November, 2011

Pending anti-piracy legislation (Senate: PROTECT IP, House: SOPA) is very likely to become law in 2012.

See my Forbes Tech Capitalist post here to learn why, and why it is important.

As the Senate prepares to vote on the fate of the FCC's net neutrality regulations this week, it's instructive to look more closely at the politics of regulating the Internet.

Read my Forbes Tech Capitalist post here.

Google opposes the Senate PROTECT IP Act and the House SOPA bill because these anti-piracy bills expose Google's substantial piracy liability.

See my Forbes Tech Capitalist post here on "Google's Piracy Liability."

The Senate's 52-46 rejection of the Resolution of Disapproval of the FCC's net neutrality regulations (after the House voted differently 240-179 to disapprove last spring), is a classic pyrrhic victory for net neutrality proponents in two big ways.

First, the issue put the FCC on the political radar screen of every Member of Congress, and not in a good way.

For several hours the Senate debated and then officially voted on whether the Constitutionally-authorized Congress should be the entity to effectively establish new Internet law, or whether unelected FCC commissioners with no direct statutory authority from Congress should be able to effectively establish new Internet law and effectively claim boundless unchecked regulatory power whenever they see fit.

Supporters of the FCC were put in the very awkward position of politically having to defend a constitutional/legal position that:

In compiling and ranking the top threats facing Google, I was amazed at the breadth, depth, diversity and seriousness of the threats and liabilities facing Google.

Please see my Forbes Tech Capitalist post here to learn the ranking of what threats to Google are most serious and why.

Professor Susan Crawford's attempt to manufacture a new net neutrality bogeyman, "The Looming Cable Monopoly," fails to persuade.

See my Forbes Tech Capitalist post which deconstructs and debunks Professor Crawford's unsupported theory.

The only thing proponents of Net neutrality regulation and opponents of online piracy legislation appear to have in common is the boy-crying-wolf "censorship" rhetoric of FreePress' Save The Internet activists.

See my Forbes Tech Capitalist post here, "SOPA Opponents' Bogus Net Neutrality Comparisons."

The likely passage of online anti-piracy legislation (SOPA/PIPA) in 2012 has put a spotlight on the substantial ad-based business interests aligned with piracy and against piracy enforcement.

See my Forbes Tech Capitalist post here to learn why Grand Theft Auto-mated is such big business and so anti-piracy enforcement.