The nature of the relief we’re talking about is analogous to the commission’s reclassification of DSL as an “information” service rather than a “telecommunications” service in 2005. In both cases, the effect is to free broadband providers from onerous common carrier regulation, allow them to tailor their offerings to customer needs and not be forced to offer their services to competitors at regulated, cost-based rates for resale.
To be fair, the relief Verizon got didn’t garner 3 of 5 votes. Verizon’s petition was filed pursuant to Sec. 10 of the Communications Act, which provides that a forbearance petition (a petition which asks the FCC to forbear from applying a regulation) will be granted automatically unless the commission denies it for good reason within one year plus a 90-day extension. That didn’t happen, so Verizon’s petition was granted automatically. This procedure may not sound like an ideal way to conduct public business, but Congress enacted Sec. 10 because of a long history of FCC foot-dragging. The commission is a political animal, and many former staffers are employed by the companies the FCC regulates.
Continue reading →
Verizon has sued to prevent the FCC from imposing the conditions Google sought in the 700 MHz auction. I don’t have an opinion on the merits, but I find Google’s complaining about it disingenuous.
Google sought competitive advantage through the regulatory process. One of its soon-to-be competitors is using the legal process to counter that.
Telecommunications providers have sought to work the regulatory and legal processes to their advantage
forever. Google knows that, knew that going in, and adopted that mode of behavior in the 700 MHz auction. I can’t see where it has standing to complain of others engaging in that very same behavior.
Wrapping “consumer choice” around its effort to wring artificially high profit from the network it would operate doesn’t wash.
Here’s a good Arsticle on the FBI’s use of “improper” letters – er, illegal demands – to get information from telecommunications providers. They’ve got a cub reporter over there at Ars Technica who seems destined to really make some waves.
Winner line: “. . . White House Homeland Security Advisor Frances Fragos Townsend responded to questions about the latest revelations by pointing to the creation of a ‘compliance unit’ in the FBI. We thought the Constitution already provided for a ‘compliance unit’: the judicial branch.”
Not the freshest news in the world, but I found it interesting when I discovered today that that Ask.com offers a service called AskEraser which allows users to use its service anonymously. That’s right, no longer do you have to be tracked by the Googleplex to search the net–the search isn’t half-bad either for all but the most esoteric topics.
Google has similar privacy features, but it’s a bit harder to use it–and many other search engines–totally anonymously. Obviously Ask.com is adopting a strategy of differentiation, rather than head-on competition, to beat the monolith of Mountain View.
In other search news, I was surprised to learn that AltaVista still exists (who has used this since 1998?) and I was even more surprised to learn that they offer a really cool search tool. Any search can bring up related MP3s if the “MP3/Audio” tab is clicked. It also brings up .ram and .ra files, but who would want to listen to those? This is yet another example of cool things happening in search that help to keep the search market competitive.
Via the Google Public Policy Blog, the Computer and Communications Industry Association has a study out finding that the “fair use economy” accounted for $4.6 trillion in revenues in 2006 (roughly one-sixth of total U.S. gross domestic product), it employed more than 17 million people, earning $1.2 trillion (one in eight U.S. workers).
This study should get the same scrutiny as studies put forward on the other side of the copyright equation, no? Go to work, study-parsers!
Update: Mike “Radar” Masnick published his take on this study 30 minutes before I invited him too! His conclusion – Mutual Assured Bogosity: “The next time anyone cites the bogus piracy numbers, they should at least be forced to acknowledge these numbers on the value of fair use as well as a counterweight. They may be bogus, but they’re equally bogus to the piracy numbers.”
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.