Please see my Forbes Tech Capitalist blog "Opposing "The Verge" of Socialism" here, which rebuts Joshua Topolsky's Washington Post column: "Want better wireless service in America? Socialize it."

Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member, it is a real pleasure to be here today, and thank you again for not issuing that formal subpoena you had to threaten in order to compel us to testify.

Let me begin my testimony by taking this opportunity to divert the media’s attention from this hearing by making a series of Google public announcements that our news algorithms predict will bury news of today’s hearing on the second page of most search results.

I am now also a contributor for Forbes writing the Tech Capitalist blog:

• Click here for my first post: Why Motorola's Patent Play Backfires.

Google's purchase of Zagat, a leading restaurant guide and reviewer, opens a search conflict can of worms just as the FTC is in the middle of a broad antitrust investigation of Google, which includes investigating the allegation that Google deceptively favors its own content in its publicly represented unbiased search rankings.

Top ten questions for the FTC to ask Google.

Don't miss a new very funny Google privacy satire by Comediva that AdWeek flagged:

• G-male -- "Google engineers the perfect boyfriend: G-Male he'll anticipate your every desire based on reams of personal data."  (3:13)

This adds to a great lineup of other funny Google Greatest Hits satires that I have assembled on GoogleMonitor.com:

• "Google Roommates" (3:03)
• "The G-Mailman" (2:42)
• "New Google phone service whispers targeted ads directly into users ears." (2:34)
• "Google threatens to kill users" (2:04)
• "Google opt out feature protects privacy by moving to a remote village." (2:08)

Netflix' continues to exhibit serious difficulties grasping basic economics, competition and value.

First, Netflix is lowering its value to customers.

• Netflix now charges its subscribers' 60% more in September in return for lots less premium content available for subscribers in February, as Netflix just lost Starz,its top premium content provider, which supplies 22 of Netflix' top 100 movies.

Second, Netflix is shifting its costs to its customers.

• Netflix used its abrupt and controversial 60% price hike to force many of its core users away from the DVD model that many prefer and have the viewing technology for (but costs Netflix more), to the streaming model, (which Netflix prefers because it costs them less) even if it costs many of their DVD customers to spend lots more to upgrade their viewing technology to view the streamed content in the way they can currently view DVDs.

Third, Netflix is chasing away the premium content its subscribers demand.

The DOJ lawsuit against the AT&T/TMobile merger has many serious flaws that will make it difficult for the DOJ to meet its burden of proof in court that this merger is anti-competitive.

• Court cases are precedent, fact, and merit driven, and DOJ's case is much weaker in those critical dimensions than most appreciate or reports indicate.
• (See DOJ's release here and the DOJ's complaint here.)

Importantly, if the DOJ ultimately cannot prove this merger is anti-competitive in a court of law, that official legal decision would make it legally difficult for the FCC to block the merger on competition grounds under the FCC's public interest standard, especially given that the merger would bring more broadband speed more quickly to more Americans, and create jobs, which the FCC's claims are their top public interest priorities.

• Simply, the precedents, facts, and merits are friends of the proposed AT&T-T-Mobile deal.

I.   Summary of Top Ten Flaws in DOJ's Case

The DOJ's very tough enforcement agreement to not criminally prosecute Google for knowingly promoting illegal prescription drug trafficking for six years has many under-appreciated implications for Google's business and brand going forward.(See the DOJ-Google Agreement here and the DOJ's release here.)

• Simply this is a criminal non-prosecution agreement not resolution of a civil case because:
  • Only the criminal statutes that were violated authorize a $500m forfeiture penalty; and
  • The agreement explicitly empowers the Government to criminally prosecute Google at its sole discretion, if it believes Google has violated the agreement.
• In effect, this is a criminal plea bargain where Google agrees to a huge fine, cooperation with the government's ongoing investigations, and two years of probation in return for no criminal prosecution of Google.
  • Reading between the lines, the Government's undercover "sting operation" must have uncovered exceptionally incriminating and embarrassing evidence that Google did not want exposed in a long public criminal trial.

An easy way for the FCC to show respect for the President's Executive Order to eliminate "outmoded" and "excessively burdensome" regulations would be to grant the NCTA's petition for a declaratory ruling, that Section 652 of the 1996 Telecom Act, (intended to encourage incumbent local telcos and cable companies to compete in telephony and video) was not meant to prohibit pro-competitive mergers between cable companies and new entrant CLECs that didn't exist in 1996 and thus have no market power.

The FCC Sect. 652 status quo is counterproductive in perversely thwarting a central competition policy goal of the 1996 Telecom Act: i.e. promotion of cable-telco competition.

• By creating unnecessary regulatory uncertainty around actual and potential cable-CLEC mergers, at both the FCC and with local franchising authorities, the FCC effectively has created a regulatory barrier to more cable-telco competition.
• We cannot "win the future" with a broadband Internet "excessively burdened" with anachronistic analog anchors like the FCC's current interpretation of Sect. 652.

Specifically, the NCTA's petition exposes a dysfunctional local franchising authority review process that has no standards or time limits, which makes the overall regulatory review process for cable-CLEC mergers uncertain, arbitrary, and "excessively burdensome."

On hiatus for vacation.