Google

Business - Capitalism - Computers - Economy/Finances - Free Trade - Google - Inernet - Net Neutrality - Scott Cleland - Technology

Google’s Liability Decade: Why Google’s Leadership Ducks Investors

April 30, 2010 by

-By Scott Cleland

The abrupt change, that Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt will no longer be accountable to shareholders on Google’s earnings calls, should prompt investors to ask why?

Google claimed that they wanted to put more focus on Google’s strong financials, but they did not disclose any more than Google’s usual barest minimum of information to investors. The most obvious reason for this abrupt change is the literal explosion of real franchise liabilities and risk overhangs to Google that reared their ugly heads this past quarter. Had CEO Schmidt been available to answer investor questions, Google’s exploding liabilities could have dominated the Q&A and the investment narrative coming out of the earnings call.

What has changed, and what Google has been not been open about, is the very serious ripening of three different types of going-forward franchise risks (antitrust, privacy/security and intellectual property) that cumulatively herald a de facto change in Google eras: from the roaring “Growth Decade” of 2000-2009, to the more unpredictable “Liability Decade” of 2010- 2019.
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Google’s Liability Decade: Why Google’s Leadership Ducks Investors”

Business - Capitalism - Computers - Economy/Finances - Free Trade - Inernet - Net Neutrality - Scott Cleland - Technology

Why FCC’s broadband public option is a lose-lose gamble

April 27, 2010 by

-By Scott Cleland

The FCC would be making a longshot, bet-the-farm gamble, if it decided to mandate the broadband public option, i.e., deeming broadband to be a common-carrier-regulated service and regulating the Internet essentially for the first time.

It would be a classic lose-lose gamble because the FCC is very likely to lose in court — accomplishing nothing, but damaging the hard-built trust, cooperation and commitment necessary for public-private partnerships to be able to get broadband to all Americans fastest. Also everyone else would lose from the irreparable damage to private broadband investment, innovation, growth, jobs and America’s broadband ranking in the world.

I. Lose in Court:

It is a given that the FCC would be sued; and it is very likely that the Appeals Court and/or the Supreme Court would overturn any FCC unilateral assertion of authority to deem broadband a common carrier service. It is also likely that the court would stay such an FCC action from going into effect because of the likelihood of the petitioners winning on appeal and because of the easy case that it would cause irreparable harm.
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Why FCC’s broadband public option is a lose-lose gamble”

Business - Capitalism - Computers - Economy/Finances - Google - Inernet - Net Neutrality - Scott Cleland - Taxes - Technology

FCC deeming broadband to be regulated opens Pandora’s Box

April 16, 2010 by

-By Scott Cleland

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.

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FCC deeming broadband to be regulated opens Pandora’s Box”

Business - Free Trade - Google - Inernet - Net Neutrality - Scott Cleland - Technology

Harms of a Potential New FCC De-Competition Policy — Reply Comments to FCC Open Internet NPRM

April 11, 2010 by

-By Scott Cleland

The FCC’s proposed Open Internet Regulations and/or the oft-rumored potential re-classification of broadband as a Title II telephone service effectively would create a new FCC “de-competition policy.” (For the one-page PDF submitted to the FCC click here.)

A new FCC “de-competition policy” would:

  • Supplant market-based competition policy with outdated common carrier regulation policy;
  • Shift the FCC’s primary purpose from promoting competition to promoting openness;
  • Replace the core mechanism for advancing consumer welfare from a voluntary, bottom-up, market-based competition system to a coerced, top-down, centralized, FCC regulation system; and
  • Remove users from being in charge of the Internet to the FCC asserting control over the Internet.

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Harms of a Potential New FCC De-Competition Policy — Reply Comments to FCC Open Internet NPRM”

Budget - Business - Capitalism - Computers - Economy/Finances - Google - Inernet - Net Neutrality - Scott Cleland - Taxes - Technology - YouTube

GBC: Google Broadcasting Co. — World Unicaster

March 24, 2010 by

-By Scott Cleland

First there was one-to-many broadcasting, then many-to-many Internet narrowcasting… now it appears we are moving next to a one-to-many GoogleNet unicasting future where every company and individual may simply become a subordinate channel on the Googleopoly advertising network, and where content largely would be found only via Google’s mono-search guide.

To better understand this troubling ongoing transformation, connect the dots below:

Google TV:

  • NYT: “Google and partners take aim at the TV;” “The move is an effort by Google and Intel to extend their dominance of computing into television, an arena where they have little sway.”
  • WSJ

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GBC: Google Broadcasting Co. — World Unicaster”

Budget - Business - Computers - Democrats/Leftists - Google - Government - Inernet - Liberals - Net Neutrality - Scott Cleland - Technology

FTC now very likely to oppose Google-AdMob

March 16, 2010 by 1 Comment

-By Scott Cleland

The FTC is now very likely to file an injunction in Federal Court to block Google’s proposed acquisition of AdMob, if Google does not walk away from the deal, given that Bloomberg reports that the FTC is “seeking sworn declarations from Google Inc. competitors and advertisers.”

Why such signed declarations are particularly indicative of the likely outcome is that the FTC has moved largely from an investigative phase to largely a prosecution phase.

Given reports of signed declarations, a preliminary decision has been made by the FTC investigative staff (with the assent of, or direction from, the FTC Chairman), that the deal would “substantially lessen competition.” In other words, the FTC staff believe the deal would be a violation of antitrust law.

Remember, neither the FTC nor competitors/advertisers take lightly the signing of legal declarations about what would be said under oath in a court of law under the penalty of perjury.
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FTC now very likely to oppose Google-AdMob”

Budget - Business - Capitalism - Computers - Democrats/Leftists - Free Trade - Google - Inernet - Liberals - Net Neutrality - Scott Cleland - Technology

Google-AdMob: An FTC Antitrust Enforcement Watershed — Lessons from Google-DoubleClick & EU

March 9, 2010 by

-By Scott Cleland

Will the FTC strictly enforce antitrust laws in its review of Google’s AdMob acquisition? Google-Admob is a watershed decision for the FTC given that Google recently blew off the DOJ’s serious antitrust objections to the pending Google Book Settlement; The EU opened a preliminary investigation of antitrust complaints against Google from companies in the UK, France and Germany; and The DOJ had to play backstop to the FTC and block the Google-Yahoo Ad Agreement, less than a year after the FTC incorrectly assumed in their 4-1 approval of the Google-DoubleClick deal that Yahoo and others would provide sufficient competition to Google and Google acquiring DoubleClick would not “substantially lessen competition” or tip Google to a monopoly.

A recent New York Post article: “FTC inclined to approve Google’s acquisition of AdMob” states the deal “may just squeak by federal regulators.”

It’s pretty obvious the article’s source came from the Google camp and not the FTC, given the political nature of the source’s views: the FTC “will likely not rule until Obama nominees” are confirmed by the Senate, strongly implying that the:

Administration’s close political ties with Google would trump any career staff law enforcement findings of fact or the law and the lone FTC vote against the 4-1 Google-DoubleClick deal approval, Commissioner Jones-Harbor, will no longer be at the FTC.

Why is this Google spin on the FTC’s inclination likely false?
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Google-AdMob: An FTC Antitrust Enforcement Watershed — Lessons from Google-DoubleClick & EU”

Budget - Capitalism - Computers - Free Trade - Google - Inernet - Liberals - Net Neutrality - Scott Cleland - Technology

Foundem FCC Filing Documents Google Search Network Discrimination; Window into EU-Google Antitrust Case

March 2, 2010 by

-By Scott Cleland

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.

It is logical that the data-driven analysis in Foundem’s public FCC filing is an integral part of Foundem’s antitrust case against Google, which Foundem recently submitted to the EU, but which has not been released yet.

Therefore, Foundem’s FCC filing may be the best publicly available window into what the EU investigation of Google’s anticompetitive practices entails.

In essence, the Foundem filing accuses Google of monopolistic self-dealing and bundling.
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Foundem FCC Filing Documents Google Search Network Discrimination; Window into EU-Google Antitrust Case”

Budget - Business - Computers - Economy/Finances - Free Trade - Google - Inernet - Net Neutrality - Scott Cleland - Taxes - Technology

How much should Google be subsidized?

February 22, 2010 by

-By Scott Cleland

Pending FCC policy proposals in the National Broadband Plan and the Open Internet regulation proceeding would vastly expand the implicit multi-billion dollar subsidies Google already enjoys, as by far the largest user of Internet bandwidth and the smallest contributor to the Internet’s cost relative to its use.

Interestingly, the FCC’s largely Google-driven policy proposals effectively would:

  • Promote Google’s gold-plated, 1 Gigabit broadband vision for the National Broadband Plan at a time of trillion dollar Federal budget deficits;
  • Recommend a substantial expansion of public subisidies for broadband that would commercially benefit Google most without requiring Google to contribute its fair share to universal broadband service; and
  • Regulate the Internet for the first time in a way that would result in heavily subsidizing Google’s out-of-control bandwidth usage.

I. Does Google need more subsidies?

Google is one of the most-profitable, fastest-growing, cash-rich companies in the world, with over $10b in annual free cash flow, 17% revenue growth and ~$25b in cash on hand.
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How much should Google be subsidized?”

Budget - Business - Computers - Free Trade - Google - Inernet - Net Neutrality - Scott Cleland - Technology

FCC: Forced Access Uneconomics & Selective Math?

February 19, 2010 by

-By Scott Cleland

The FCC just signaled it is considering requiring forced access and more special access as part of its soon to be released National Broadband Plan.

Colin Crowell, a top aide to FCC Chairman Genachowski told Bloomberg that mandating that competitors lease their facilities to other competitors “has a lot of appeal as part of a national strategy” in order to help small businesses grow and aid job creation.
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FCC: Forced Access Uneconomics & Selective Math?”

Budget - Computers - Democrats/Leftists - Free Trade - Google - Inernet - Net Neutrality - Scott Cleland - Technology

FCC Reclassification is Eminent Domain, but with No Just Compensation or Authority

February 7, 2010 by

-By Scott Cleland

At core the FCC’s contemplation of reclassifying, or effectively treating, unregulated broadband info services as regulated telecom services, would be tantamount to the FCC declaring “eminent domain” over private broadband providers, i.e. justifying a government takings of private property for public uses, but doing so “without just compensation” or any statutory authority.

The U.S. Constitution’s Fifth Amendment requires: “nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.”

A gaping missing element in all the FCC’s discussions of all the new “public uses” it envisions for broadband in its pending National Broadband Plan and its proposed preemptive Open Internet regulations is any consideration at all of the potential hundreds of billions of dollars of un-budgeted liability to the U.S. Treasury that could result from the takings of private network property without just compensation — at a time of skyrocketing trillion dollar Federal budget deficits and rapidly mounting public debt.

The FCC appears to be operating under the sweeping and heroic presumption that any prospective FCC regulatory action it may take here is essentially cost-free to the U.S. taxpayer and will be completely shouldered by broadband shareholders; in other words, the Fifth Amendment appears to be irrelevant to FCC decisionmaking.
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FCC Reclassification is Eminent Domain, but with No Just Compensation or Authority”

Budget - Free Trade - Google - Inernet - Liberals - Net Neutrality - Policy - Scott Cleland - Technology

GoogleMonitor.com Launches Today

January 31, 2010 by

-By Scott Cleland

Will spotlight Google’s lack of transparency and accountability

WASHINGTON – A new web site designed to make Google more transparent and accountable launched today. GoogleMonitor.com is a crowd-sourcing site which will keep watch on the Web’s top watcher of everyone.

“Google is the most powerful company in the world, dominates the Web’s business model for information discovery and monetization, and watches most everything that happens on the Web,” Scott Cleland of Precursor LLC and GoogleMonitor.com’s publisher said. “Given all that un-checked power, Google has a dangerous dearth of transparency and accountability.”
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GoogleMonitor.com Launches Today”

Business - Capitalism - Computers - Congress - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Google - Inernet - Scott Cleland - Society/Culture - State Government - Taxes - Technology

Unintended Consequences: Balkanizing the Internet

January 15, 2010 by

-By Scott Cleland

The big missing part of the policy debate over how to best ensure continuation of an open Internet, i.e. through existing policy or the FCC’s proposed preemptive regulations, is what makes the Internet universal?

The Internet is near universal because it is entirely voluntary. All of the Internet’s signature elements are voluntary, not mandated by government(s).

Internet Protocol (IP) is a networking protocol that became universal precisely because it offered the ability for everyone to communicate in basically the same “language.” No one was required to use/adopt IP; people voluntarily adopted it because it was better and offered the most universal networking opportunity. Moreover, the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), whose “mission is to make the Internet work better,” is an entirely voluntary collaborative process that functions outside of any government(s) control.

The Domain Name System (DNS), essentially the Internet’s address system, rapidly became universal precisely because people voluntarily recognized its essential value and adopted it. No country owns, controls or approves the Internet’s addresses; it’s a voluntary market process.
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Unintended Consequences: Balkanizing the Internet”

Budget - Business - Capitalism - Congress - Economy/Finances - Free Trade - Freedom - Google - Inernet - Jobs - Liberals - Net Neutrality - Scott Cleland - Socialism - Society/Culture - Taxes - Technology

DOJ Rejects Broadband Market Failure Thesis

January 10, 2010 by

-By Scott Cleland

In a filing to the FCC on the National Broadband Plan, the DOJ Antitrust Division, the U.S Government’s leading expert in assessing the state of competition in communications markets, implicitly rejected net neutrality proponents’ core thesis of broadband market failure.

This DOJ filing, which represents the most recent U.S. Government expert assessment of broadband competition, could make it extremely difficult for the FCC to legitimately conclude in the coming months the factual opposite — broadband market failure.

Without a sound factual finding of broadband market failure, it also could be extremely difficult for the FCC to legally justify preemptively mandating common-carrier-like regulations on un-regulated broadband information service providers in the FCC’s pending open Internet proceeding.

Let’s review the DOJ’s core broadband competitive conclusions, which are relevant to the alleged broadband market failure thesis and the FCC’s open Internet proceeding.
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DOJ Rejects Broadband Market Failure Thesis”

Budget - Business - Capitalism - Computers - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Google - Inernet - Liberals - Net Neutrality - Scott Cleland - Technology

Google’s Open Double Standard: Fact-Checking Google’s Treatise on “The meaning of open”

December 27, 2009 by

-By Scott Cleland

Google posted its treatise on “The meaning of open” designed to redefine the word “open” in Google’s image. It is an important read because it is a bay window view into the altruistic way that Google yearns for the world to perceive it.

Like most all of Google’s PR, however, Google’s Treatise on “The meaning of open” may be “the truth” as Google sees it, but it is certainly not “the whole truth and nothing but the truth.”

I. Google’s Open Double Standard

Simply, Google is for “open” wherever it does not have a monopoly or dominant market position, however where it does, as in AdWords, AdSense and search advertising syndication, it is closed, to ensure that its dominance remains impregnable to competitors.
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Google’s Open Double Standard: Fact-Checking Google’s Treatise on “The meaning of open””

Budget - Business - Capitalism - Communism - Computers - Congress - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Google - Inernet - Liberals - Scott Cleland - Society/Culture - Taxes - Technology

Googleopoly V — Why the FTC Should Block Google-AdMob

December 22, 2009 by

-By Scott Cleland

Below is the abstract of the latest white paper in my five-part “Googleopoly” series of antitrust white papers. The full white paper is at this link and at www.googleopoly.net.

 Googleopoly V* — Why the FTC Should Block Google-AdMob

The Top Ten Reasons Why Google-AdMob Would “Substantially Lessen Competition”

Abstract: A Google acquisition of AdMob would eliminate Google’s only substantial rival platform in mobile in-application advertising and catapult Google from an estimated 25% share to over 75% share of this strategic gatekeeper market for monetizing mobile Internet applications. Combined with Google’s search advertising monopoly and dominance of mobile search advertising, Google’s acquisition of AdMob, “the world’s largest mobile advertising marketplace,” would likely tip the broader mobile advertising marketplace from a competitive to a monopoly trajectory. In short, the AdMob acquisition threatens to foreclose competition and facilitate monopoly in a strategic gatekeeper market essential to the Internet economy, which would harm: consumers, developers, advertisers, publishers, smart-phone manufacturers, and broadband providers.
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Googleopoly V — Why the FTC Should Block Google-AdMob”

Budget - Business - Capitalism - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Free Trade - Freedom - Liberals - Scott Cleland - Society/Culture - Taxes

Why Google is a Monopoly — Presenting the Case before the Federalist Society

December 9, 2009 by

-By Scott Cleland

Federalist Society Forum:

“Is Google Monopolizing Something and If So What?”

National Press Club, Washington D.C., December 7, 2009
Remarks of Scott Cleland, President of Precursor LLC

Thank you for the opportunity to make the case that Google is: A monopoly and a digital information distribution bottleneck; andiIs engaged in pervasive, predatory, anti-competitive behavior that is seriously harming competition, the quality and choice of information, and consumers.

I believe it is not if, but when, the DOJ will be compelled by the facts and the harms to competition to file a Sherman Section 2 monopolization case against Google.

I will make four points in my opening remarks.
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Why Google is a Monopoly — Presenting the Case before the Federalist Society”

Budget - Business - Capitalism - Computers - Democrats/Leftists - Free Trade - Google - Inernet - Liberals - Net Neutrality - Scott Cleland - Society/Culture - Technology

Critical Gaps in FCC’s Proposed Open Internet Regulations

December 3, 2009 by

-By Scott Cleland

Like the FCC’s National Broadband Plan task force identified seven critical gaps in the path to the future of universal broadband, the FCC should resolve six identified “critical gaps” in the FCC’s proposed open Internet regulations before moving forward to regulate the Internet for the first time — by dictating Internet access pricing, terms and conditions or dictating what services which businesses can and cannot offer on the Internet.

Here are six critical gaps in the FCC’s proposed open Internet regulations:

Credibility Gap: The FCC isn’t “preserving,” but changing the Internet by regulating it for the first time.
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Critical Gaps in FCC’s Proposed Open Internet Regulations”

Barack Obama - Budget - Business - Cable - Computers - Congress - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Google - House of Representatives - Inernet - Jobs - Liberals - Net Neutrality - Scott Cleland - Socialism - Taxes - Technology - The Law

Is FCC Declaring ‘Open Season’ on Internet Freedom?

November 22, 2009 by

-By Scott Cleland

The FCC, in proposing to change the definition of an “open Internet” from competition-driven to government-driven is setting a very dangerous precedent, that it is acceptable for countries to preemptively regulate the Internet for what might happen in the future, even if they lack the legitimacy of constitutional or legal authority to do so, or even if there is the thinnest of justification or evidence to support it.

How can we ever hope to influence China, Iran and other undemocratic regimes to provide more Internet access and freedom to their citizens and businesses when our FCC is proposing a radical take back of existing Internet freedoms without legitimate authority or justification?

The grave mistake the FCC is making in the broader international context is claiming that private companies are the primary threat to Internet freedom and free speech, and not governments. History and common sense tell us only Governments have the effective coercive power to dictate real censorship.

The FCC is effectively declaring “open season” on well-established Internet freedoms.
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Is FCC Declaring ‘Open Season’ on Internet Freedom?”

Budget - Business - Capitalism - Computers - Congress - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Free Trade - Google - Inernet - Liberals - Scott Cleland - Socialism - Society/Culture - Technology

Google-AdMob’s Antitrust Problems

November 17, 2009 by

-By Scott Cleland

Google’s acquisition of AdMob, “the world’s largest mobile advertising marketplace,” will receive serious antitrust scrutiny focused on whether the deal lessens competition by extending search advertising monopoly to mobile devices.

Expect the review process to be a magnet for a host of antitrust, competition, and privacy product/services concerns, much like the proposed Google Book settlement has been a magnet for antitrust, competition, and privacy content concerns.

First, Google is misleading with its blanket statement: “We don’t see any regulatory concerns with this deal.”

Not “any” concerns implies Google does not expect: any DOJ/FTC discussion over who reviews the deal; no second request for information; no CIDs (subpoenas); no hearings; or no serious competitor objections that authorities will have to explore. If that is true, why does Google say it could it take “several months” to close?
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Google-AdMob’s Antitrust Problems”

Anti-Americanism - Business - Cable - Capitalism - Computers - Congress - Economy/Finances - Entertainment - Free Trade - Google - Inernet - Liberals - Net Neutrality - Scott Cleland - Society/Culture - Taxes - Technology

Why Google Is Not Neutral

November 13, 2009 by 2 Comments

-By Scott Cleland

After discussing whether Google should buy The New York Times, Google decided against it because it “would damage its ‘neutral’ identity,” per Ken Auletta’s just-published book “Googled: The End of The World as We know It.”

Google has long claimed to be neutral. Their corporate philosophy statement claims: “We never manipulate rankings to put our partners higher in our search results and no one can buy better PageRank. Our users trust our objectivity and no short-term gain could ever justify breaching that trust.”

As the world-leading corporate proponent of an industrial policy to mandate net neutrality for all its potential broadband competitors in cloud computing, and as the beneficiary of “The Google Loophole” in the FCC’s proposed open Internet regulations (para 104), it is fair to stress test whether Google’s claim of a “neutral’ identity is true or just cleverly-executed PR.

Is Google Neutral?
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Why Google Is Not Neutral”

1st Amendment - Business - Capitalism - Computers - Congress - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Free Trade - Freedom - Google - Inernet - Liberals - Media Bias - Net Neutrality - Scott Cleland - Society/Culture - Taxes - Technology

How FCC Regulation Would Change the Internet

November 6, 2009 by

-By Scott Cleland

The FCC’s claims that their proposed net neutrality regulations would just “preserve” the open Internet are simply not true. The facts clearly state that the FCC’s proposed regulations would: Be a big change in FCC Internet policy; Implement big Internet policy changes without Congressional authorization; and Change the Internet in big ways. (The one-page PDF version of this post is here)

The FCC’s proposed net neutrality regs are a big change in FCC Internet policy; they would:

  • Replace the FCC’s voluntary net neutrality guidelines with mandated net neutrality regulations;
  • Selectively apply net neutrality regulations to only broadband and not to applications/content providers like the current principles do;
  • Add two completely new net neutrality principles that are not found in law or congressional policy:
  • Mandate the strictest non-discrimination requirement in the last 75 years;
  • Mandate public disclosure of detailed proprietary network management techniques for the first time;
  • Expand application of net neutrality to wireless and satellite broadband for the very first time;
  • Expand consumers access to content entitlement by adding entitlement to send/distribute content as well;
  • Redefine entitlement to competition in the current fourth principle, to favor resale competition over facilities-based competition;
  • Subject broadband companies to a new “Mother-may-I” FCC approval process for offering new managed services and for experimenting with new business models; and
  • Subordinate private standard-setting bodies, like the IETF, to new FCC omni-technical oversight/approval.

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How FCC Regulation Would Change the Internet”

Budget - Business - Capitalism - Computers - Congress - Democrats/Leftists - Google - Inernet - Liberals - Scott Cleland - Technology

Takeaways from FCC’s Proposed Open Internet Regs

October 28, 2009 by

-By Scott Cleland

The FCC’s proposed Open Internet regulations (NPRM) are sweeping and audacious.

First, the FCC proposed rules are audaciously attempting to implement the introduced-but-never-passed Markey bill (HR 3458) entitled: the “Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2009.” The purpose, premises, language and core positions are nearly identical for anyone willing to forensically compare the NPRM and HR 3458.

This presents a substantial legal problem for the FCC in that the premises and justifications undergirding their current NPRM can be found nowhere in existing law as the FCC’s own thin 28 line legal justification confirms (paras 83-87).
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Takeaways from FCC’s Proposed Open Internet Regs”

Business - Computers - Congress - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Free Trade - Google - Inernet - Liberals - Scott Cleland - Society/Culture - Technology

Open Un-Neutrality – Will FCC Re-Distribute Internet Opportunity? For Consumers? Businesses? Investors?

October 24, 2009 by

-By Scott Cleland

In effectively reversing fifteen years of bipartisan U.S. communications policy from promoting competition and reducing regulation to promoting regulation and reducing competition, the FCC’s coming “Open Internet” regulations are anything but neutral; they pick sides and strongly skew outcomes.

  • First, the FCC is proposing new preemptive business bans mid-game, the harshest, most disruptive form of economic regulation possible.
  • Second, the FCC is arbitrarily discriminating among increasingly similar and converging businesses, resulting in the arbitrary punishment of some businesses for what they allegedly might do, while rewarding others with protection from competition for what they allegedly might not do.
  • Third, the FCC is arbitrarily mandating one-way technology convergence without any supportable justification, i.e., banning distribution convergence into applications/content, while encouraging application/content convergence into distribution.

The chaotic result of this “open un-neutrality” will be regulation that is increasingly at war with inexorable technological convergence and economic efficiency — requiring ever-increasing FCC regulatory artifices to keep the Internet’s original technological layers, market segments and business models from naturally converging, evolving and competing.
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Open Un-Neutrality – Will FCC Re-Distribute Internet Opportunity? For Consumers? Businesses? Investors?”

Business - Capitalism - Computers - Congress - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Free Trade - Inernet - Scott Cleland - Society/Culture - Taxes - Technology

The Internet as the Post Office?

October 21, 2009 by

-By Scott Cleland

I produced a new, brief, and different op-ed against the FCC’s proposed net neutrality rules that ran on BigGovernment.com today. It employs a new “delivery” metaphor that I believe most people will easily grasp and find compelling.

The Internet as the Post Office?

by Scott Cleland

Why force the private Internet to be as inefficient as the old public post office? For the first time, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) plans to regulate how private companies can deliver the quadrillions of broadband Internet packets that are sent over the Internet every day.

Americans know from experience that private companies competing for customers deliver better service than Government. Who thinks the Government can do a better job than private companies in designing, building, and managing broadband Internet networks? Who thinks the Government can run the Internet better, faster, cheaper, and more innovatively than private networks do now?
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The Internet as the Post Office?”

Blogging - Business - Congress - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Free Trade - Freedom - Inernet - Scott Cleland - Society/Culture - Technology

Why FCC proposed net neutrality regs are unconstitutional

October 19, 2009 by

-By Scott Cleland

My NPR Online op-ed, “Net Neutrality Regulations Compromise Freedoms” makes the case why the FCC Chairman’s proposed net neutrality regulations are likely unconstitutional in multiple dimensions.

If you like the op-ed, please click on the “Recommend” check button above the title or at the end of the piece because that will keep the op-ed posted longer than otherwise:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113297709

My proposed title, which was supplanted for space concerns, was: “Taking Freedom From Some Takes Freedom From All.”

Below is the text of my NPR Online op-ed:
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Why FCC proposed net neutrality regs are unconstitutional”

Business - Computers - Economy/Finances - Free Trade - Inernet - Liberals - Scott Cleland - Society/Culture - Taxes - Technology

Wireless Innovation Regulation — ‘Believe it or Not!’

September 23, 2009 by

-By Scott Cleland

With due to credit to “Ripley’s Believe it or Not!®,” so much odd and bizarre is happening in Washington in the “name” of “wireless innovation” and competition that the topic calls for its own collection of “Believe it or Not!®” oddities.

Skype co-founder Niklas Zennstom, also the co-founder of illegal-music-downloading site Kazaa, who had to avoid entering the U.S. because of copyright-infringement liability… is now seeking a U.S. court injunction to shut down eBay’s Skype for alleged copyright violations!

Amazon, a leading proponent of net neutrality legislation to ban Internet providers from blocking any content, abruptly removed without permission thousands of copies of George Orwell’s books from Kindle reading devices… just like “Big Brother” would have done in “Nineteen Eighty Four“!
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Wireless Innovation Regulation — ‘Believe it or Not!’”

Business - Capitalism - Computers - Congress - Economy/Finances - Free Trade - Freedom - Inernet - Scott Cleland - Society/Culture - Taxes - Technology

Googleopoly IV: Monopsony Control over Digital Info Competition — New White Paper

September 21, 2009 by

-By Scott Cleland

My latest Google antitrust white paper, “Googleopoly IV: The Googleopsony Case,” is the first antitrust analysis which connects-the-dots between Google’s search advertising selling monopoly and Google’s information access buying monopoly or “monopsony” by explaining and documenting how Google is harming competition in digital: news, books, broadcasting, artwork, documents and analytics; and harming consumers seeking quality digital information that is not free.

(Googleopoly I was the first public analysis of why Google ultimately would emerge as a monopoly and Googleopoly II & III were the first public antitrust analyses why the DOJ should block the Google-Yahoo ad agreement, which the DOJ did block 11-5-08.)

Anyone trying to see-the-world-whole and and understand how the Internet’s digital information ecosystem fits together and is devolving– needs to read this white paper.
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Googleopoly IV: Monopsony Control over Digital Info Competition — New White Paper”

Budget - Business - Capitalism - Computers - Congress - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Google - Inernet - Liberals - Scott Cleland - Society/Culture - Taxes - Technology

“Systemic Risk Laundering” — Financial Crisis Root Causes — Part II

September 17, 2009 by

-By Scott Cleland

How could American taxpayers get stuck with a multi-trillion dollar tab that they weren’t even aware that they were running up? How could that huge tab still be allowed to run up unchecked today? For the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, the sad answer is one of the biggest root causes of last fall’s devastating financial crisis and one of the biggest continuing systemic risks to the financial system and the economic recovery.

A decade ago, in what may prove to be the most expensive bipartisan legislative mistake in U.S. history, a bipartisan policy became law that effectively ensured that no Federal regulator had oversight or enforcement jurisdiction over derivative financial instruments. The Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 (CFMA) created “legal certainty for excluded derivative transactions.” That law allowed a shadow derivative overlay system to be built literally on top of the public financial system, with none of the inherent accountability of the underlying financial system. In other words, a deliberate bipartisan U.S. government policy change a decade ago unwittingly created an unaccountable “black hole” market that sucked enormous value out of public markets (Bear Stearns, Lehman, AIG, Fannie, Freddie, securitized sub-prime mortgages, etc.), while laundering the risk to the U.S. taxpayer.

Simply, in fostering an unaccountable marketplace that derived all its real value from public markets, the Government fostered systemic risk laundering from the unaccountable to the accountable, which ultimately left the U.S. taxpayer holding the bag. More specifically, with no accountability to fairly represent or disclose risk, too many did not. Too many figured out that they could launder huge financial risk with impunity, because most public investors assumed someone somewhere was ensuring that these derivative instruments were fairly represented, disclosed and accountable. Oops!
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“Systemic Risk Laundering” — Financial Crisis Root Causes — Part II”

Budget - Business - Capitalism - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Free Trade - Freedom - Inernet - Liberals - Media Bias - Scott Cleland - Socialism - Society/Culture - Taxes - Technology

Top Ten Pitfalls of Wireless Innovation Regulation

September 1, 2009 by 1 Comment

-By Scott Cleland

Analysis of the potential pitfalls of wireless innovation regulation is a necessary complement to the FCC’s upcoming Notice of Inquiries into wireless competition/innovation and the DOJ’s review of wireless competition in order to ensure policymakers get a balanced view of the big picture.

What are the Top 10 Pitfalls of Wireless Innovation Regulation?

#1 Pitfall: Losing focus on universal broadband access

“Wireless innovation” appears to be the latest rebranding iteration of “net neutrality” and “open Internet” as the net neutrality movement searches for more mainstream support of their views.
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Top Ten Pitfalls of Wireless Innovation Regulation”