I strongly recommend Barbara Esbin's excellent PFF white paper that systematically debunks many of the core assertions of net neutrality proponents. 

Barbara's clarity of thought, and her reasonable and well documented analysis proves that so many assertions of supposed "fact" made by net neutrality proponents simply can not withstand close scrutiny.

Google again has blocked search advertising that promotes political views that Google does not share.

• On the morning of the FCC's net neutrality vote last week, Bret Glass of ExtremeTech.com tried to advertise his white paper, that advocated a light regulatory touch, on Google Adwords only to find that Google blocked his ad as not meeting their "guidelines." (See Mr. Glass' full recounting of this non-neutral content blocking incident at the end of this post.) 
  • This is not the first time Google has blocked content that did not comport with Google's political/policy agenda. For example, Google blocked anti-Moveon.org ads proposed by a U.S. Senator's campaign.

The "relevance" of this evidence of net neutrality violations by Google, to the FCC's just-proposed net neutrality regulations, is that the FCC's clearly stated purposes are: to prevent companies with market power from infringing on free speech and to ensure that those with market power are transparent about their market practices that affect the free flow of information. 

My NPR Online op-ed: "Net Neutrality Regulations Compromise Freedoms" makes the case why the FCC Chairman's proposed net neutrality regulations are likely unconstitutional in multiple dimensions. 

If you like the op-ed please click on the "Recommend" check button above the title or at the end of the piece, that is in the link below, because that will keep the op-ed posted longer than otherwise.

• http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113297709

My proposed title, which was supplanted for space concerns, was: "Taking Freedom From Some Takes Freedom From All."

• Below is the text of my NPR Online op-ed.

"Net Neutrality Regulations Compromise Freedoms

September 29, 2009

A tip of the hat to Andrew Orlowski of the Register for connecting some important dots others did not in his piece "Google cranks up the consensus machine."

• Andrew noted the exceptionally important precursor that Google's Marissa Meyer indicated in a Techcrunch interview that, going forward, Google would cross it's neutral search line and begin editing search results produced by its currently human-intervention-free algorithm.

This is a big deal because Google has long preached that much of the value and relevance of Google's searches is that the search algorithm is fully automated and thus objective and not biased by human input.

Andrew is wise to ask what standards Google will employ in deciding which search results to effectively censor and which search results to vault to the top of the first page? And will they share them with us or will they be opaque like the advertising Quality variable? 

• It is important to know what the standards will be because this is a very slippery slope with far reaching implications.

It will also be interesting to see if the guardians of free speech on the Internet also connect the dots that the heretofore "neutral" barrier is being breached for the Internet's dominant gateway to the world's information.

Lots to think about -- if this is indeed a paradigm shift for the Web 2.0 movement.

Kudos to Adam Thierer of PFF for his outstanding post which brilliantly deconstructs the fatal flaws in SavetheInternet's (and others) characterization of Net Neutrality as the "First Amendment of the Internet" to protect freedom of speech. 

The whole post is an excellent and illuminating read; I strongly recommend it. Here's the gist of why I liked it so much:

• "Indeed, when Net neutrality supporters like the “Save the Internet Coalition” make statements like “Network neutrality is the Internet’s First Amendment,” I sometimes wonder if they are reading the same Constitution that I am. After all, the language of the First Amendment could not be more clear when it says, “Congress shall make no law…” It doesn’t contain any caveats or footnotes. And the First Amendment most certainly was not intended as a tool for government to control the editorial discretion of private individuals or institutions. It was about restricting the power of the government to curtail speech and expression."

Adam does a great job of showing how this argument in favor of net neutrality runs counter to any plain reading of the U.S. Constitution.

FCC Commissioner McDowell recently warned bloggers at the Heritage Foundation to look out for the Net neutrality issue to become intertwined with a possible push for the return of the Fairness Doctrine. He's right to lay down that marker.  

• See a great piece by Jeff Poor of the Business and Media Institute on the subject: "FCC Commissioner: Return of Fairness Doctrine could control web content."

The Fairness Doctrine was an FCC regulation that required broadcasters to "fairly" present both sides of controversial topics -- or be subject to FCC investigations and fines.

I couldn't help to notice yesterday that Google CEO Schmidt didn't take any questions from reporters who were in attendance or meet with the reporter pool afterwards, which is customary for speaking venues like Dr. Schmidt's speech Monday at the Economic Club of Washington.

What's Google got to hide in Washington?

• Could it be that Google does not think that questions of a leading corporate CEO, who is now Chairman of the New America Foundation think tank concerning: antitrust, privacy, consumer protection, good government, transparency, openness, tax, net neutrality, and broadband Universal Service -- are not considered legitimate questions or fair game in Washington?
  • Obviously I thought there were some legitimate questions that should be asked of Dr. Schmidt as I posted on Friday: "Relevant Washington questions to ask Google CEO Schmidt at his speech Monday in Washington." 
• Do public questions of public leaders seeking ambitious changes in public policy and public discourse, not warrant an open forum for questions from a free press in a democracy?

Bottom line: It appears the only kind of "free press" that Google embraces is its advocacy group ally that calls itself FreePress, which is the operation which de facto runs point for Google's net neutrality public policy agenda in Washington.

For those who like the written format, here is the link to the transcript of Chip Griffin's interview of me on all things Google.

• The transcript is just below the podcast button to hear the interview.

This interview turned out to be one of the most comprehensive and in-depth discussions I have had on all things Google -- that's been captured for web listening or reading.

We discussed:

Here is the link to Chip Griffin's 28 minute interview of me on "Conversations with Chip Griffin," an in-depth conversation about many of the reasons why I believe Google is becoming such a big problem and why I personally spend so much time focused on Google.

I believe you will find it an informative, interesting, and entertaining interview covering all things Google, the online economy, net neutrality etc.

• Enjoy!  

A Bloomberg article highlights yet another Google double standard.

• A Bloomberg article by Janine Zacharia reports on how Google takes down content that is found objectionable by individual countries in: "Google Diplomats Bend Free Expression to Preserve Global Power."

The Google double standard is that Google takes down content objectional to other countries but refuses to largely comply with the legitimate bipartisan request of the Senate Homeland Security Committee to take down terrorist branded content designed to incite violence against Americans and others around the world. 

• While Google says it respects local laws and requirements, it clearly is not respecting the "local officials" that determine what the what free speech is in the U.S. -- because the U.S. Supreme Court does not recognize freedom of speech if it incites harm against people -- which is what terrorist content is all about.  

  I was also intrigued with the sweeping implications of the quote at the end of the Bloomberg article: