FCC

Kudos to Larry Downes for his excellent guest column on CNET: "What's in a Title? For broadband its Oz vs. Kansas." I recommend reading it.

It is a very readable, informative overview of the great folly it would be for the FCC to reclassify broadband services from unregulated information services to regulated common carrier telecommunications services.

Mr. Downes' piece makes it abundantly clear that any Title II reclassification by the FCC would be a monumentally bad idea.

Thanks to John Simpson's post at the ConsumerWatchdog.org, which flagged this succinct and illuminating 2 min 46 sec video "produced by Hungry Beast, a weekly news show on Australian television puts Internet giant Google's huge ambitions and gargantuan reach into dramatic perspective."

Today's New York Times front page story "Google's computing power betters translation tool" by Miguel Helft spotlights that Google arguably owns and operates "the world's largest computer." The article quotes a Google  engineering VP explaining that Google's unparalleled computing power enables Google to "take approaches others can't even dream of."

Combine the world's largest computer, with the best automated translation capability for most all of the world's top languages, with reports from the front page of the Washington Post that Google proactively sought help from America's top spy agency, the NSA, for its cyber-security vulnerabilities, and it is not surprising that foreigners would be growing increasingly wary of Google and the extraordinary potential power that Google holds over them. 

So what do foreigners increasingly see Google doing?

George Ford of the Phoenix Center has penned another incisive analysis about the real world impact of net neutrality and the FCC's Proposed Open Internet regulations.

• "Sabotaging Content Competition: Do Proposed Net Neutrality Regulations Promote Exclusion?" is an important read for anyone seeking a substantitve understanding of the impact of the FCC's proposed rules.
  • George Ford and Michael Stern's core conclusion: "...the proposed net neutrality rules of both the FCC and Congress... can actually promote such exclusionary behavior. That is, the incentive to monopolize is greater under net neutrality."

  The Phoenix Center's profound insight here got me thinking, (which is always my highest compliment) so let me share my takeaways building on their conclusion; takeaways that show why net neutrality is such an intellectually and economically bankrupt concept.

  • First, not only is net neutrality "a solution in search of a problem," but the FCC's proposed "solution" would make the net neutrality "problem" they allege worse than the status quo!

The discussion at the Federalist Society about former U.S. Solicitor General Greg Garre's excellent legal analysis  (that the FCC does not have the legal authority to promulgate Internet traffic rules), surfaced what I believe to be yet another insurmountable barrier for the FCC to overcome -- beyond the litany of legal barriers outlined by Mr. Garre.

• FCC reclassification of broadband as Title II common carriage would practically force the FCC to redefine competition in a way that would be arbitrary and capricious. 

Let me explain. 

Public Knowledge's Gigi Sohn laid out  the counter argument to Mr. Garre's analysis that the FCC could reclassify broadband as Title II by simply revisiting the basis for the FCC's 2002 decision and overturning it as wrong on three counts:

Kudos to Larry Darby of the American Consumer Institute for his outstanding new study on the destructive effect of regulation on innovation. Please read it if you are at all interested in innovation.

The study debunks the views of some that government, regulation and regulators are somehow a font of innovation. 

After reviewing the relevant literature and evidence on the subject, Dr. Darby concluded that:

Progress and Freedom Foundation President Adam Thierer is one of the very best free market minds on all things Internet. 

Please take the time to review Adam's outstanding five-part case against net neutrality regulation that he pulled together for his debate with FreePress' Ben Scott at Catholic University's recent annual FCC confab in DC.

I always learn something from talking to Adam, or from reading his work, which is my highest compliment.

• You will learn something too from Adam's thoughtful and cogent case.

Don't miss Digital Society's Bret Swanson's outstanding op-ed in the Huffington Post that spotlights the huge disconnect between the White House's top priority of creating jobs, and the FCC's Open Internet regulation plans that are obviously big net job killers. 

Common sense dictates that heavily regulating a healthy and economic broadband sector with unnecessary and intrusive restrictions and red tape will destroy profits, investment and tens of thousands of good-paying jobs.    

Foundem, a UK vertical search competitor to Google, documents serial anticompetitive discrimination on Google's search network, in a data-driven filing to the FCC in the FCC's Open Internet regulation proceeding.

Kudos to Mike Swift of the Mercury News for his important article about how Google "says the race and gender of its workforce is a trade secret that cannot be released." 

• Google and four other Silicon Valley companies opposed the paper's FOIA request for summary equal employment opportunity data, while most other companies like Cisco, Intel, and eBay complied.

This raises some relevant questions for Google.