You are here February 2009
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Mon, 2009-02-16 20:03
The FTC staff's revised behavioral advertising principles make it clear that the FTC understands the Internet’s growing privacy-publicacy fault-line. The FTC’s new guidelines are all about tackling the growing problem of unauthorized publicacy – meaning the tracking, collecting and “mashing-up” of information consumers reasonably expected to be kept private. (“Publicacy” is the opposite of privacy.)
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Privacy-Publicacy Fault-line Part I, II, III.
Why are the FTC’s new guidelines a much bigger deal than most appreciate?
First, the new guidelines put a new and brighter privacy regulatory spotlight on Google, the world’s dominant behavioral-advertiser, and to a lesser extent, Yahoo, Google’s distant #2 competitor.
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Tue, 2009-02-17 19:01
In asking the important question: "Do we need a new Internet?," John Markoff's article in the New York Times has helped focus the overall Internet debate on the importance of encouraging innovation to better protect Internet users.
- Mr. Markoff's important article spotlights efforts by mainstream researchers like Stanford's Clean Slate project to "re-invent the Internet" to address its security deficiencies. It also provided an outlet for those concerned about the Internet's increasingly serious security vulnerabilities.
It should not be surprising that researchers would be trying to innovate to create a better Internet that is safer and more secure; given that the:
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Wed, 2009-02-18 13:48
My prediction on World Privacy Day -- that it was "only a matter of time before there is a public earthquake over" the "Growing Privacy-Publicacy Fault-line" -- came true in less than a month.
- Facebook's recent publicacy changes to their terms of service led to a quick consumer "earthquake" over who owns their private information online -- an earthquake that was triggered by a strategic blast from the Consumerist blog.
- In a matter of days, Facebook reversed its publicacy changes to its terms of service, restoring them to their previous state.
Anyone that thinks this is an isolated incident, simply does not understand the powerful underlying tectonic dynamic here -- that there is growing tension on the privacy-publicacy fault-line.
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Wed, 2009-02-18 19:37
If net neutrality/open Internet proponents believe that non-dominant, competitive broadband providers should be not be allowed to advantage their own content, products or services over competitors', why do they tolerate monopoly application providers disadvantaging their competitors' content, products or services?
A new private antitrust lawsuit by TradeComet.com against Google brings that question to the forefront.
- Trade Comet charges that, since the DOJ concluded in November that Google was a search advertising monopoly, it is anti-competitive for Google to dis-advantage its competitors' products, services, and content for the benefit of Google's products, services and content.
This new antitrust suit is significant and bears watching for a variety of reasons.
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Thu, 2009-02-19 18:03
Markets and competition work!
- Comcast and Verizon separately announced major investment/deployment plans for broadband within days of Congress' rejection of calls for open access/net neutrality regulation and dictated broadband speeds in the just-passed $800b stimulus package.
Congress wisely appreciated that encouraging and respecting private investment and inter-modal broadband competition is critical to:
- Spurring economic growth and job creation,
- Keeping the communications sector a healthy engine of the economy; and
- Getting the fastest broadband service to the most Americans soonest.
Even in a severe recession, Comcast and Verizon are proof that companies will make private investments to expand broadband speeds and access, if their capital is welcome, and the government does not discourage investment and deployment by forcing open access network sharing and mandated net neutrality in the absence of any definable or measurable problem.
Comcast announced today that it "plans to reach more than 30 million homes with faster speeds," and is "doubling speeds for most existing customers for no additional charge" in 2009.
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Mon, 2009-02-23 14:11
Where did the net neutrality issue come from? And why is it such a persistent issue? In researching answers to these important questions, I came across a key quote by Yale Professor Yochai Benkler in his 2006 book "Wealth of Networks:"
· “There was a moment...in 2001, when a range of people who were doing similar things ... seemed to cohere into a single intellectual movement, centered on the importance of the commons to information production and creativity in general, and to the digitally networked environment in particular.”
The White Paper released in this post is the culmination of several months of research dedicated to answering these questions -- Where did the net neutrality issue come from? and Why is it a persistent issue?
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Tue, 2009-02-24 08:57
Please check out "Why I am against pure net Neutrality" by Adam O'Donnell a R&D engineer for Cloudmark.
Mr. O'Donnell understands that the extreme calls for no bit interference by many net neutrality proponents turns an irresponsible blind eye to the necessity of Internet security.
The vision for a dumb pipe digital commons ill-serves Internet users because it bans smart network innovation at the core that could enable better internet security for all.
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Tue, 2009-02-24 19:05
Kudos to Saul Hansell of the NYT Bits blog "Surprise: America is #1 in Broadband" for spotlighting yet another respected source that challenges the political orthodoxy that America is falling behind in broadband/Internet competitiveness.
- Of course, GigaOm responded angrily with a "Broadband Damned Lies Edition" post.
- Why is there such vitriol against reporting that the U.S. is not doing dismally in technology?
- My explanation is that unless those who favor government intervention to mandate a digital commons (see neutralism white paper) can convince everyone that the current competitive Internet market is a dismal failure, they know it will be harder to get net neutrality legislation/regulation passed.
- It is a perverse situation indeed when some Americans appear to desperately want America to fail, (so much so as to ridicule legitimate research and reporting) so that they can justify changing public policies.
There are now four different non-American research efforts that have concluded that the U.S. is not falling behind the rest of the world when it comes to broadband/Internet standing. These findings are in stark contrast to the OECD, which in one of many OECD measures has the U.S. at 15th or 22nd in the world on broadband penetration.
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Wed, 2009-02-25 19:13
The recession has created new urgency for multiple content industries to find a better way to protect and monetize their property/content in the digital world. The dotcom bubble ethos that “information wants to be free” is like a gross mold destroying the incentives to create and distribute valuable content digitally. (Be sure not to miss the shocking analysis at the end of this post comparing revenue generation per user in the digital "ecommony" versus the real economy.)
The first point of this post is to connect-the-dots why several content industries are currently in the news actively pushing back against the "ecommony" anti-business model, where content owners are expected to effectively give away their valuable content to the open Internet/digital commons without the requirement of permission or payment.
The first broad and serious counter-movement by business may be in the offing to ensure that valuable content is indeed paid for when distributed digitally. Serious financial and business risk is driving creative thinking about how to better protect and monetize valuable content digitally.
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Fri, 2009-02-27 12:11
I am on the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) panel on technology today at 2:30 today.
The title of the panel is: "Technology and Policy, Cutting edge Conservative Thought."
I plan to talk about my new white paper: "Neutralism: Identifying the Ideology behind Net Neutrality." From the paper:
"Simply, neutralism is the commons ideology behind the net neutrality movement. Neutralists believe that digital information and communications networks should be a public commons, not private property requiring permission or payment to use. Neutralists believe that:
· Digital technology, if unshackled from ownership restrictions and payment requirements, is a powerful means for creating a more egalitarian society;
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