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Enough of Net neutrality activists' hypocritical sanctimony over freedom, free speech and democracy! It is sickening.

Net neutrality activists claim to support freedom, free speech, and democracy, but they really don't in practice.

First, let's look at the recent activist whining from FreePress/SaveTheInternet about how the FCC network management forum at Harvard was somehow hijacked by Comcast sympathetic attendees or who these activists have derisively called "seat fillers."

Why the Markey Net Neutrality Bill Would Regulate the Internet

H.R.5353 would alter the FCC’s priorities to put Internet regulation ahead of competition   

Where the Markey Bill explicitly would regulate the Internet: 

The uber-communications-advisor of the left, Reed Hundt, gave an eyebrow-raising exclusive interview with Telephony-Online yesterday where he shared his views "on how to change broadband policy."  

In crusading for an "open Internet" Google is irresponsibly silent on how Google's bias for "open" innovation over user security and privacy makes tens of millions of Americans much more open and vulnerable to hackers seeking to steal their identities or to fraudsters and predators seeking to do them harm.

PC World and AP are reporting on a scary new "open source" hacker tool called Goolag produced by Cult of the Dead Cow, that exploits and leverages Google's search engine platform to make cyber-crime super-efficient.  

There were three proverbial "elephants in the room" that the media and analysts largely missed in discussing Google's stock slide and recent concern over a slow-down in paid clicks. 

Elephant #1 -- Click Fraud: 

I was stunned that no one connected-the-dots with the slow down in paid clicks with Google and Yahoo's "dirty little secret" of addressing raging click fraud. 

One subject I was surprised was not discussed openly at the FCC's Harvard field hearing on: Broadband Network Managment Practices, was the U.S. Government's existing policy of "technology neutrality." (The policy is pasted at the end of this post. It comes from page 5 of the NTIA January 2008 report: Networked Nation: Broadband in America 2007. http://www.ntia.doc.gov/reports/2008/NetworkedNationBroadbandinAmerica2007.pdf)

• Technology neutrality, which is simply the policy of government not discriminating in favor of one technology over another, has been central to the U.S. Government's free market policy towards the Internet for years.
• The FCC implemented technology neutrality policy in applying similar information service deregulatory status to the various broadband techologies: DSL, Cable modem, Wireless Broadband and Broadband over Powerlines -- in four separate (5-0) FCC rulemakings.

Why the consistent legal precedents of technology neutrality are so relevant to the FCC's investigation of the FreePress/Vuze petitions on Comcast's network management, is that big broadband providers like Comcast, AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint (among others) have very different technologies that require very different network management approaches.

(Investors: don't miss the last part of this post.) 

Sources indicate that the EU is poised to approve the pending Google-DoubleClick merger soon in what insiders described as a "close call."

Connected Nation's new report on the economic impact of pending broadband mapping bills shows how public/private partnerships could accelerate broadband deployment to all Americans and provide an estimated $134b direct economic stimulus per year for the nation.

• The pending broadband mapping legislation adopts a bipartisan consensus approach of public/private partnerships to discover where broadband gaps are and how to stimulate actual broadband deployment to those underserved areas.
  • This mainstream approach is focused on a consensus mainstream goal that has bipartisan mainstream support -- encouraging broadband deployment to all Americans.

Contrast this mainstream legislation to promote universal broadband, with the new fringe net neutrality legislation proposed by House Telecom Chairman Ed Markey.

Fox News reported that Google quietly reinstated an Inner City Press news service that specializes in UN corruption news, that Google had previously censored from its search engine and from Google news.

• Per Fox News: "The reaction to the de-listing, however temporary, had been furious. The non-profit Government Accountability Project lambasted the company, calling Inner City Press "the most effective and important media organization for U.N. whistleblowers.""

Important Questions:

I was very surprised at the answer I got when I asked Bob Atkinson, the ITIF author of "Framing a National Broadband Policy" a question at the Alliance for Public Technology panel discussion last Friday on the topic of: "Framing a National Broadband Policy."