FTC

I just rewatched the outstanding Fiber to the Home Council's video on the Internet Exaflood.

• I blogged about it before and will probably blog about it again in the future, because it is the best single five minute explanation, for novices and experts, of how the Internet is changing and improving.

If SaveTheInternet and FreePress was truly interested in a free and open debate on net neutrality they would want to send this outstanding informational video out to their email blast list.

I was shaking my head in disbelief when I read Comm Daily on Reed Hundt's interview on CSPAN's The Communicators series. 

Key quotes:

• "Hundt is vice chmn. of Frontline Wireless and he used his C-span appearance to challenge the FCC to set rules that will allow Frontline to carry out its business plan."
• "The wireless industry, which largely grew from auctions held while Hundt was Chairman, has become too consolidated, he said: "Monopolies don't work that hard to compete." Competition is necessary for innovation."

Excuse me? wireless monopolies?

The New York Times reported that "Google has agreed to block four video clips on its YouTube Web site that the Government of Thailand said insulted its king."  

• The end of the NYT article explains that the military coup leaders in Thailand "have also used the strict laws about the monarchy to stifle criticism of themselves or their actions."

This is not the first time that Google, which waxes eloquently about how net neutrality is needed to promote free speech, has hypocritically stabbed free speech in the back for its own expedience.

Reuters reports that "a federal judge ordered Google to face a jury trial in a trademark infringement suit that aims at the main source of the company's revenue."

• The Federal judge previously had denied Google's motion to dismiss this case.

Why does this matter?

• Google does not want to go to trial on any of the legion of IP theft lawsuits they face... because they fear discovery by clever trial attorneys who will try to get access to executive emails that will show that use of other companies intellectual property for free is standard business practice at Google.
• Google also fears that they can't buy off everyone, because if one company, like American Blind and Wallpaper Factory, does not succumb to Google's settlement bribes to make the case go away...
• it will embolden other companies, whose IP has been violated by serial IP thief Google... to come out of the woodwork to testify or file class action suits against Google.

I also discovered a new and relevant fact in my ongoing research -- that I believe will be used succesfully against Google in this case.

I stumbled upon some more powerful evidence that the SaveTheInternet coalition of 800+ organizations who back net neutrality -- are just special interests looking for a self-serving subsidy handout from the government.

I previously blogged on my theory that the 800+ organizations backing SaveTheInternet cynically know that their members are not really at risk on the Internet from "blocking" etc., but that their organization's cost structures are at risk because they have become addicted to subsidized cheap blast emails.

•  Put more simply, Moveon.org doesn't want to pay anymore than anyone else, even though they consume tons more Internet bandwidth than the people they supposedly serve.
• Think about it. How many average users blast emails regularly to 3 MILLION people! Only spammers blast out emails to that wide of a distribution.
• Then think about how much more bandwidth is required to send out 3 million blast video emails to the Moveon.org email list than is required to send 3 million text emails.

I suspect the other 800+ organizations in SaveTheInternet coalition have made the same self serving calculus, but love to hide behind the populist "human shield" of supposedly looking out for the American consumer.   

Like any other special interest, these SaveTheInternet organizational supporters are lobbying for net neutrality for self-serving reasons, i.e. a law/regulation that would ensure their cost of email distribution would never go up. What a deal!

I wanted to be sure folks saw what Greg Moore, Executive Director of the National NAACP Voter Fund said recently on net neutrality in a commentary piece in the Asbury Park Press: 

• "Given the proven impact of broadband prices on its adoption, policies that increase the cost to users should be forbidden. Now, some well-intentioned online activists are pushing regulations called "net neutrality," which would keep costs low for the large Internet content companies but shift the costs of network expansion mostly to consumers."
• "The effects could be disastrous for low-income and minority communities, pricing them out of the broadband market by guaranteeing a free ride to companies such as Google and eBay while shifting costs for broadband expansion back to consumers. Although net neutrality activists claim to be protecting free speech, net neutrality regulations would effectively silence many minority voices, as low-income communities drop off the online landscape because they can't afford the price of admission."

Extremely well said!

Welcome to Portia Krebs a new blogger at NextGenWeb.org for USTelecom!

I am delighted their will be another blogging voice in the debate promoting the continuation of a free market Internet that remains free of net regulation.

I encourage other people to blog and enter the debate who understand that "Internet freedom" means much more than so called "net neutrality" and free speech, but also means: free market, free enterprise, freedom to be different, freedom of ownership, freedom to choose, freedom of diversity, and freedom of opportunity -- essentially economic freedoms that naturally flow from America's political freedoms!

Watch out when Big Government advocates call for a "national" anything!

• House Telecom Chairman Ed Markey is calling for a "national broadband map."
• Senator Rockefeller (WV) and others are calling for a "national broadband plan."  

Egads! 

A "national broadband plan" is a codeword for a 1970's-style government "industrial policy" where the government decides what technologies consumers get and which companies will succeed of fail. 

• Industrial policies proved economically disastrous -- and thankfully were abandoned in the US -- allowing our economy to flourish.
• Look no further than the mess of the current French economy, which is the world's petri dish for "national" industrial policies. 
• Their economy and employment situation is one of the leading basketcases of Europe.

My first big problem with this "national" thinking is that there is no national broadband problem.

• The US has more facilites-based broadband deployment, investment and competition nationally than any other country -- by a wide margin.
• Is deployment perfect nationwide? of course not.
• If there is a broadband problem it is in some isolated rural areas.
• We may have a "rural" broadband problem but not a "national" broadband problem!

My second big problem is Senator Rockefeller's call for a new "national" goal of 10Mbps broadband by 2010 and 100 Mbps by 2015.

USA Today reported today that "Google accounted for 65.3% of all U.S. online searches for the four weeks ended April 28, up from 58.6% in April 2006, according to web tracker Hitwise."

Hitwise has:

• Google at      65.3%
• Yahoo at       20.7%
• Microsoft at    8.5%
• Ask.com  at     3.7%

To be fair, Hitwise has Google a little higher than ComScore or Neilsen NetRatings in absolute terms, but all three consistently record the same inexorable fact: Google is increasing its dominance of Internet search.

Kudos to Steve Pociask of the American Consumer Institute on his excellent paper on: "Net Neutrality and the Effects on Consumers."

• It should be required reading for all consumer groups.
• It exposes how net neutrality does not benefit the average American consumer, but benefits special interests like high-volume Internet users... like consumer "groups."   

Steve's clear, insightful, and easy-to-read paper explains how net neutrality would harm consumers by: