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Submitted by Scott Cleland on Tue, 2007-06-05 19:26
Yet another state legislature has rejected passing a law mandating net neutrality -- this time in Maine, the home state of Senator Olympia Snowe, one of net neutrality's primary sponsors and highest profile proponents in the US Senate.
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Moveon.org/SaveTheInternet are now 0-3 in their hand-picked states where they thought they had the best chance of passing a version of the Senate Snowe-Dorgan bill or the House Markey bill from last year -- and where they focused their efforts.
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Previously, Moveon.org?SaveTheInternet failed to pass net neutrality legislation in Michigan, and Maryland.
To let the net neutrality proponents save face, the Maine Senate passed a resolution, not legislation, that asks for a study on net neutrality to be completed next year.
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This is the same outcome as has occurred at the Federal level as both the FTC and FCC are studying net neutrality and seeking comments.
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Moreover, the Maine resolution also recognizes that net neutrality is a federal issue and that Maine does not have jurisdiction over the net neutrality issue.
I fully expect that Moveon.org and SaveTheInterent will continue to waste valuable state legislative time and resources on a problem they cannot even define or prove exists.
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Mon, 2007-06-04 19:09
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Sun, 2007-06-03 22:55
For anyone watching Google closely, they are cleverly locking up all the leading segments of the Internet which control the monetization access points to Internet content.
- Per MediaWeek, June 1st Google bought Feedburner, the largest feed and blog advertising network, which also happens to have the best quality and quantity of major content providers who subscribe to blog feeds.
- It's a shrewd and brilliant move, if the antitrust authorities allow it.
- This comes on the heels of its April proposed merger with DoubleClick, the largest adserving company on the Internet, which is estimated to serve 80-85% of Internet users with display ads per EPIC.
- That came on the heels of the closing of Google's YouTube acquisition, which makes Google the owner of the largest user-created video content network and one of the most popular destinations on the web.
Anyone else see a pattern here?
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Fri, 2007-06-01 14:02
The New York Times article today by Miguel Helft, "Google photos stir a debate over privacy" provides a great public service in highlighting yet another example of Google's cavalier approach to guarding peoples' privacy.
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This section of the NYT article captures the creepiness of Google's new "Street View "photo service" and what it says about Google's storied culture of "innovation without permission" (or supervision):
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“The issue that I have ultimately is about where you draw the line between taking public photos and zooming in on people’s lives,� Ms. Kalin-Casey said in an interview Thursday on the front steps of the building. “The next step might be seeing books on my shelf. If the government was doing this, people would be outraged.�
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Thu, 2007-05-31 18:51
Reed Hundt is up to his old "managed-competition" tricks again.
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It is highly relevant that Frontline is financially backed by big Google investor/Board members; their involvement was probably orchestrated by Google Senior advisor Al Gore, Hundt's political benefactor in the Clinton-Gore Administration.
- True to form in this new venture, Mr. Hundt has never met a marketplace that he didn't think he could personally "manage" better than the free market can.
The FCC should be very very careful in following this policy charmer's latest government intervention advice on the 700 MHz auction, because he has been personally responsible for most all of the largest wild goose chases that the FCC has been involved in over the last few decades.
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Thu, 2007-05-31 11:59
Bloomberg reports that Democratic Presidential candidate John Edwards "backs Google's push for wholesale leasing of airwaves."
Let's cut to the chase here.
Google has proposed a self-serving idea for real-time auctions of spectrum that might be able work in five to ten years time, but is not at all relevant to, or practical for, the auction scheduled for next winter.
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Google's idea is really a clever diversion and stalking horse for wireless net neutrality -- a sweet-sounding name for government-subsidized free spectrum or "corporate welfare for dotcom billionaires."
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More importantly, Google's proposal would effectively undermine the FCC's ability to raise the maximum amount in the upcoming 700 MHz auction for American taxpayers.
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Presidential candidate Edwards appears more interested in pandering to powerful Democratic special interests and fundraisers that can contribute to his lagging campaign, than being a good steward of taxpayer money.
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And who might those special interests be that Mr. Edwards is pandering to?
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Google, whose employees in the last election cycle contributed 98% to Democratic candidates;
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Al Gore, Google's senior Advisor, (who is now seriously rich, but quietly so, from his Google options) and who is ringleader of "Google's Poodles" Google's very own astroturf group the "Open Internet Coalition." and
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Former Clinton-Gore FCC Chairman, Reed Hundt, Chairman of Frontline spectrum company, funded in part by Google-related money, which is seeking to rig the upcoming FCC spectrum auction for their own commercial benefit under the guise of an "open Internet."
Don't be fooled by the clever diversions surrounding the FCC's upcoming 700 MHz auction.
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Thu, 2007-05-31 10:02
Republican Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee was reported on a blog to have "supported" net neutrality in a conference call with bloggers.
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Don't believe this is his "official" policy position for a minute.
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When conservative Mike Huckabee learns both sides of this issue and is not blindsided on a conference call on a subject he was unfamiliar with, and which was then grossly mispresented, I am convinced he will not "support" net neutrality.
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No legitimate economic conservative like Mike Huckabee, who wants to radically downsize the Federal Government, will support a Big Government program to regulate the Internet for the first time.
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He clearly was not at all familiar with the issue nor that nearly all the biggest funding supporters of net neutrality are liberal groups like Moveon.org who believe in digital socialism and radically reducing intellectual property rights on the web.
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When Mike Huckabee's campaign staff research this issue, (we recommend they read the one pagers at the top right hand side of the www.NetCompetition.org website) there is no way he will support net neutrality as part of his official campaign.
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It would be totally inconguous with his other limited Government views.
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The last thing conservative Mr. Huckabee would want is to put the current "free and open" Internet under Government control.
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Not gonna happen.
This is another in a long line of supposed "endorsements" of net neutrality that result from NN proponents consistent misrepresentation of the facts and gross use of unsubstantiated allegations of a problem.
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Wed, 2007-05-30 19:09
Ad Age reports that the two largest Advertising Associations have asked antitrust officials to look into the spate of major advertising acquisitions; Google-DoubleClick, Microsoft aQuantive, Yahoo-Right Media, and WPP-24/7 Real Media.
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The thrust of the letter:
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"During the past month, there have been several major acquisition announcements in the online advertising marketplace... These mergers, if approved, certainly would change the online advertising marketplace. As such, those proposed combinations deserve careful scrutiny. It is essential to ensure that none of these combinations restrict competition in the Internet advertising marketplace."
Why is this significant?
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First, the advertising community does not like to make waves or speak ill of any potential client -- in any way in public -- it goes against their normal business practice.
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Second, I think they are genuine in their shock and bewilderment that their entire industry has been transformed before their eyes in a matter of weeks.
It is my view that there is a whole lot more going on here than meets the eye.
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Tue, 2007-05-29 13:27
Google's dominance of the search industry continues....
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Can you say:
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Can you say:
Percentage of US Searches Among Leading Search Engine Providers
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Submitted by Scott Cleland on Tue, 2007-05-29 13:16
The San Diego Union-Tribune "gets it" -- in its editorial on Google:
A couple of my favorite parts of this dead on editorial:
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"Google's emergence as one of the scariest companies on the planet continues with a story in the Financial Times describing the Silicon Valley firm's goal of maximizing and cataloging personal information gleaned from every user's use of its vastly popular search engine."
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"... but should mortify Google's users – because the company has never come close to adequately acknowledging the vast privacy concerns raised by its already massive database."
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"... The potential for government snooping, harassment, financial manipulation, blackmail and all sorts of online crime is stunning."
Add to the list of scary things Google is working on is a "truth meter" where Google CEO Eric Schmidt posited in FT just before the last US congressional election, that in the future Google could help voters gauge in real time whether a politician was telling the "truth" or not.
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