June 2010

The FCC has a ready-made opportunity to protect consumers by approving the simple rule updates recommended in the pending Retransmission Petition.

• The FCC has the authority and the obligation to protect consumers by updating the FCC's Section 325 rules with a functional dispute resolution framework and a mandatory interim carriage agreement during negotiations.
• Without these common sense consumer protections, consumers unnecessarily will continue to be unintended collateral damage in someone else's commercial fight.

The petition is laser-focused on updates to the FCC's rules to protect consumers from being used as pawns or hostages in commercial disputes not of their making or interest.

It is highly instructive that opponents of the retransmission petition focus most all their argumentation on protecting the status quo, that unnecessarily puts consumers directly in harms way, and that does not directly address why consumers should not be protected as recommended in the petition.

Google's CEO Eric Schmidt, dismissed the notion that Google was "arrogant" in an FT interview.

• Mr. Schmidt: "The arrogance comes across because we trying to do things for end-users against organised opposition from stakeholders that are unhappy -- and they paint us as arrogant. But I am sure that all successful organisations have some arrogance in them."  

It seems to me that "the arrogance comes across" with Google because Google operates, and expects to operate, under a double standard -- where rules, laws and expectations apply to others, but do not, and should not, apply to Google -- because Google is somehow special.

The latest example  of Google's expectation to be treated differently and better than Google treats everyone else -- is Google's "permissions" policy.  (See the Goobris Series below for other examples.)

Google unwisely brought closer scrutiny to Google's public representation of its business model by pushing WSJ columnist, Holman Jenkins, to run this footnote/correction: 

• "Google objected to a line in a column two weeks ago that summarized its business in part as "collecting data it can sell to advertisers." We didn't say "user data," but Google nonetheless wants you to know it doesn't sell any data directly to advertisers, and doesn't employ user data to sharpen the efficiency of its search advertising, but only its display ads."

With all of the controversy surrounding Google's business model (WiFi privacy-invasion investigations on four continents... a massive private data spill from Chinese hackers stealing Google's password security system... and increasing calls for the DOJ/EU to bring an antitrust case against Google), it seems particularly ill-advised for Google to be nitpicking about how Google wants to represent/misrepresent its business model to the public.

Let's parse Google's misleading nitpicking.

First, Google is being too cute by half in insisting its business is not as Mr. Jenkins succinctly encapsulated it to be: "collecting data it can sell to advertisers."

At its Thursday meeting, expect the FCC to adopt Google's PR script to try and better sell the FCC's upcoming "Extreme Makeover" of Internet regulation.

• The centerpiece of the FCC and Google's "extreme Internet makeover" plan is the creation of an entirely new, Google-inspired, regulatory classification called "Broadband Internet Connectivity Service" or BICS.
• The BICS extreme makeover is designed to:
  • Enable the promotion of integrated "edge" products and services like Google Voice, Google TV, and Google's Chrome/Android operating systems; and
  • Empower the FCC to implement its National Broadband Plan on its own without additional Congressional authorization or action. 

Predictably, the FCC's Google-oriented-BICS-scheme has three fatal flaws -- making it a disaster waiting to happen.