Google announced 4-9-10 that "we've decided to take speed into account in our search rankings" in a Google blog post by Amit Singhal and Matt Cutts entitled: "Using site speed in web search ranking." (Thanks to the Register's Cade Metz for flagging this issue.)

Did Google's CEO Eric Schmidt just say in public to the American Society of News Editors: 

• "he wants to be challenged through technology that directs readers to a story with an opposing view" per Politico? 

It sounds a lot like Mr. Schmidt envisions a Google with some automated technology that "challenges" readers with an automated process that "directs readers to a story with an opposing view?" 

A wide swath of top communications economists have written to the FCC that they do not believe the economic evidence warrants the FCC's proposed preemptive Open Internet regulations, and that the best approach to address the FCC's potential concerns is a case by case approach.

• This high-powered private economic analysis, on top of the DOJ's rejection of the the FCC's alleged market failure thesis, makes it increasingly difficult for the FCC to argue it has legitimate "reasons," that are not arbitrary and capricious, to warrant either deeming broadband to be a regulated service or that the competitive broadband market must be regulated for openness in direct contravention of law, precedent and existing policy.

I have publicly debated Susan Crawford and found her to be intelligent, likable and zealously committed to the FCC broadband "public option," i.e. mandating that broadband become public-utility regulated as a common carrier. 

• I was disappointed and stunned to read Ms. Crawford's latest assertions in her op-ed in the New York Times today, that totally and unabashedly misrepresented core facts; Ms. Crawford and the New York Times Editorial Board should know better. 

First, Ms. Crawford's characterization of a potential unilateral FCC decision to regulate broadband for the first time -- as simply a "relabeling" of Internet access services -- is blatant mis-representation. 

I highly recommend two oustanding op-eds that you should be sure to read if you care about the future of the Internet and FCC matters:

• FCC Commisioner Robert McDowell's outstanding op-ed in the Washington Post today entitled "Hands off the Internet"; and
• Former NTIA Administrator John Kneuer's different and excellent take in his op-ed for the Daily Caller today entitled "A Hippocratic Oath for the Internet."

   

   

   

   

Proponents of the FCC asserting new "deeming authority," to "deem" broadband to be a regulated phone service and thus subject to the FCC's existing Title II telephone authority, have not even begun to answer the most fundamental questions of what such a foundational change would mean.

• Premature characterizations that this nouvelle regulatory "deeming" would somehow be easy, clean, or containable, simply have not thought through the potential chaos, havoc, and uncertainty that such a radical, foundational, and over-reaching regulatory "deeming" would wreak on:
  • Legal/policy precedent, clarity, and stability;
  • Business investment, and innovation -- assumptions, incentives, models and practices;
  • Economic growth, private investment and job creation;
  • Industry financial stability, contracts, and debt covenants; and
  • Trust, cooperation, and respect the FCC needs to fulfill its mission and its National Broadband Plan.
• Consider the following to be a preliminary, non-exhaustive list of important questions the FCC and others will have to confront, answer and address, before the FCC seriously considers "opening" this potential Pandora's Box of ills.  

Don't miss an outstanding op-ed by Devereux Chatillon entitled "It's about search Stupid" about the Google Book Settlement.

It is on point, insightful and has great clarity of thought.

It also employs a brilliant metaphor to capture the essence of Google's monopoly power -- search as a map.

• "If websites, databases and other content are the landscape of the virtual world, then search engines are the maps. Without search engines, the landscape is confusing and getting lost a certainty. With them, finding one's way through the dense forest of information is possible if occasionally made difficult with unexpected detours and dead-ends. Disappearing from the results of dominant search engines leads to invisibility. And if one has a website, a blog, an ecommerce site, or a database that no one knows exists, it is useless."
• Please click here to read on.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                                     

April 6, 2010                                                                                          

Contact:  Scott Cleland 703-217-2407

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

April 5, 2010

Contact:  Scott Cleland 703-217-2407

NetCompetition.org Submits Reply Comments on FCC Open Internet NPRM

“A new FCC de-competition policy could take away competition’s benefits from Internet users”

WASHINGTON – NetCompetition.org Chairman Scott Cleland submitted reply comments to the FCC’s proposed Open Internet NPRM.