Dear European Commission Official,

The sovereign problems with the proposed Google-EC settlement are that it:

• Does nothing to address how Google unlawfully gained, and continues to unlawfully extend, its EU online dominance; and
• Allows Google to evade accountability to EU rule of law.

Simply it represents an unwarranted special EC pardon for Google’s illegal 90% search/search advertising dominance and its many illegal abuses of dominance.

Moreover, it is not in the EC’s interests to prematurely shut down the Google search investigation for the convenience of just one EC Directorate’s artificial timetable, when that would undermine the ongoing investigation of additional allegations of Google abuses of its search dominance, like Google search-Android tying, and when it would undermine the good efforts of other EC Directorates trying to get Google to be accountable to EU data protection, tax, copyright, patent, and other laws.

Making matters worse, the proposed settlement would have no deterrent capability to prevent more Google abuses of its dominance in the future. That’s because allowing Google to publicly claim it has done nothing wrong, when it has per the draft Statement of Objections, shields Google from the only thing Google cares about – potential harm to Google’s brand reputation with its users.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

February 13, 2014

Contact:  Scott Cleland 703-217-2407

The Comcast-Time Warner Cable Merger is Pro-competitive,

The Communications Marketplace Has Never Been More Competitive,

And American Consumers Have Never Had More Communications Choices

Mobile & Cloud Competition & Innovation are Dynamically Changing Communications 

WASHINGTON D.C. – The following quotes on the announcement of the Comcast-Time-Warner Cable merger may be attributed to Scott Cleland, Chairman of NetCompetition:

• “Not only is the Comcast-Time Warner Cable merger pro-competitive, via the improvement of services and innovation for millions of Americans and many thousands of businesses, this merger also is occurring in the most competitive communications marketplace with the most consumer choices ever. It should be approved”

For those interested in municipal broadband overbuilds and their effect on competition, please read my latest Daily Caller op-ed: “Government Broadband Overbuilds Are Anticompetitive.”

• This is Part 5 of my Big GoverNet research series.

***

Big GoverNet research series:

Part 1: Cities learning there is no wireless “free lunch” [9-20-07]

Part 2: Why the Australian “Fiber Mae” Broadband Model Doesn’t Work for the U.S. [5-13-09]

Part 3: Why Broadband is not a Public Utility [8-21-09]

Please read my latest Daily Caller op-ed: “How the Google-EC Competition Deal Harms Europe” – here.

• It is Part 31 of my Google Unaccountability research series.

***

Google Unaccountability Series

New evidence continues to contradict Google’s public representations of outrage over, and non-involvement in, NSA spying revealed by the Snowden leaks.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE January 31, 2014

Contact:  Scott Cleland 703-217-2407

WASHINGTON D.C. – The following quotes addressing Chairmen Upton & Walden’s requests for input on modernizing the Communications Act may be attributed to Scott Cleland, Chairman of NetCompetition:

The new term “Google Ethics Board” is an oxymoron, given Google’s unethics record. It is also a warning not to be ignored.

There’s a deep need for true ethics at Google now that Google has acquired DeepMind and its broadly-applicable, ethics-pushing, deep-learning technology. That DeepMind pushed for an ethics board, should trigger alarm bells. Pay attention. If past is prologue; Google will end up badly abusing this very powerful technology.

I.   Important Perspective

Google CEO Larry Page’s acquisitive growth strategy has a central theme of automating much of the economy: self-driving cars, home automation, energy monitoring, health care, online surveillance, military contracting, travel, shopping, payments, mobile, TV, etc.

Please view this four-minute video by Mike Wendy where I explain what to expect from the D.C. Court of Appeals decision in Verizon v. FCC.  

I explain:

• Why there won’t be much change for consumers as a result of the decision;
• Why Title II reclassification is very unlikely;
• Why neither side is likely to appeal to the Supreme Court; and

• Why there is a chance for more reasonable cost sharing of Internet infrastructure costs that would be to the benefit of consumers.

Thanks to Mike Wendy for the video.

Netflix’ defensive reaction to the Appeals Court Verizon v. FCC decision in its recent shareholder letter speaks volumes about Netflix’s unique and extraordinary net neutrality regulatory arbitrage. It also begs much more scrutiny.

This analysis exposes: how deceptive Netflix has been to its investors about its regulatory risk; how critical Netflix’ misrepresentation of net neutrality to investors has been to its entire economic model; and how relatively wasteful and irresponsible Netflix is in its utilization of the Internet’s bandwidth.

Yet another major obstacle to net neutrality activists’ call for the FCC to reclassify broadband as a common-carrier service is the President’s 2011 Executive Order on “Improving Regulation.”

By way of background, just weeks after the FCC passed its Open Internet Order (3-2) the President issued Executive Order 13563 “Improving Regulation and Regulatory Review.”