You are here April 2008
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Wed, 2008-04-09 17:27
I want to thank Mike Masnick for his good comment to my blog post. This post is part of a string responding to Mr. Masnick's criticism of my original blog post entitled: "Google unabashed about gaming FCC auction process to fleece the American taxpayer of $7 billion."
I accept his gracious apology for starting his original critique with an ad hominem attack and I in turn want to apologize to Mr. Masnick for incorrectly assuming that he was on Google's side when he says he has no side -- I take him at his word.
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Wed, 2008-04-09 18:17
The Wall Street Journal's scoop that Yahoo is considering a two week trial of outsourcing search to Google -- is also a trial balloon testing the FTC's antitrust mettle.
If you don't remember, the last sentence of the FTC's Majority opinion approving the Google-DoubleClick merger was a clear warning to Google:
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"We want to be clear, however, that we will closely watch these markets and, should Google engage in unlawful tying or other anticompetitive conduct, the Commission intends to act quickly."
Let's also put this into context.
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Thu, 2008-04-10 15:49
The Hill has a good article highlighting the growing "battle" over "White Spaces", or the potential for use of the buffer spectrum bands in-between TV channels to ensure that there is no interference with TV signals.
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Sun, 2008-04-13 23:07
Kudos to the Wall Street Journal for a very wise editorial, “An alternative to net neutrality,” and for its clear conclusion and advice to the FCC: “that markets work.”
The Journal understands the facts and the real dynamic here -- that there is no longer much for the FCC to do now that market forces have solved the alleged problems raised against Comcast.
Simply, Comcast wisely, responsibly, and reasonably managed their network to favor quality-of-service for the vast majority of their customers, at the miniscule, intermittent expense of the biggest bandwidth hogs, who were hogging bandwidth on auto-pilot while not even attending their computers.
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Tue, 2008-04-15 12:11
Neil Berkett, CEO of Virgin Media, Britain’s second-largest broadband provider, “called the principle of network neutrality—all content being delivered equally to all users—"a load of bollocks" per eWeek’s article: “Virgin Media may ignore network neutrality.”
- “Berkett said Virgin is considering a fee-based system for content providers wishing to have their traffic moved faster than others.”
After looking up the definition of “bollocks,” it is clear that his comments colorfully echo some of the same sentiments in America that prompted Google to work with Moveon.org to organize SaveTheInternet and ItsOurNet (the predecessor to the Open Internet Coalition) and manufacture the net neutrality issue out of whole cloth.
The comments and the article are a powerful reminder of the fantasy corporate welfare economics of net neutrality, where users are expected to bear all the costs of video distribution for companies like Google and Amazon.
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Tue, 2008-04-15 13:27
Kudos to Jon Swartz of USA Today for an article last week: "Hackers infiltrate search engines, social networks," and Byron Acohido in this week's article "Anti-virus software isn't only computer security tool" for warning consumers that a Symantec cyber-security report shows a ~500% explosion in detected threats to Internet users from 2006-7.
Swartz' article highlights three new ways Google users are vulnerable to identity theft, fraud, spyware, and malware threats.
- "Cybercriminals are using a chink in Google's website to redirect unsuspecting PC users to sites containing malicious software. When someone does a Google search, they are redirected to what appears to be a legitimate website. The site, in fact, is tainted with malware. Google says it is fixing the problem."
- "...the latest of three computer worms wriggled into Google's social-networking service, Orkut, in February."
- "Scammers are sending personalized e-mail as meeting invitations in Google Calendar."
As the single biggest potential source of user vulnerability to cyber-threats on the Internet, why is Google not publicly disclosing the exploding risk and/or informing users how they can better protect themselves from these growing and serious cyber-threats?
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Tue, 2008-04-15 16:33
In a breakthrough agreement and announcement (see copy below), Comcast and Pando Networks, (the leading managed p-2-p content delivery service) agreed to:
- Lead creation of a "P2P Bill of Rights and Responsibilities" for P2p users and ISPs; and
- Create a process to better "share test methodologies and results" among all P2P providers and ISPs so everyone can:
- Learn how P2P providers can optimize their applications for all types of networks; and
- "More efficiently deliver legal content."
This is a profoundly significant development because it solves multiple thorny problems:
First, it breaks through and resolves the polarized net neutrality discussion where proponents only talk about ones own Internet "rights" but don't acknowledge the "responsibilities" that accompany any "rights" or acknowledge the effect those "rights" can have on the "rights" of others.
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Wed, 2008-04-16 11:01
Michael Arrington of TechCrunch has a great post about when Google's GrandCentral's phone company went down the morning of April 13th, Google users were left completely in the dark and not told anything on Google's website of when they could expect their phone service to return.
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Wed, 2008-04-16 16:29
The more we learn about Google's behavior in the FCC's 700 Mhz auction the more clear it is Google acted improperly and "gamed" the auction and Fleeced the American taxpayer as I explained in my original post on this subject.
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Wed, 2008-04-16 18:49
FreePress' antagonistic and borderline hysterical response to the legitimate consumer-friendly progress made in the Comcast-Pando agreement to lead a "P2P Bill of Rights and Responsibilities" shows FreePress' and the net neutrality movement's true colors and suggests that they are not interested in really advancing their stated goals, but in scoring political points and advancing their broader political agenda. They don't seem interested in solutions, because it appears that they are in the business creating and grandstanding about problems.
Amazing that FreePress and SaveTheInternet had nothing good to say about this breakthrough agreement that finds common ground to start working towards what FreePress et al say they care about. Any reasonable person can see their are positive developments here and progress being made. See my post on this agreement highlighting its significance.
- If Net neutrality proponents were genuinely interested in achieving or making progress towards their stated goals, they would have found something ositive to say about the clear progress the agreement made towards their stated goals and not had a knee jerk ad hominem attack that impugned the integrity of Comcast and Pando Networks.
As I said in my post, no good deed goes unpunished.
Seems like another observer agrees with this take:
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