Sprint

Will the FCC create an Internet “Do Not Track” list like the FTC created the “Do Not Call” list enjoyed by three quarters of Americans?

In ruling the Internet to be subject to common carrier consumer protection law, the Obama FCC’s recently passed Open Internet Order applied common carrier privacy law (Section 222) to Internet telecommunications as part of the FCC’s unilateral efforts to modernize communications law for the 21^st century.

The Obama FCC’s Open Internet Order also ruled that the Internet now encompasses the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) and that an IP address is the functional equivalent of a telephone number.

Thus, logically it could follow that information that’s considered legally private in the telephone world now could be considered legally private in the Internet world.   

This central consumer protection question should come up this week as the FCC hosts a Section 222 public workshop to explore the FCC’s “role in protecting the privacy of consumers who use” the Internet.

What is Section 222?

It is a common carrier provision of the Communications Act entitled “Privacy of Customer Information.”

The US-EU “competition” of protectionist digital industrial policies -- U.S. Title II net neutrality vs. the EU’s emerging “platform neutrality” plans -- creates an ironic backdrop to negotiations for the US-EU Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) “free” trade agreement. Heightening the irony, the Obama Administration, not the European Commission, has been the protectionist digital industrial policy leader, trailblazing the political path for the EU’s Single Digital Market to follow.  

At least on the digital markets front, TTIP will be much less a commercial “free” trade negotiation and much more a political “fair” trade negotiation.    

The U.S. has long set the tone and trajectory for this digital “fair” trade dynamic in championing net neutrality to protect its Silicon Valley national champions, Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, etc., and by skewing antitrust enforcement to benefit Google and Silicon Valley.

Please don't miss my latest Daily Caller Op-ed: "FCC-villle's Kangaroo Court."

It puts into perspective the extent of the FCC's arbritrariness and capriciousness in its reclassification of the Internet as a Title II telephone monopoly.

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FCC Open Internet Order Series

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

Part 2: Why FCC proposed net neutrality regs unconstitutional, NPR Online Op-ed [9-24-09]

Part 3: Takeaways from FCC's Proposed Open Internet Regs [10-22-09]

Please read my latest Daily Callerop-ed entitled: “Unnecessary Collateral Damage from FCC Title II Internet Regulation.”

It explains why collateral damage will begin to pile up because the FCC’s Title II Internet regulation is so destructive and unnecessary.

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FCC Open Internet Order Series

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

How Consumers, Innovation & Business Will be Collateral Damage of FCC's
Title II Utility Regulation of the Internet -- Why Only Congress Can Resolve Net Neutrality Legitimately

Date: March 26, 2015

Location: House Rayburn Building 2218

Time: 2:00 PM - 3:30 PM

Moderator: Scott Cleland, NetCompetition
Panelists:

I.   Summary

Expect the FCC’s new Open Internet Order’s assertion of Title II authority ultimately to be rejected in court (90%), because of its core illegal confiscatory purpose and its serial ends-justify-the-means trampling of due process. 

The FCC’s Title II legal defense is a “modern” day version of “the Emperor has no clothes” fable, where the vain FCC confidently parades in public clothed in the legal fabric that utopian legal alchemists have convinced the FCC is invisible only to those who are “hopelessly stupid” or “unfit for their positions.” Sadly, this emperor (the FCC) has no clothes (sustainable legal case).

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                           

March 12, 2015    Contact:  Scott Cleland 703-217-2407

History Will Judge the FCC’s Regulation of the Internet as the FCC’s Biggest Mistake Ever

The FCC’s Order is Unlawful, Unconstitutional, Unwarranted, Unnecessary & Unworkable

WASHINGTON D.C. – The following may be attributed to Scott Cleland, Chairman of NetCompetition:

Link to full White Paper -- here.

Summary

The FCC’s Open Internet Order, which reclassified the commercial Internet as a Title II utility, is very likely (80%) in the end, to be overturned in court – for a third time.

The FCC’s legal theory and many core assumptions are so aggressive, it’s clear that the FCC expects, and needs, continual and maximal deference from the court to prevail. The FCC also requires the courts to view the FCC’s most aggressive assertion of unbounded authority ever, as a mere administrative interpretation of ambiguous law, and not a political bypass of Congress and the 1996 Telecom Act.       

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                           

February 26, 2015

Contact:  Scott Cleland 703-217-2407

Strike Three in Court? FCC’s Rube Goldberg Legal Theory is Contrived, Arbitrary & Unbounded

Please don’t miss my latest Daily Caller op-ed – “The FCC’s Predictable Fiasco of Internet Utility Regulation.”

• For the first time, it lays out the top ten predictable messes that the FCC will cause with its abrupt Internet policy U-turn to Title II utility regulation of the Internet.

This Internet policy foundation U-turn predictably will set in motion a chaotic cascade of other supporting policy U-turns over time.

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FCC Open Internet Order Series

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