About Scott Cleland
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You are hereInnovationFCC Out-Europes Europe on Net Neutrality -- Why?Submitted by Scott Cleland on Tue, 2011-03-01 14:52"The Net Neutrality Debate in Europe is Over" per an excellent commentary by Ben Rooney in WSJ TechEurope.
For those who follow history, it is truly ironic, surprising, and just plain bizarre that Europe is more pro-competition on Internet policy than the U.S. FCC. How can this be? To understand this wierdness, look at this remarkable development through the lens of industrial policy. I posit the reason for this European policy outcome is the fact that Europe does not have a Silicon Valley lobby -- with an aggressive corporate welfare agenda seeking government special treatment, regulation of their competitors, and implicit bandwidth subsidies -- like the U.S. does. The stark and ironic contrast between the FCC's European-style, interventionist, regulatory approach, and Europe's more American, non-interventionist, competitive approach can only be explained by the presence of the potent lobbying force of U.S. industrial policy national champions (Silicon Valley -- Google, eBay, Amazon, IAC) in the U.S. -- and the absence of European national champions seeking net neutrality in Europe. Privacy Will Burst Bubble 2.0Submitted by Scott Cleland on Fri, 2011-02-25 12:31Expect privacy concerns to be the eventual catalyst that ultimately bursts the Internet investment Bubble 2.0. It is rare when there is a profound disconnect and suspension of reality between industry behavior/investment expectations and customer wants, needs and expectations, but that is precisely what is at work in Bubble 2.0.
This is deja vu for me. I've seen this movie before when I had a front row seat as the original dotcom Bubble 1.0 wiped away $4 trillion in market valuation in a few weeks. Preview Google's Apology for Collecting Kids SS#sSubmitted by Scott Cleland on Wed, 2011-02-23 11:32See a preview below of Google's likely official public apology for collecting kids' partial Social Security #s and other private information -- without the permission of their parents. "We are deeply sorry, very very sorry, and even oh-so-sorry for collecting partial social security numbers, date and place of birth on kindergartners and grade schoolers participating in the Doodle-4-Google contest. Calling Google's ITA BluffSubmitted by Scott Cleland on Tue, 2011-02-22 11:28The DOJ should call Google's bluff that it would fight the DOJ in court if the DOJ tries to block Google-ITA, because Google will fold precisely because Google has so much to lose from going to war with the U.S. Justice Department over a $700m deal.
While Google blusters they have a strong case in court on Google-ITA, the last thing Google should want is for all their political and PR antitrust defenses to be subject to vivisection, sandblasting, and ridicule in public court for everyone to see.
Mobile Content: Google's Commons vs. Apple's MarketSubmitted by Scott Cleland on Thu, 2011-02-17 11:08Mobile content producers do not have a truly competitive choice between Google's 10% fee One Pass service and Apple's 30% fee subscription service, as much as they have a value system choice between Google's Internet commons model and Apple's property-rights-driven market.
As much as Google tries to fool Little Red Riding Hood content owners that their Grandma always had such big eyes and big teeth, most mobile content providers will spot the Google commons wolf in disguise.
Two Fatal Flaws in Google's Antitrust Defense -- Part VII Google Pinocchio SeriesSubmitted by Scott Cleland on Mon, 2011-02-14 12:00Google search executive Amit Singhal exposed two fatal flaws in Google's antitrust defense in an excellent and revealing interview with James Temple of the San Francisco Chronicle. The core of Google's antitrust defense (overall, in Google-ITA, and in the Google Book Settlement) are two foundational claims:
I. Does Google only work for user interests? Beneath Google's saccharine claim that they only have users interests at heart, is a deep cynicism that everyone is stupid, especially antitrust authorities. Does Google think antitrust authorities are so stupid that:
Will the FCC Lose the Future?Submitted by Scott Cleland on Thu, 2011-02-10 11:41Do the actions of the FCC match the FCC's words of support for the President's commitment to the "least burdensome tools to achieve regulatory ends?"
There are three disturbing trends at the FCC: preservationism, pessimism and silo-ism -- that all strongly indicate that the FCC's trajectory is more geared toward losing the future than winning the future. I. FCC Preservationism (Shackling the future with the mindset, approaches and legacy networks/regulations of the past.) Most of the last year the FCC has been obsessed with FCC historical preservation, i.e. strongly considering restoring the FCC to its past glory days with new Title II common carrier regulation of the Internet, but then settling on a 1934 era interpretation of the FCC's Title I authority at its most boundless.
Skyhook Wireless is Google's Netscape -- Googleopoly VII: Monopolizing Location ServicesSubmitted by Scott Cleland on Sun, 2011-01-30 17:57Skyhook Wireless' anticompetitive complaints are to Google's antitrust problems what Netscape's complaints were to DOJ's anti-monopolization case against Microsoft -- i.e. the most blatant, understandable, and strategically-important example of abusing monopoly power to monopolize a linchpin technology in order to extend the monopoly into other strategic markets.
I. Why is Skyhook-Google analogous to Netscape-Microsoft ? Of all the many claims of anti-competitive behavior against Google that I have reviewed over the last four years, I believe the Skyhook complaints are the charges that Google should be most worried about and that the DOJ/EU should be most interested in. FCC's Net Regs in Conflict with President's PledgesSubmitted by Scott Cleland on Wed, 2011-01-26 10:47The FCC's Open Internet order should be ripe for review and "fixing" given President Obama's pledge in his SOTU speech last night:
Clearly the FCC's preemptive bans, restrictions and economic/price regulation of competitive broadband providers based on scant and weak evidence of any real problem to solve, obviously place "an unnecessary burden on business" and the Administration should "fix them." As I explained in my previous detailed post: "Why FCC's Net Regs Need Administration/Congressional Regulatory Review," the FCC's Open Internet order violates the President's pledge for regulations to: Larry Page's Biggest Challenges as Google CEOSubmitted by Scott Cleland on Sun, 2011-01-23 17:07Larry Page is very different from Eric Schmidt, consequently he will be a completely different Google CEO.
The biggest difference people will notice will be external relations. First, Schmidt and Page are polar opposites when it comes to external relations. Pages |