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I just got around to watching  House telecom Subcommittee Chariman Ed Markey address the Memphis media reform conference and was struck that he felt the need to go out of his way to defend Google and only Google at this strongly anti-business forum.

• About midway through his speech, Chairman Markey noted that opponents of net neutrality last year asked: "Why should we protect Google?" New House Chairman answered his own question and said "this was the wrong question."

With all due respect Mr. Chairman, "Why should we protect Google?" is precisely the right question.

The hypocrisy of net neutrality supporters appears to have no bounds! The influential left wing MyDD blog of Chris Bowers is unabashedly setting out on a broad Internet to manipulate Google search results with their negative political take on John McCain. I need not say more. Just read the link above or see the excerpt I have posted below.

Today, I am proposing a long-term, anti-McCain googlebomb project similar to the Googlebomb the Elections campaign I founded in 2006. Read the extended entry for details.

The respected National Journal has a very interesting article about YouTube and how it may be choosing sides or is not "neutral." It's an important quick read; kudos to National Journal for focusing on it.

• The article says critics are complaining that "YouTube's censoring process is too opaque and inconsistent."

Why is this noteworthy?

1. Google owns and controls YouTube and is leading the charge for net neutrality to keep the Internet open and free of "Internet gatekeepers." 
2. ComScore just reported that Google's market share of the search business is 47% and rising (and with Yahoo, the "search duopoly" now controls 77% of all searches and rising.) This makes Google an increasingly dominant Internet access technology.

It is the height of hypocrisy that non-neutral Google/Yahoo, with 77% share of the search market and rising, continues to assert that the neutrally-operating phone and cable companies are duopolists that endanger the free and open web.  Google and Yahoo are increasingly dominant search gatekeepers for the Internet. ComScore's latest figures show Google with 47.3%, Yahoo with 28.5%, market share and rising -- and #3 Microsoft 10.5%, and #4 IAC Ask at 5.4% and falling.

Why this is so hypocritical is that:

To commemorate the "Seinfeld-ian" aspect of "net neutrality being a show about nothing," NetCompetition.org has introduced a prominent, "What's the Problem?" daily ticker on the NetCompetition.org site.

• It displays how many days it has been since net neutrality supporters claimed that there was a problem and that there has been no net neutrality mandate.*
• The point is clear: there is no problem here. The Internet isn't broken and it doesn't need fixing.
• There is no consumer harm.
• Prices are falling.
• Consumer choice and speeds are increasing.
• Adoption, investment and deployment are healthy.
• There is an explosion of new products/services and innovation.

It has been 1,516 days or over four years, since the term "net neutrality" was first used publicly and that there has been no net neutrality mandate.

• In other words, for a long time, net neutrality proponents have been running around like "Chicken Little" screaming the "Internet sky is falling, the Internet sky is falling" and they can't point to a problem or provide any substantive evidence of it.
• Let me quote FTC Chairman Deborah Majoras:
• "...thus far proponents of net neutrality have not come to us to explain where the market is failing or what anti-competitive conduct we should challenge; we are open to hearing from them."

*Professor Lawrence Lessig is credited with making up the term "net neutrality". Its a clever, but vacuous term that has caught on.

There are several telling indications that net neutrality remains a political and partisan issue and is not a serious legislative/policy issue or industry problem.

First, the only change in the Senate net neutrality bill just introduced, was to change its name from Snowe-Dorgan to Dorgan-Snowe to reflect the new Democratic changeover of Congress. Other than that, the actual bill language is identical to last year’s bill -- according to Senator Dorgan’s spokesperson and my review of the two bills.

Second, isn’t it very telling that the sponsors have learned nothing, let me repeat nothing, since they introduced their bill eight months ago that might have made their bill better or attracted more consensus?

Listening to Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates, in a podcast interview with Richard Scoble at the CES show, Microsoft clearly is no longer singing from the ItsOurNet hymnal on net neutrality.

• This has to be disconcerting to the ItsOurNet coalition coming on the heels of Microsoft leaving the ItsOurNet coalition during the FCCs’ review of the AT&T-Bell South merger.

When Microsoft withdrew its support and funding from ItsOurNet in the late fall, it indicated that it intended to rejoin ItsOurNet after the merger review was complete.

• Well it’s been 12 days since the FCC approved the merger… and Microsoft has yet to rejoin ItsOurNet…
• It may turn out to be wishful thinking on my part that Microsoft has indeed reconsidered its position on net neutrality.
• (See my open letter to Gates and Ballmer making the case that pursuing NN legislation is not in Microsoft’s best interests. Also see my blog on why Vista has a big net neutrality problem.)

Whether or not Microsoft stays out of ItsOurNet or not, it is clear from this podcast interview that the head of Microsoft does not agree with the standard ItsOurNet line on NN. 

Both Seinfeld and net neutrality are shows about nothing.

No problem.

No harm.

Nothing.

Isn't America great that you can make something out of nothing?

If one only listened to net neutrality proponents, one would conclude that American innovation was at death’s door, because there was no “net neutrality� in law.

• The reality, which is obvious to anyone with functioning eyes or ears at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week, is that innovation in the American market is exceptionally vibrant!
• As a result of the consumer electronics show this week, you can’t go to a web news service or look at any major newspaper or magazine and not see stories on the new innovations leveraging connectivity.
• Innovation and competition are obviously extremely healthy without net neutrality legislation.   

Where is the evidence of the horrible discrimination problem the government must fix immediately? There is none!

Net neutrality proponents are trying to make hay and promote net neutrality by saying that the application of NN to WiMax fixed wireless in one of the FCC's AT&T merger conditions amounts to breaking the wireless barrier.

A little fact check and history lesson is in order to douse this silliness.

Wireless is obviously competitive; everyone who turns on a TV or reads a newspaper and sees the blizzard of ads knows it is very competitive. The lame "duopoly" argument is a joke when applied to wireless, noone will take it seriously.

• It is also important to note that since Congress passed a wireless competition law in 1993, wireless has not been subject to any net-nutrality-like regulation. Let me restate the import of this: the 210 million Americans with cell phones have never had net neutrality and have done just fine. No problem here, just hyper-regulatory over-reaching based on ideology and not facts, logic, good policy or common sense.

Wifi is free and has never been subject to net neutrality. The U.S. has more  WiFi hotspots than any other country. What is the problem here that needs to be fixed?

The FCC condition extending NN to WiMax, a nascent technology with miniscule market share to date, is not a big deal, becuase it is no "principle." AT&T is also forced to divest WiMax spectrum and that WiMax spectrum won't be subject to NN.  Some principle!

The attempt to lasso wireless into NN would be laughable if its dire unintended consequences were not so serious. Has anyone heard the phrase: "if it ain't broke don't fix it?"