Google

The Net Neutrality movement has lost its way. It’s now perversely focused on advancing Internet companies’ economic interests at the expense of Internet user interests.

The Net neutrality movement’s main priority used to be about ensuring that Internet users have the freedom to access the legal content of their choice.

Now they have become singularly-focused on securing permanent economic subsidies for edge companies by demanding the FCC set a zero-price for all downstream Internet traffic via reclassifying broadband as a Title II common carrier service.

Essentially, what their latest net neutrality scheme would mean is that Internet users would be forced to shoulder the entire cost burden of maintaining and upgrading America’s expensive Internet infrastructure without a fair-share contribution from the top Internet companies for the infrastructure costs they cause as a result of their dominant consumption of the nation’s daily downstream bandwidth.  

Simply, net neutrality has transmogrified from preserving users’ Internet freedoms to forcing all Internet users to fully subsidize all Internet companies’ bandwidth usage bill no matter if they use a particular edge companies’ services or not.

Dear European Commission Official,

Would Interpol, or any EU prosecutor, ever recommend pursuing a lenient settlement with their overall #1 worst offender -- without extracting any punishment, restitution, admission of wrongdoing, or deterrent effect -- rather than prosecuting the worst offender to the full extent of the law?

Would any other prosecutor publicly threaten swift prosecution against a high-profile defendant repeatedly and then give the defendant three chances to settle over a period of several months when the defendant’s first two proposed remedies proved to be demonstrablydeceptive in market tests?  

Of course not! That would be antithetical to the fair, honest, and effective administration of justice.

Then why, after its own investigation found Google to be dominant, and to have abused its dominance in four distinct ways, is DGComp strongly advocating that Google be protected from prosecution for clear violations of EU competition law?

The Internet has long had multiple speeds. And it constantly gets faster speeds via technological and commercial innovation, competition, and investment.

The Internet also has long met people’s diverse needs, wants and means for speed, with different technologies, pricing, and content delivery methods, and it will continue to do so.

Net neutrality activists’ latest rhetoric that opposes the FCC’s court-required update of its Open Internet rules, by implying that there haven’t been “slow and fast lanes” on the Internet before, is obviously factually wrong and misleading, both for consumers receiving content and for entities sending content.

Many in the media have fallen for this mass “fast lane” deception without thinking or questioning it.

First, isn’t it odd that those who routinely complain that the Internet is not fast enough oppose genuine FCC efforts to make the Internet faster?

Moreover, isn’t it ironic that the net neutrality activists -- who have long criticized the FCC for the U.S. falling behind in the world in broadband speeds, and long advocated for municipalities to create giga-bit fast lanes for some communities -- vehemently oppose FCC efforts to create “faster lane” Internet for those entities that need it and are willing to pay for it?

Is Google saying one thing and doing another – yet again?

Given how many times we know Google has misled everyone about the implications of its activities, we should be highly-skeptical of Google’s public claims about what it will do with its nascent Titan drone surveillance capability.  

This week Google said it bought Titan Aerospace, which makes solar-powered, high-flying drones, ostensibly because they “could help bring Internet access to millions of people, and help solve other problems, including disaster relief and environmental damage like deforestation.”  

Please read my latest Daily Caller op-ed: “Google’s Glass House.”

• It shows how Google Glass brings attention to problems Google would rather conceal.  

It is Part 40 of my Google Disrespect for Privacy series.

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Google's Disrespect for Privacy Series

Part 1: Why Google is the Biggest Threat to Americans' Privacy; House Testimony [7-18-08]

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]

Please don’t miss my latest Daily Caller op-ed: “Diverging US-EU Internet Trade Visions.”

It spotlights that starkly diverging US-EU net neutrality and data protection policies complicate negotiations for the nascent and pending Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (T-TIP) trade agreement.

This is Part 6 of my “World Changing the Internet” research series.

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World Changing Internet Series

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: