About Scott Cleland
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You are hereAmazonDecoding the Net Neutrality issue for the advertising sector -- Why care?Submitted by Scott Cleland on Thu, 2007-02-22 19:06While at first glance it may not be obvious how the public policy debate over "net neutrality" affects the advertising sector -- it does -- and big time. Let me explain "net neutrality" in the context of advertiser interests.
So why should advertisers care who wins? There are three big reasons why that cut right to the advertising sector's bottom-line and future. First, companies that advertise very little want to regulate some of the advertising sector's absolutely best corporate clients. Wash Post quote sadly captures the essence of NN politicsSubmitted by Scott Cleland on Tue, 2007-02-20 19:38I had to flag for folks a seminal quote on net neutrality in the Washington Post article today "Neutrality on the Net gets high '08 Profile."
This obviously very sharp Democratic operative understands what's really going on. eBay & Amazon don't believe 4-5 broadband competitors are enough competition!Submitted by Scott Cleland on Tue, 2007-02-20 17:44The common theme of net neutrality supporters is that there is not enough competition or competitive forces to prevent discrimination. They assert a broadband duopoly even though the evidence and data don't support their assertions. This is one of the main reasons net neutrality has had so little success in forums where substance, evidence and proof matter. Last week at the FTC workshop, Amazon and eBay took this competitive discussion to a whole new level of la la land.
Amazon and eBay are no longer for free markets, but for Big Government industrial policy and European style socialism with them as the designated online national champions. Why leading the Nation in regulating the Internet harms Maryland's consumersSubmitted by Scott Cleland on Mon, 2007-02-19 23:15It looks like some national net neutrality proponents groups have suckered some well-intentioned, but unsuspecting Maryland delegates into sacraficing Maryland consumers as pawns in their national chess strategy over net neutrality. Maryland consumers deserve much better.
I'll bet the national activists that sold this fraudulent bill of goods to the unsuspecting state delegates, only told their unsubstantiated side of the story -- ill serving Maryland consumers and lawmakers in the process. Needed innovation that net neutrality would banSubmitted by Scott Cleland on Fri, 2007-02-16 14:13Qualcomm's MediaFlo subsidiary has a network innovation and will soon have a commercial offering that will make it easier to broadcast TV content to mobile phones.
Qualcomm reportedly is spending about $800m in risk capital to gain spectrum and build a mobile broadcast network for cellphones that will be able to reach about 100 million potential users in the U.S. by mid-year. WSJ lead editorial highlights the success of broadband competition/deregulationSubmitted by Scott Cleland on Fri, 2007-02-16 11:11The Wall Street Journal's lead editorial today: "Broadband Breakout" once again proves that they have a very knowlegable and sophisitcated understanding of the successes of broadband competition, deregulation, and competition and of the risks of "net neutrality" or Internet regulation The Journal also picked up the point I made here in a previous blog that you have to look at the trajectory of competition, is it increasing? Responding to SaveTheInternet's personal attack on meSubmitted by Scott Cleland on Thu, 2007-02-15 18:26Tim Karr, the campaign director of Free Press that runs much of the SaveTheInternet effort, blogged a personal attack on me today, that I responded to on his blog.
Tim, It's not the first time I've been called names by people who wanted to discredit me and my analysis. Among others, you share the august company of the now-imprisoned Bernie Ebbers, who routinely derided me as the "idiot analyst" because I had his number in calling WorldCom "dead model walking" before anyone else in the country figured it out. He too was mistaken that name calling and intimidation could muzzle my views. George Ford's Smackdown of Tim Wu's Datatopian Wireless Net Neutrality White PaperSubmitted by Scott Cleland on Thu, 2007-02-15 10:51The highlight of the FTC Broadband connectivity workshop was Phoenix' George Ford's evisceration of Tim Wu's Wireless net neutralty paper.
Mr. Ford also eviscerated Mr. Wu's recommendation to apply the monopoly Carterfone decision to the competitive wireless industry.
Mr. Wu's biggest mistake was submitting this paper before the FTC an organization well-known for its analytical rigor and expertise in the subject of competition. Interesting takeaways from the first day of FTC conference on broadband connectivitySubmitted by Scott Cleland on Wed, 2007-02-14 10:09Overall I think the FTC has done a pretty good job of presenting a balanced view of the net neutrality issue. I commend them for calling the workshop "broadband connectivity competition policy." That is what the issue is all about-- in generic non-loaded terminology. To be brief, I will highlight just what I thought was most noteworthy. The distinguished practioner and academic, Fred Kahn, is always a joy to learn from. Besides making his main point that government should resist its propensity to meddle he was particularly critical of many people's use of the term "discrimination." As an economist, he was frustrated that people were using the term discriminatory just if it was differential. For those that don't know or understand economics or competition policy, Mr. Kahn stated simply -- if there is opportunity cost involved, its not discriminatory. What he reminded people of is that there are lots of legitimate economic, functional, and consumer welfare reasons why service and prices can and should be different. Alan Davidson of Google clearly took a different tack than usual. He further retreated trying to respin Google's grandiose vision of net neutrality to be more "reasonable." He gave Google's blessing to the Internet continuing like it is -- charging differently for different speeds. He also gave America Google's permission to continuing caching and stopping denial of service attacks on the Internet. Thank you Google for your permission, it means so much. Alan Davidson of Google then went on to say that Google only has a very "small" problem with just "one type" of router discrimination -- trying to appear reasonable. Unfortunately, to anyone that uderstands networks and competiton, his "reasonable" approach is about as "reasonable" as a doctor telling a patient that all the parts of their body are healthy but that he just needs to remove their "small" cerebellum. Tim Wu's "datatopian" wireless net neutrality rejects competiton policySubmitted by Scott Cleland on Wed, 2007-02-14 00:15My core problems with Professor Tim Wu's white paper for the FTC on wireless net neutrality are with his disguised core assumptions. First, it is clear from Mr. Wu's top two recommendations that Mr. Wu rejects U.S. competition policy and wireless competition policy as abject failures.
Mr. Wu should come clean and just say in a straightforward language what his White Paper strongly implies.
Second, Professor Wu analysis suffers from what I call the "perfection fallacy." Pages |