Summary

A shocking new legal fact set recently came together in public as a result of a Gmail wiretapping case, Fread v. Google. Revelations of Google’s secret widespread wiretapping of hundreds of millions of people over the last three years, using a NSA-PRISM-like device called “Content One Box” could have Snowden-esque repercussions. 

The New Legal Fact Set:

Thinking and Starting Anew:

Modernizing Communications Law for American Consumers

Join NetCompetition and an esteemed panel to discuss how Congress can best make consumers, not technology, the organizing principle of a 21^st century Communications Act framework that serves and protects consumers while fostering dynamic innovation, competition, and growth in an evolving marketplace:

Where: 121 Cannon House Office Building, Washington DC 20515

When: Friday, April 4, 2014

Time: 12:00 PM – 1:30 PM

Presenter and Moderator: Scott Cleland, NetCompetition

Panelists:

Please don’t miss my latest Daily Caller op-ed: “Accelerating the De-Americanization of the Internet.”

It explains the broad implications for the Internet of:

• America handing over the master key of the Internet to ICANN; and
• the European Parliament updating privacy law for the first time since 1995 nearly unanimously. 

This is Part 5 of my “World Changing the Internet” research series.

World Changing the Internet.

Part 1: Seven Ways the World is Changing the Internet [1-11-12]

With due credit to "Ripley's Believe it or Not!^®," so much odd and bizarre is happening in Washington in the "name" of "U.S. wireless competition criticism” that the topic calls for its own collection of: "Believe it or Not!^®" oddities.

Softbank’s CEO Masayoshi Son, who bought Sprint for $21b in 2013 with public plans “to become the #1 company in the world,” tells U.S. regulators just eight months after he bought Sprint, that Softbank-Sprint cannot compete with either of America’s #1 and #2 wireless providers, Verizon and AT&T, unless Softbank can buy America’s #4 wireless provider -- T-Mobile! 

As the dust has settled from the D.C. Circuit’s January 14^thdecision to vacate and remand the FCC Open Internet Order for another try, and from FCC Chairman Wheeler’s February 19^thstatement accepting the court’s invitation to propose open Internet rules that could pass court muster, what does it all this mean going forward?

First, we need to glean the key separate baseline takeaways from what the court ruled and also what Chairman Wheeler initially decided. Then we need to put them together to glean what the big going-forward takeaways are.

Court Decision Takeaways

To: All State Legislators, State Attorneys General, and State/Local Police Chiefs

In Reuter’s article, “Google Sets Roadblocks to Stop Distracted Driver Legislation,” we learn “Google is lobbying officials in at least three U.S. States to stop proposed restrictions on driving with headsets such as Google Glass.”

As your States carefully consider the potential safety repercussions of a rapidly increasing number of drivers using Google Glass on your State’s roads in the years ahead, it is in the public interest to be keenly aware of two important facts.

1. Google Glass is very distracting.
2. Google often shows a reckless disregard for people’s safety.  

 Why Google Glass is the Epitome of Distracted Driving

How come the company whose success depends entirely on the public being open, transparent and trusting towards Google, is so closed, secretive and distrusting toward the public?

How come the company with a mission to make the world’s information universally accessible, goes to such extraordinary lengths to cover up evidence in legal documents in public proceedings?

European media could learn an important lesson from their American media brethren about confronting Google’s extensive cover up of the evidence of their wrongdoing in legal proceedings.

In Europe, there was surprisingly little media pushback initially when Google and EC Vice President Joaquin Almunia first proclaimed a secret settlement of charges of Google’s abuse of its search dominance.

Please see my latest Daily Caller op-ed: “The Narrowing Net Neutrality Dispute.”

• It puts the recent positive Netflix-Comcast IP interconnection agreement into the broader net neutrality context.

It is Part 24 of my Broadband Internet Pricing Freedom Series.  

***

Broadband Internet Pricing Freedom Series

Part 1: Netflix' Glass House Temper Tantrum Over Broadband Usage Fees [7-26-11]

Part 2: Netflix' Uneconomics [9-6-11]

Anyone interested in some perspective on the over-the-top criticisms of the pending Comcast-Time Warner Cable merger, please read my latest Daily Caller op-ed: “Comcast’s Merger in Perspective.”  

Anyone interested in broadband policy should not miss the excellent new research of Roslyn Layton, an AEI Internet economist, who has studied European broadband progress as compared to America’s.

Let me flag two big research takeaways that should not be missed.

• “… per capita [broadband] investment in the U.S. is twice that of Europe, and the gap is growing.”
• “Then there is the claim that Americans pay more for broadband than Europeans. As I point out in my report, critics forget to include the impact of value added taxes (as high as 27% in some countries) and compulsory media license fees (adding hundreds of dollars per year to the cost of every broadband subscription). When accounting for these real differences, Americans pay less for broadband.”

These findings affirm the wisdom of America’s market-led broadband policy that encourages facilities-based broadband competition over the EU’s lagging, common carrier, monopoly-unbundling, approach to broadband.