Sprint

We will learn quickly and unequivocally at the FCC’s August 6th meeting, if the FCC is true to its word -- that there will be no “utility-style rate regulation” of broadband.

While the FCC’s Open Internet Order fact sheet stated: “the Order makes clear that broadband providers shall not be subject to tariffs or other form of rate approval, unbundling, or other forms of utility regulation,” will the FCC majority -- in its first post-Open-Internet-order ruling -- cynically do the exact opposite by imposing de facto “utility-style rate regulation” to the IP transition from copper to fiber networks?

Please don’t miss my latest Daily Caller op-ed: “FCC’s Title II Trifecta Gamble.”

• It explains why the FCC’s Title II trifecta bet politically and legally could not be more risky.

What is the Internet?

Simple question, one would think the FCC could give a simple, straight and accurate answer when talking to their international regulatory counterparts, but they won’t.

That’s because they don’t want them to regulate the Internet like the FCC just has regulated the Internet in its Open Internet Order.

To try and justify regulating just the ISP-telecommunications-side of the Internet, but not regulating the Silicon-Valley-telecommunications-side of the Internet, the FCC’s, diplomatic message is as hypocritical as it is embarrassing: ‘do as we say, not as we do.’ (Translation: Adopt America’s Silicon-Valley-industrial-policy as your country’s policy.)   

The FCC has lost its credibility internationally because to claim that they are not regulating the Internet, the FCC must torture the definition of “the Internet” beyond recognition.

America’s international counterparts get the joke, they weren’t born yesterday.

And the joke is the FCC’s spin.

Please don’t miss my latest Daily Caller op-ed, “FCC Changed “Can-do” Internet into “Can’t-do” Internet.”

• It puts into perspective how the FCC’s assertion of Title II utility regulation of the Internet changes the ethos of America’s Internet.

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FCC Open Internet Order Series

Part 1: The Many Vulnerabilities of an Open Internet [9-24-09]

The FCC’s just operative Open Internet Order, with its classification of broadband as Title II common carriage and vague Internet conduct standard, sets ISPs up for FCC “gotcha” or contrived regulation and enforcement.

FCC Commissioner O’Reilly exposed the FCC’s “gotcha!” game: “I will be vigilant in resisting any attempts by the agency to act as a referee enforcing rules known to none of the players and made up along the way.”

And the FCC’s Enforcement Chief, Travis LeBlanc, tacitly admitted to playing the contrived “gotcha!” game in an article with the National Journal entitled: “The FCC’s $365 Million Man.”

The appellate process will only get tougher for the FCC’s Title II Open Internet Order from here, which means both legal and electoral uncertainty over the permanence of the FCC’s net neutrality authority will only grow as the appellate process plays out and the 2016 Presidential election approaches.

Simply, do the FCC and its congressional supporters essentially cash in and keep their net neutrality gains long term for consumers in bipartisan net neutrality legislation now, or do they double down by waiting and maybe losing it all in either the Supreme Court or the 2016 Presidential election?

From their current position of relative strategic negotiating strength, an operative Open Internet Order empowering the FCC to enforce protection of net neutrality, the FCC and its congressional supporters, need to take stock of their situation and ask themselves if they want to lock-in their bright-line net neutrality protections now and permanently protect consumers against blocking, throttling, and paid prioritization, in bipartisan legislation?

Or do they want to roll both the court and electoral dice that their relative strategic negotiating position will improve from here and risk losing most all their net neutrality gains and authority, in the next 18-24 months to an ultimate court loss in the Supreme Court or to a Republican elected President in 2016, who would likely overturn the Order in 2017?  

Below is my op-ed “Privacy’s Big Three” on the FCC’s pending interpretation of its newly asserted Title II section 222 privacy authority. It is a side-bar in this week’s Multichannel News cover story “Who’s Watching Whom?” Click here for the full Multichannel article.

This succinct op-ed spotlights the three biggest privacy questions the FCC must grapple with here:

1. Any privacy protection predictability?
2. Any competitive privacy policy parity?
3. An FCC Do Not Track List?    

Privacy’s Big Three

The FCC’s latest legal brief opposing a stay of its Open Internet Order, hurt its legal case more than it helped.

The FCC brief unwittingly: exposed a glaring internal inconsistency with the FCC’s Open Internet Order; spotlighted its arbitrary and capricious decision-making; and exposed a big mistake in its legal strategy.    

If the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals panel rules on the legal merits of the industry’s petition, it remains very likely they will grant a partial stay of the Title II reclassification part of the FCC’s Open Internet Order.

Based on the latest best arguments this week from both the FCC and broadband petitioners, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals is very likely to partially stay the FCC Open Internet Order’s reclassification of broadband as a Title II service and imposition of a new Internet conduct standard -- in the coming weeks.

In the coming weeks, expect the D.C. Court of Appeals or the Supreme Court to grant a partial stay, of only the FCC’s Title II reclassification of broadband and its new “Internet conduct standard” (not the FCC’s net neutrality prohibitions of blocking, throttling or paid prioritization), even though stay requests normally have a low probability of success, because petitioners must convince the court that they are likely to win on the merits and that the opposed action will cause irreparable harm.