Open Internet

By far the most interesting Internet development I have seen in weeks was a New York Times piece by Noam Cohen called: "Whiting out the ads, but at what cost?"

I always enjoy reading the Britain-based Economist's take on things American because they bring a detached, across-the-pond, critical perspective that often is very illuminating.

• That is clearly the case in The Economist's great expose: "Inside the Googleplex" and their editorial: "Who's afraid of Google?"

Relevant to Google-DoubleClick merger:  

The recent front page Washington Post article: "Japan's warp-speed ride to Internet's future" made one interesting point:

• "As a champion of Japanese-style competition through regulation, {Google's}Cerf supports "net neutrality" legislation now pending in Congress. It would mandate that phone and cable companies treat all online traffic equally, without imposing higher tolls for certain content. The proposed laws would probably save billions for companies such as Google..." [bold added]

Google openly represents its value in the marketplace as supplying users with "free" services: free search, free email, free docs/spreadsheet/other applications, free content, etc.  

The Washington Post's editors should have been more forthright and put a "news analysis" label on their front page story today "Japan's warp-speed ride to Internet future." If the Post had put the "news analysis label on the story, I would not be writing this critical analysis on why the story was not news but a thinly-disguised advocacy piece for net neutrality masquerading as news or straightforward unbiased reporting.

The Progress and Freedom Foundation wisely hosted an outstanding and noteworthy presentation by Harvard Constitutional Law expert and scholar about how net neutrality violates the U.S. Constitution's first amendment protection of free speech.

I recommend a of blog post on this from PFF by Adam Theirer on Professor Tribe's presentation and the tour de force video is available as well.

The supreme relevance of this presentation is to debunk that net neutrality is "Internet freedom."

• Professor Tribe is a well-known and respected liberal thought leader; so it is highly noteworthy that he has not "drunk the liberal blogosphere's kool aid" that net neutrality is about "freedom."
• Professor Tribe clearly understands that corporations are afforded the constitutional right to free speech just like individuals are.
  • Professor Tribe also sees net neutrality for what it is -- the opposite of "Internet freedom" -- the infringment of network owners clear freedom of speech protected by the US constitution.

Not only is net neutrality trying to address a bogus non-existent "problem," it is a bogus policy concept, because in part it fundamentally misrepresents itself as "Internet freedom" when it is exactly the opposite.

Ted Hearn of Multichannel News has a dead on post 'Copps airbrushes role in FCC dereg binge" that I suggest anyone interested in the FCC's real bipartisan role in dealing with the "net neutrality" should read.

Ted's post exposes some serious political revisionism that is going on by the senior Democrat at the FCC in pandering to one of the most liberal. take-no-prisoners bloggers, Mr. Stoller of OpenLeft.

Given how extremely politically activist Google-YouTube has become, I thought it might be instructive to revisit my earlier blogpost from January where I asked: "is Google-Youtube a politically neutral gateway to Internet content and videos?"

Lets review how extremely politically active Google has become in just the last few months?

I am very excited to be attending, and to be one of the speakers, at the Conservative Leadership Conference on "Conservatives and New Media" in Reno Nevada, October 11-13.

• This will be "the first national conference of its kind in the western United States to fully utilize the power of blogging and the internet to promote a conservative/libertarian, limited-government agenda."

The left is massively more organized and involved in new media than conservatives, so I am thrilled to help the CLC, Chuck Muth et al -- build a formidable conservative counterweight to the liberal-dominated blogosphere and new media.

I heartily encourage like-minded folks to attend, learn, and get better at promoting free-market, limited government principles over the Internet.

• The link to learn more and register is here.

Kudos to Steve Pociask of the American Consumer Institute for another outstanding piece of analysis that debunks the notion that the US wireless market is not competitive and requires net neutrality/open access regulation.

• I urge you to read ACI's "Comparison of structure, conduct and performance: US vs. Europe's wireless markets."

The powerfully straightforward conclusions are:

• The US has more choice and less concentration in wireless than Europe;
• Americans use their wireless almost four times as much as Europe;
• US wireless prices are the lowest in the world save for Hong Kong.

What's wrong with that picture?