DOJ

Please don’t miss my new Daily Caller op-ed: “Online Video Competition’s Tipping Point Has Tipped.”

It pulls together how regulatory developments, much faster wireless networks, and several new entrants with deep pockets are converging to create a tipping point for over-the-top, online video competition.

It is Part 25 of my Broadband Internet Pricing Freedom series. 

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Broadband Internet Pricing Freedom Series

Part 1: Netflix' Glass House Temper Tantrum Over Broadband Usage Fees [7-26-11]

Dear European Commission Official,

The more the European Commission learns about the proposed EC-Google competition settlement, the less sense it makes, and the more scandalous it appears.  

Never has the European Commission been presented with such a controversial, perverse, and unreasonable competition settlement to approve. This is not how the EC’s law enforcement process is supposed to work.

Everyone knows that a worthy settlement is a true compromise, where most parties gain something they need, and on balance support it as a reasonable net gain from the status quo. It is telling that virtually no one but Google is supporting this settlement outcome publicly or coming to Google’s defense. That fact should scream that this proposed settlement is not what it is represented to be.  

Sadly, this particular process and settlement has devolved into an indefensible and perverse spectacle that has brought unwelcome attention and ridicule to a critical EC law enforcement process that must be beyond reproach.

The reason the European Commission has yet to disapprove a DGComp proposed settlement, is that the European Commission has never been presented with a toxic settlement that is so perversely: anti-consumer; un-European; worse than the status quo; pro-dominance; tolerant of dominance abuses; and ineffective in achieving its main priority – “quick resolution.”

Billionaire Netflix CEO Reed Hastings objects to Netflix having to pay anything at all for Netflix’ gorging on 30% of the Internet’s North American bandwidth. In a Netflix corporate blogpost billionaire Reed Hastings rails against the perceived injustice of Netflix paying Internet usage-based pricing like consumers do.

At core, Mr. Hastings now derides traditional consumer-defined net neutrality, which ensures consumers the freedom to access the legal content of their choice – as “weak” net neutrality.

Meanwhile, he is attempting to rebrand his new self-serving, corporate-defined net neutrality, which ensures the largest corporate users of the Internet pay nothing for their largest usage of interconnection bandwidth -- as “strong” net neutrality.

Mr. Hastings’ position clearly prioritizes corporate welfare above consumer welfare.

Summary

A shocking new legal fact set recently came together in public as a result of a Gmail wiretapping case, Fread v. Google. Revelations of Google’s secret widespread wiretapping of hundreds of millions of people over the last three years, using a NSA-PRISM-like device called “Content One Box” could have Snowden-esque repercussions. 

The New Legal Fact Set:

With due credit to "Ripley's Believe it or Not!^®," so much odd and bizarre is happening in Washington in the "name" of "U.S. wireless competition criticism” that the topic calls for its own collection of: "Believe it or Not!^®" oddities.

Softbank’s CEO Masayoshi Son, who bought Sprint for $21b in 2013 with public plans “to become the #1 company in the world,” tells U.S. regulators just eight months after he bought Sprint, that Softbank-Sprint cannot compete with either of America’s #1 and #2 wireless providers, Verizon and AT&T, unless Softbank can buy America’s #4 wireless provider -- T-Mobile! 

Anyone interested in some perspective on the over-the-top criticisms of the pending Comcast-Time Warner Cable merger, please read my latest Daily Caller op-ed: “Comcast’s Merger in Perspective.”  

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

February 13, 2014

Contact:  Scott Cleland 703-217-2407

The Comcast-Time Warner Cable Merger is Pro-competitive,

The Communications Marketplace Has Never Been More Competitive,

And American Consumers Have Never Had More Communications Choices

Mobile & Cloud Competition & Innovation are Dynamically Changing Communications 

WASHINGTON D.C. – The following quotes on the announcement of the Comcast-Time-Warner Cable merger may be attributed to Scott Cleland, Chairman of NetCompetition:

• “Not only is the Comcast-Time Warner Cable merger pro-competitive, via the improvement of services and innovation for millions of Americans and many thousands of businesses, this merger also is occurring in the most competitive communications marketplace with the most consumer choices ever. It should be approved”

The new term “Google Ethics Board” is an oxymoron, given Google’s unethics record. It is also a warning not to be ignored.

There’s a deep need for true ethics at Google now that Google has acquired DeepMind and its broadly-applicable, ethics-pushing, deep-learning technology. That DeepMind pushed for an ethics board, should trigger alarm bells. Pay attention. If past is prologue; Google will end up badly abusing this very powerful technology.

I.   Important Perspective

Google CEO Larry Page’s acquisitive growth strategy has a central theme of automating much of the economy: self-driving cars, home automation, energy monitoring, health care, online surveillance, military contracting, travel, shopping, payments, mobile, TV, etc.

Please read my latest Daily Caller op-ed: “The European Commission’s Google Antitrust Problems are not Going Away” – here.

• It is Part 30 of my Google Unaccountability research series.

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Google Unaccountability Series

Part 0: Google's Poor & Defiant Settlement Record [5-1-12]

Some wireless competitors and the DOJ/OSTP are urging the FCC to effectively change their spectrum aggregation rules to treat low-band spectrum-technology <1 GHz competitively different than high-band spectrum-technology >1 GHz.

If the FCC complies, it effectively would subdivide the current spectrum marketplace into two technology markets: <1GHz and >1GHz, for the first time in twenty years of spectrum auction history. It also would set the precedent for the FCC to arbitrarily subdivide the spectrum market further in future auctions based on the FCC’s latest technology-mix prognostications at that time.

Big picture, it would represent a regression back towards the 1980s pre-auction period when the FCC, not competitive market auctions, decided which company got what spectrum, and how certain spectrum was allocated.