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Comcast-Pando Networks’ “P2P Bill of Rights and Responsibilities” solves multiple problems

April 23, 2008 by

-By Scott Cleland

In a breakthrough agreement and announcement (read the release at bottom), Comcast and Pando Networks, (the leading managed P2P content delivery service) agreed to:

  • Lead creation of a “P2P Bill of Rights and Responsibilities” for P2P users and ISPs; and
  • Create a process to better “share test methodologies and results” among all P2P providers and ISPs so everyone can:
  • Learn how P2P providers can optimize their applications for all types of networks; and
  • “More efficiently deliver legal content.”

This is a profoundly significant development because it solves multiple thorny problems:
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00Publius Contributor - Business - Democrats/Leftists - Google - Inernet - Media Bias - News - Scott Cleland - Society/Culture - Technology

Why “White Spaces” is just corporate welfare innovation

April 16, 2008 by

-By Scott Cleland

The Hill has a good article highlighting the growing “battle” over “White Spaces,” or the potential for use of the buffer spectrum bands in-between TV channels to ensure that there is no interference with TV signals.

What I want to spotlight here is how many in the tech industry seem to think they can carry the word-banner “innovation,” like the biblical Ark of the Covenant, to defeat anyone standing in the way of their quest for corporate welfare.

The Wireless Innovation Alliance, led by Google and its “Information Commons” poodles (the New America Foundation, FreePress, and Public Knowledge), has apparently suckered other tech companies (Microsoft, Dell and HP) into shielding and giving cover for Google’s broader information commons public policy agenda, which is needed in order for Google to fulfill it’s megalomaniacal mission “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”

Moreover, many tech companies must think that “playing the innovation card” in Washington is like an all-you-can-eat ticket to feed at the public trough.

Let’s get down to brass tacks here.
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00Publius Contributor - Business - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Google - Inernet - Media Bias - News - Scott Cleland - Society/Culture - Technology

Google is not warning its users of its role in one of largest cyber-security breaches ever on the Net

April 6, 2008 by

-By Scott Cleland

USA Today broke a much under-appreciated and potentially blockbuster Internet security breach story: “Google searchers could end up with a new type of bug.” Kudos to Byron Acohido and Jon Swartz, who reported it in USA Today, and also blogged on it at ZeroDayThreat.com, a site for their book “Zero Day Threat” which defines a Zero Day Threat as “a threat so new that no viable protections against it exist.”

In a nutshell, the article and blog post explain how cybercrook hackers have figured out how to use and leverage Google’s search engine results “to spread spam, and carry out scams. Typically it also lets the attacker embed a keystroke logger, which collects and transmits your passwords and any other sensitive data you type online.”

This new cyber scam ring is expected to spread rapidly, increasing from a “few dozen major websites” today, to “hundreds of high-profile websites” in the next few weeks.

“…in March alone… security researchers found several hundred thousand corrupted Web pages returned in common Google search queries.”

Why this is a big deal?
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00Publius Contributor - Business - Democrats/Leftists - Google - Inernet - Media Bias - News - Scott Cleland - Society/Culture - Technology

Why ultimate FCC decision on Comcast network management is expected to be unanimous

March 5, 2008 by

-By Scott Cleland

(See end of this email for bottom line on why there will be a unanimous FCC decision on Comcast’s network management practices.)

It’s obvious that there is much more that is uncertain than certain after listening to the five-hour FCC En Banc hearing at Harvard on the FreePress and Vuze petitions on Comcast’s network management practices.

Professor Tim Wu, who coined the term net neutrality, was a panelist and framed the Harvard spectacle in CNET as a “…trial of the Internet. … Comcast is in the docket accused of crimes against the public interest.”

Well if this was a trial, Wu/FreePress et al did not prove their case, and certainly did not prove it “beyond a reasonable doubt.” Only in the “make-it-up-as-you-go-along” world of net neutrality is it an alleged”crime against the public interest” for an ISP to protect the quality of service for many users by imperceptively delaying the packet delivery of non-time sensitive applications for a few users.

FCC Commissioner Tate got all the first panelists to agree that there was a baseline need for “reasonable network management.” Even Professor Wu conceded that there was “good discrimination and bad discrimination,” just like there is “good cholestorol and bad cholestorol.”

Then the specific question before the FCC: was Comcast “reasonable” in its network management of p2p traffic in this instance?
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00Publius Contributor - Business - Google - Inernet - Media Bias - News - Scott Cleland - Technology

Bursting its own stock bubble: Why Google is its own worst enemy

February 12, 2008 by

-By Scott Cleland

Since the beginning of the year, Google’s stock has fallen over 25%–about 2-3 times the fall of the relevant indexes.

The good news for Google shareholders is that most all of Google’s stock price problems are self-inflicted, so they could fix them—if they wanted to.

The bad news for Google shareholders is that Google is unlikely to change its problematic bahavior—because “leopards don’t change their spots.”

Why is Google its own worst enemy?

First, Google routinely alienates its friends and allies.

The New York Times editorial board, which should be a natural ideological ally, busted Google badly in its editorial today: “Who’s the 800-Pound Gorilla?”

The NYT saw through Google’s anti-competitive complaints about Microsoft-Yahoo, labeling them as”self-serving,” “disingenuous,” and “so much empty whining.”

Google has badly alienated its shareholders (it’s most ardent believers) who wanted to believe that Google would reward them for their investment.

Despite Google’s torrid revenue growth (51%) for a company its size, investors are learning that Google already has spending plans for whatever revenue that comes in.
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00Publius Contributor - Business - Google - Inernet - News - Scott Cleland - Technology

FTC paved way for approval of Microsoft-Yahoo in approving Google-DoubleClick 4-1

February 11, 2008 by

-By Scott Cleland

I can’t say I’m at all surprised to see Microsoft seek to acquire Yahoo.

It makes obvious business sense for both Microsoft and Yahoo — it is the only viable and strategic option for either company to become a serious and credible competitor to Google-DoubleClick’s rapidly increasing dominance of search and Internet advertising.

And given the FTC’s surprisingly strong consolidation-endorsing analysis of the Google-DoubleClick merger — previously-perceived as a yellow antitrust light to such a merger by Microsoft — there is now a bright blinking green light for approval.

Timing-wise, it’s obvious to Microsoft to get approval now while the getting is so good.

Moreover, Yahoo’s faltering stock begged Microsoft to “Come on down! and play ‘The Price is Right!'”

Essentially, the FTC paved the road for antitrust approval of a Microsoft-Yahoo combination with its recent 4-1 approval of Google-DoubleClick.

The FTC ruled definitively two months ago that the Internet advertising market has “vigorous” competition, which “will likely increase.”
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00Publius Contributor - Business - Democrats/Leftists - Google - Inernet - Media Bias - News - Scott Cleland - Technology

Google’s Regulatory Outlook 2008

January 29, 2008 by

-By Scott Cleland

The big question for investors is why?

Why has Google felt the need to build up a new lobbying operation in D.C. (rivaling Microsoft’s in size) so rapidly and why did Google just unveil, with great fanfare, its new cutting-edge office space in DC with a party that attracted 650 people and many VIPs?

What does Google know that investors may not?

Google’s Regulatory Outlook

Federal Trade Commission:

Antitrust:

  • In gaining the 4-1 FTC approval of the DoubleClick acquisition, Google earned a probationary warning from the FTC: “We want to be clear however, that we will closely watch these markets and, should Google engage in unlawful tying or other anti-competitive conduct, the Commission intends to act quickly.”
  • Both the Democratic Chair and Ranking Republican of the Senate Judiciary Committee overseeing the FTC now believe: “Antitrust regulators need to be wary to guard against the creation of a powerful Internet conglomerate able to extend its market power in one market to adjacent markets, to the detriment of competition and consumers.”
  • Many in Washington now fear Google may be becoming the next Microsoft.
  • The EU still must approve the Google-Doubleclick merger by spring. Google’s market concentration is much greater in Europe than in the US and the EU has much more legal latitude to block or condition a merger than the FTC does. The EU approval hurdle is more difficult than the FTC’s was.
  • Overall, this is not a good precondition for Google to enter 2008. It is especially not good, if there is a Democratic Administration in 2009, because Democrats generally believe that this Administration has been too lax on competition and antitrust matters.

Privacy:
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Net Neutrality Blocks Innovation

January 17, 2008 by

-By Scott Cleland

Why net neutrality would block cloud computing innovation; computers must prioritize/schedule apps

It’s becoming increasingly obvious that net neutrality proponents have not thought through the logical and practical implications of their call for mandating net neutrality.

Practically, net neutrality is about codifying Internet architecture design rules for the first time, which would have the real world effect of blocking, degrading, and impairing innovation towards allowing the Internet to support “cloud computing” — the future of computing according to Google, IBM and many others.

Why does net neutrality theory not work in practice?

First, net neutrality is really backward-looking, trying to take the Internet back to the dial-up/pre-broadband days when there was monopoly telecom regulation and not inter-modal broadband competition like there is today.

Second, consider net neutrality’s definition by its primary proponents:
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