Please read my latest Daily Caller Op-ed: "The FCC Transition?" -- here.

The CTIA just released its semi-annual statistics on the wireless industry’s performance, and its bad news for all those supposed data-driven, pro-regulation proponents who are in search of evidence or data to justify regulating wireless or wireless spectrum holdings.

The data are more powerful evidence of a competitive wireless industry. Hopefully, this data will nudge the FCC to begrudgingly conclude that the industry is indeed competitive, despite their blinders to the data.

Briefly, the U.S. wireless industry:

The EU blinked. It's obvious the EU does not want a high-profile political confrontation with Google over a search monopoly abuse enforcement action.

Last May, when the Competition authorities announced they had a preliminary Statement of Objections for four monopoly abuses against Google, the EU competition authority trumpeted their preference for a settlement over enforcement action in this case, i.e. ruling Google a search monopoly guilty of monopoly abuse that warranted a material fine. In extending their public deadlines for Google three times, and then tentatively accepting the immaterial search concessions Google proposed, it is obvious the EU bent over backwards to avoid politically confronting Google. 

Ever wonder why there are so many never ending tech policy and political battles?

Why there are so many recurring:

• Content battles over copyright and anti-piracy enforcement?
• Software battles over open source versus proprietary software and the legitimacy of software patents?

• Broadband battles over net neutrality, data caps, and spectrum allocations?

• General battles over online privacy, surveillance, cybersecurity, and hacking?

Ever wonder why so many of the same people and entities are involved in the same tech policy and political battles over and over again?

The answer is it is an ideological struggle, but not the 20^th century kind with which most people are familiar, for example like progressive vs. conservative, or republican vs. democrat. This is a new and different kind of ideological struggle between realspace and cyberspace that is unique to the 21^st century and to the Internet Age.

Competition is alive and well in the U.S. communications market.

Market forces have produced a barrage of big competitive developments in just a few weeks. Dish’s disruptive $25b bid for Sprint could offer consumers a new choice of a lower-price, faster-speed, all-wireless platform for the first time. Google’s disruptive ongoing expansion of Google Fiber from Kansas City to Austin Texas and Provo Utah signals more and new consumers could increasingly enjoy the choice of a new, much-faster, near-comprehensively-integrated broadband offering. And T-Mobile is disrupting in yet another major way with a new maverick wireless pricing model that offers no contract plans and relatively more a la carte pricing.  

These developments are proof positive why competition is so far superior to regulation. Survival is a powerful motivator to disrupt, differentiate and innovate, just as the opportunity for large profit and market leadership are powerful motivators as well.

While regulators slowly fret over how they can solve yesterday’s problems by fiat or opaque subsidy, competition is automatically devising alternative solutions to today’s problems, and inevitably is working on different solutions to tomorrow’s problems.  

I.    Dish-Sprint

Look at the evidence to judge for yourself if Google bamboozled the EU Competition authorities.

Simply, compare the long list of major EU concessions to Google to the short-list of minor Google concessions to the EU – made in the EU-Google settlement negotiations to resolve the investigated problem of Google’s anti-competitive search bias.

The evidence shows Google dominated these negotiations. Given that most everyone would agree that the sovereign European Union is vastly more powerful than corporate Google, and given that the EU’s competition law and enforcement process is well-known to be very tough, a logical conclusion from the upside-down outcome of these negotiations is that Google successfully bamboozled the EU competition authorities. 

I.    Background

Please see my latest Daily Caller op-ed: "DOJ Joins FCC in Picking Wireless Winners & Losers" -- here.

• It is Part 7 of my Government Spectrum Waste, Fraud & Abuse Research Series. 

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Government Spectrum Waste Fraud and Abuse Research Series

Part 1: U.S. Government's Obsolete and Wasteful Spectrum Hoarding and Rationing

In advance of the Senate Antitrust oversight hearing for the DOJ and FTC Tuesday, please see my Daily Caller op-ed "DOJ & FTC Antitrust Report Cards" -- here -- to learn two of the big oversight questions for the hearing.

This is Part 20 in the Google Unaccountability Research Series.

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Google Unaccountability Research Series:

Part 0: Google's Poor and Defiant Settlement Record

Part 1: Why Google Thinks It Is Above the Law

Part 2: Top Ten Untrue Google Stories

Part 3: Google's Growing Record of Obstruction of Justice

See the abbreviation list below for the translations of the SMS text abbreviations used by EU Competition Chief Joaquin Almunia and Google Chairman Eric Schmidt in negotiating the EU-Google antitrust agreement via texting -- per reporting by the New York Times.

BFFN = Best friend for now

BFLOW = But FTC looked the other way

CIINST = Call it innovation not special treatment

CITY = Can I trust you

EPPAA = EU privacy people are angry

EPPFLYAIT = EU privacy people feel like you are ignoring them

EPPDGTJ = EU privacy people don’t get the joke

EAG = EU admits guilt

GANG = Google admits no guilt

GDFTCST = Google demands FTC special treatment

IHNLMN = I have not lost my nerve

IMFEG = Investigation must fully exonerate Google

More evidence continues to surface that Big Internet companies expect and seek exceptional special treatment from Government that other companies simply do not expect or seek.