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Net Neutrality 9-26-2006

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Net Neutrality Links

I’m adding this link to the Net Neutrality Page.

What Scott Cleland (and Co.) Doesn’t Get About Net Neutrality

[ . . . ]

But we want to make it clear, again, what the network neutrality fight is about. It’s having a U.S. digital media system where all forms of content can conveniently and affordably be created & distributed—to TV’s, PC’s, and mobile devices. Network neutrality is a policy where access to content doesn’t depend on the whims of the owners of your network, operating system, or e-commerce provider. It means maximum freedom in the broadband era, an enhancing of our democracy. That includes the right to receive any kind of content you want—now. In the not too distant future, the ability of programmers and political leaders to effectively communicate ideas will depend on their access to the “triple play” distribution system. The battle for network neutrality is to ensure we have no digital gatekeepers—including AT&T, Comcast, as well as Microsoft, Google, Yahoo!, etc.

Mr. Cleland’s backers wish to control that future—otherwise they would have to content themselves with only the (considerable) revenues from fair-minded distribution. Comcast, AT&T and the others all want to be King of the broadband domain. But in a digital democracy—there shouldn’t be lords of the realm, only citizen/users/creators.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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Net Neutrality 8-13-2006

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Net Neutrality Links

I’m adding this link to the Net Neutrality Page.

It’s Our Net — A New Site Announced by Six Apart

. . . . Scientific American published a pretty fair editorial on the topic, which reaches a clear conclusion:

A system for prioritizing data traffic might well be necessary someday, yet one might hope that it would be based on the needs of the transmissions rather than the deal making and caprices of the cable owners. Moreover, personal blogs and other Web pages are increasingly patchworks of media components from various sources. Tiered service would stultify that trend.

That seems like a reasonable analysis, so the natural next step for any Internet-related cause is to get a good website going to help with advocacy. Enter It’s Our Net, supported by everyone from Adobe to Yahoo, and sponsored by Amazon, eBay, Google, InterActiveCorp, Microsoft, and Yahoo! . It’s a simple, effective site combining the latest news, information about how the proposed change would affect the web, and tools to contact your elected officials. . . .

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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Net Neutrality 7-31-2006

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Net Neutrality Links

I’m adding this link to the Net Neutrality Page.

What’s Microsoft Afraid Of?

Reuters reported last week that the Free Enterprise Action Fund – which holds more than 4,000 shares of Microsoft stock – wants the company to explain its rationale for supporting Net neutrality. The fund wants to put a proposal before shareholders, for an up-or-down vote at the next meeting, which would direct Microsoft management to prepare a report “analyzing the business and economic rationale, regulatory impacts, legal liabilities and any effects on product development and customers” of Net neutrality.

Sounds reasonable enough.

But Reuters reports that Microsoft has “asked the Securities and Exchange Commission if it could exclude the proposal from its annual shareholder vote without facing enforcement action by the agency.”

“What is Microsoft afraid of,” asks Tom Borelli, a portfolio manager at the Free Enterprise Action Fund.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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Net Neutrality 7-28-2006

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Net neutrality ‘weaklings’ must answer to shareholders – FEAF

Tom Borelli, [The Free Enterprise Action Fund] FEAF portfolio manager, told The Register FEAF thinks companies that “run” to government – especially Microsoft who has a habit of usually going in the opposite direction when it comes to officials and regulation – are acting against “innovation.” They should focus on improving their products not legislation, he said.

“Our antenna goes up when big companies seek regulation. In our view that’s a sign of weakness. A free market should be out there competing and innovating, rather than running to the government to protect the market. That’s a defense strategy.” . . .

[snip]

The group has already used the shareholder resolution tactics over General Electric’s policy on global warming, which FEAF believes is damaging shareholders’ value, at an annual meeting in April. FEAF believes GE has succumbed to non-government organizations and environment advocates who Borelli calls “looters” interested in using GE’s resources to “achieve their social and political agenda.”

FEAF’s actions can be seen in a broader US context. With the argument over net neutrality breaking down along partisan lines, lobbyists and other interested parties are now springing to the fore to shape the issue.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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Net Neutrality 6-23-2006

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Net Neutrality Links

I’ve added these links to the Net Neutrality Page today.

Net Neutrality: This is serious by Timbl

. . . There have been suggestions that we don’t need legislation because we haven’t had it. These are nonsense, because in fact we have had net neutrality in the past — it is only recently that real explicit threats have occurred.

Control of information is hugely powerful. In the US, the threat is that companies control what I can access for commercial reasons. (In China, control is by the government for political reasons.) There is a very strong short-term incentive for a company to grab control of TV distribution over the Internet even though it is against the long-term interests of the industry.

Yes, regulation to keep the Internet open is regulation. And mostly, the Internet thrives on lack of regulation. But some basic values have to be preserved. For example, the market system depends on the rule that you can’t photocopy money. Democracy depends on freedom of speech. Freedom of connection, with any application, to any party, is the fundamental social basis of the Internet, and, now, the society based on it. . . .

Call the Telecoms’ Bluff on Net Neutrality.

The Government should, henceforth, treat the internet more like the Interstate Highway System than the telephone network.

This would mean that the Gvt, or a federal regulatory agency, should take control of and/or subsidize the building and maintaining of the network from now on. Take the financial burden of it away from the telecoms.

Make it a matter of national security, if you have to, to get that network built up, and to provide unfettered access to it by the public.

This, is a proposal that the telecoms should jump on in a heartbeat for two reasons:

1. The immediate financial windfalls it gives them.

2. It actually has the effect of slowing down the development of alternative high speed internet competition form other sources.

If, as I expect, the telecoms get their wish on Net Neutrality, you will see the rapid expansion of satellite, or other broadband internet technologies takeoff. And the sheer competition from those other sources will force the telecoms to scrap their differentiated charges to various tiers of content providers.

But, in the meantime, I think we should start floating my alternative proposal to take the wind out of the telecoms’ sails. This proposal will show us whether the telecoms are really concerned about building the network, or in just finding a way to make more money.

Larry Lessing on: Tim Berners-Lee on Net Neutrality: “This is serious”

One clue to this Net Neutrality debate is to watch what kind of souls are on each side of the debate. The pro-NN contingent is filled with the people who actually built the Net — from Vint Cerf to Google to eBay — and those who profit from the competition enabled by the Net — e.g., Microsoft. The anti-NN contingent is filled with the entities that either never got the Net, or fought like hell to control it — telecom, and cable companies.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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Net Neutrality 6-16-2006

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Net Neutrality Links

I’ve added these links to the Net Neutrality Page today.

Net neutrality today — playing the “safety” card

Net Neutrality is Bad for National Preparedness, says Center for Advanced Studies

NEW YORK, June 12 /U.S. Newswire/ — In a research brief published by the World Policy Institute’s Global Information Society Project, K.A.Taipale, executive director of the Center for Advanced Studies, Science & Technology Policy, asks whether imposing strict net neutrality regulation on telecommunications providers could put public safety and economic recovery at risk in times of national emergency.

How quickly can an innovation policy question be morphed into a security issue? Answer: Almost instantly.

But Paul, It’s Too Elegant and Simple A Solution [Paul Kapustka’s Post]

Paul Kapustka writes: One idea I kicked around a bit at this past weekend’s Vloggercon (in no small agreement with fellow blogger Matt Sherman, who is about 179 degrees away from me on most net neutrality matters) was the idea of Google (or Microsoft, anyone with buckets of folding money and a desire to get into online apps) buying or building an online application that would show anyone who wants to use it exactly what’s happening to their packets as they course to and fro. . . .

Net Neutrality for Sports — Forced unbundling by any other name [Read more…]