Please don’t miss my Daily Caller op-ed here: “Who Pays for Net Neutrality?”
It’s the core question net neutrality proponents don’t want asked and won’t answer.
This is Part 75 of my FCC Open Internet Order Series.
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FCC Open Internet Order Series
Part 1: The Many Vulnerabilities of an Open Internet [9-24-09]
Please don’t miss my Daily Caller op-ed here: “The Only Legitimate FCC Hybrid Net Neutrality Approach”
This is Part 74 of my FCC Open Internet Order Series.
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FCC Open Internet Order Series
Part 1: The Many Vulnerabilities of an Open Internet [9-24-09]
Google has no shame. Google is throwing stones at Europe while living in a glass house.
Summary
In response to a non-binding resolution passed by a 384-174 vote by the European Parliament to urge the European Commission to enforce European law against Google’s search engine >90% dominance of the European digital market, Google has advanced three self-serving, America-harming, PR narratives that the overwhelming evidence shows are untrue.
One American bad apple is spoiling it for the whole American bunch.
First, Google shamelessly plays the victim acting like it hasn’t done anything wrong worthy of European law enforcement when Google knows the evidence proves it is a serial bad actor with the worst antitrust, privacy, and property infringement rap sheet of any American multinational in Europe or the world.
The European Parliament reportedly is scheduled to vote this week on a political non-binding resolution urging the European Commission to “enforce EU competition rules decisively” against search engines, i.e. Google.
What is going on?
In a nutshell, this vote has three big effective implications. It is a political revolt and declaration of Independence from Google’s virtual hegemony. It is a rejection of former EC Vice President Almunia’s gross mishandling of the Google competition case. And it is a vote for a European “single digital market” to promote European economic growth and job creation.
A Political Revolt & Declaration of Independence
If Congress or the media seek incisive oversight/accountability questions to ask the FCC about the real world implications and unintended consequences of its Title II net neutrality plans, here are ten that fit the bill.
Authority? If the FCC truly needs more legal authority to do what it believes necessary in the 21st century, why doesn’t the FCC start the FCC modernization process and ask Congress for the legitimacy of real modern legislative authorities? Or is it the official position of the FCC that its core 1934 and 1996 statutory authorities are sufficiently timeless, modern and flexible to sustain the legitimacy of FCC regulation for the remainder of the 21st century?
Growth & Job Creation? While it may be good for the FCC’s own power in the short-term to impose its most antiquated authority and restrictive Title II regulations on the most modern part of the economy, how would that heavy-handed regulation be good or positive for net private investment, economic growth and job creation?
GoogleNet is Google’s vision to leverage its proliferating dominance by offering global, near-free Internet-access, mobile connectivity, and Internet-of-Things connectivity via a global, largely-wireless, Android-based, “GoogleNet,” that is subsidized by Google’s search and search advertising dominance and by “open Internet” zero pricing of downstream Internet traffic.
A near-free global GoogleNet would be much like the Google Playbook which offers Android, Maps, YouTube, and others’ content for free globally, to disrupt and commoditize competitors in order to maintain and extend its search and search advertising dominance throughout the economy.
The top ten most descriptive adjectives for the President’s claim that Title II utility regulation authority is needed to implement net neutrality are:
UNTRUE
UNWARRANTED
UNNECESSARY
UNFAIR
UNPOPULAR
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 10, 2014
Contact: Scott Cleland 703-217-2407
The President’s Call for Regulating the Internet as a Title II Utility Could Break the Global Internet
Autocratic Nations Want the UN’s International Telecommunications Union to Control the Internet
Reclassifying the Internet as “Telecommunications” Isn’t Domestic Policy, but Trade/Foreign Policy
Please don’t miss my Daily Caller op-ed here: “The Federal Communications Congress?”
It explains how the FCC would be reversing longstanding, successful, bipartisan U.S. trade and foreign policy, if it unilaterally reversed the legal status of Internet traffic from an un-tariffed information service to a price (and tariff) regulated “telecommunications” service.
This is Part 71 of my FCC Open Internet Order Series.
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FCC Open Internet Order Series
Apparently Google hopes to convince the new European Commission to buy into the same market predicate that it convinced Mr. Almunia to accept -- that the fast and ever-changing Internet marketplace has rendered lasting market dominance and antitrust enforcement obsolete.
Like a magician or illusionist, one can make another believe anything if they can misdirect their attention from what is really going on.
Google’s latest misdirection ploy is to focus the media and the new EC on its new “peak” PR narrative that its search and Android dominance is at a “peak” -- with the implication that Google’s market position is fleeting and will only go down from here because fast-changing innovation and competition will naturally supplant it.
And by extension, if people accept that Google’s dominance is “peaking” then they can more easily be convinced that Google’s dominance could decrease naturally without any government intervention.
This “peak” market frame is clever misdirection because it distracts people from focusing on how Google is broadly abusing its market dominance to extend its market power into additional, adjacent, and nascent markets.
However, a new competitor or innovation can only have a chance to supplant Google, if Google does not neutralize or dominate the new competitor or innovation first.
