You are here December 2010
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Fri, 2010-12-17 13:11
The crux of the FCC's non-transparent proposed Open Internet Order will be whether it envisions: a very limited Internet enforcement role for the FCC, or an expansive economic regulation and Internet management role for the FCC.
- The "Waxman Compromise" envisioned a very limited, two-year, enforcement-only role for the FCC that at core recognized the Constitutional authority of Congress to determine U.S. Internet policy.
- FreePress and the Open Internet coalition envision a permanent, expansive, economic-regulation, and Internet-management role for the FCC that snubs Congress' authority, policy, and consensus.
The real test of whether the FCC is limited or expansive will be whether the word "preserve" is used forthrightly in the actual text of the FCC Open Internet order: i.e. will it respect or abandon Congress' meaning of "preserve" in section 230: "to preserve the... competitive free market... Internet... unfettered by Federal or State regulation."
- A very-limited, Congress-deferring, true enforcement role for the FCC to address the potentiality of anti-competitive behavior, could plausibly comport with the Congress' policy vision for a competitive, free-market Internet and also would have a better chance of surviving legal challenge.
- On the other hand, an expansive, Congress-challenging, economic-regulation, Internet-management role for the FCC cannot plausibly comport with Congress' policy of a competitive free market Internet and would have little chance of surviving legal challenge.
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Sun, 2010-12-19 23:47
In requesting the FCC and DOJ condition the Comcast-NBCU merger with Title II telephone regulation of Comcast's Internet backbone, Level 3 seeks to achieve through the back door of the FCC what they could not achieve through the front door.
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Mon, 2010-12-20 11:22
If David Hatch's National Journal "exclusive" report is accurate, that the FCC's proposed Open Internet order is being changed to become much more regulatory in: "addressing concerns about wireless carriers, limiting Internet toll lanes, and adding protections for a new online pricing model" -- the FCC would be hurtling itself headlong down the very slippery slope of highly-destructive FCC Internet price regulation and micro-management.
The huge folly of this trajectory is that its hard enough trying to write an enforcement solution to a non-existent problem, it is mind-numbingly difficult to imagine that the FCC can economically price regulate and micro-manage the international Internet ecosystem.
If this is the direction the FCC is headed, it is the ultimate in regulatory hubris. Not only does the FCC have no legitimate justification, rationale, authority, or consensus to micro-manage the Internet with unprecedented price regulation, the FCC has no proven regulatory competence, business expertise, or analysis on how to achieve this equivalent of doing brain surgery in mittens on a roller coaster in the dark.
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Tue, 2010-12-21 14:20
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December, 21 2010
Contact: Scott Cleland
703-217-2407
FCC Unilaterally Trying to Change the Internet from Competition-Driven to Regulation-Driven
WASHINGTON – Scott Cleland, Chairman of Netcompetition.org, released the following statement regarding the FCC’s December 21st Open Internet order.
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Tue, 2010-12-21 20:26
The FCC's 3-2 vote on its Open Internet order produces several big takeaways, despite there being no actual order to review.
Take-aways:
First, the controversy over net neutrality isn't going away; it is on path to get more controversial.
The FCC signaled this was only the beginning of a broader FCC net neutrality rule making process.
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Wed, 2010-12-22 13:09
In our acronym-driven society, the FCC in its News Release on its Open Internet Order, does fairness and broadband providers a great disservice in creating a new definition for broadband service as "Broadband Internet Access Service" -- or the acronym "BIAS."
Given that the FCC has not proven its allegation with facts or analysis that broadband providers operate in a non-neutral or discriminatory way after eight years of looking for it, it is particularly unfair, discriminatory, and prejudicial for the adjudicative FCC to literally define the service that it is alleging to be non-neutral as "BIAS."
With all the other potential permutations of words to define broadband service in a new way in order to impose net neutrality rules, it is an unfortunate and unlikely coincidental acronym.
Would it not raise the question that a judge was not impartial, if the judge created a term to classify a group of defendants that had the acronym "GUILTY?" or SCOFFLAW?
Does it not raise the question that the FCC is not an impartial arbiter of net neutrality disputes, if the FCC effectively re-classified broadband service as inherently "BIAS"-ed?
Does it not create the appearance that the FCC has made up its mind in pre-judging that a broadband provider's service offering is "BIAS"-ed and inherently guilty-until-proven-innocent of alleged violations of net neutrality and openness?
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Fri, 2010-12-24 10:22
FYI: To read the actual text of the just-released FCC Open Internet Order approved December 21st -- click here.
Given the document is 194 pages (126 pages for the order and 68 pages in Commissioners' statements), this Order is no "light touch."
There will certainly be a lot here to digest... and to cause indigestion...
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Fri, 2010-12-24 11:41
For an "unusual behind-the-scenes" look at how Google, by far the world's-leading source of information, proactively seeks to censor information critical of Google from becoming more "accessible and useful" to the world, please read this Investor's Business Daily,"Managing for Success" feature article by Brian Deagon, entitled: "When Analysts Look Over Their Shoulders."
If this is Google's "typical" treatment of its critics, what else is Google doing "behind-the-scenes" to people with information that Google disagrees with or that Google does not want to be "accessible and useful" to the world?"
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