So, while Google may have seen the light on Net Neutrality (which is actually, amusingly enough, making the far left sound like me), they still have other issues going on. The WiSpy Street View spying issue is still ongoing, with South Korea raiding their offices and Germany pressuring the firm to be more transparent and responsive to privacy complaints about the program.
Because as I said earlier today, asking Eric Schmidt about privacy is like asking Phillip Morris about smoking. The conflict of interest is inherent. Everyone who hides his identity from Google Analytics, Google Adsense, and every other Google program is costing the firm money.
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Today Google and Verizon changed the landscape of the Net Neutrality debate in America, by putting out a joint proposal* for FCC Internet regulation. This is a proposal that ideally should be implemented by the Congress, which has the proper authority, and as described I support it. The fact that I’m fine with it of course means, as I predicted, the fringe radicals at Free Press are even more isolated from the mainstream now as they must turn on Google, their former ally.
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We’re very late “tonight” for Tech at Night on “Friday,” but that’s because the time I normally spend on these posts I instead spent setting up my new iPad, which I will need for next month’s RedState Gathering. So apologies all around, and here we go.
Net Neutrality news is picking up steam. While the official story is that the FCC has cowed before Free Press‘s complaints and has ended its meetings with industry leaders to plan its Net Neutrality action, that’s not the center of the action anymore, necessarily.
Not when industry, both for and against Free Press’s Net Neutrality, is going its own way.
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Tonight, we start with a longer note that requires some setup, so bear with me as I break from the usual format for a moment.
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The FCC’s attempt to reclassify broadband as if it were a telephone service had already encountered opposition from a strong, bipartisan majority of Congress – not to mention usually Democratic allies like the AFL-CIO, CWA, IBEW, LULAC, MMTC, NAACP, Urban League and Sierra Club.
It is increasingly becoming a question of whether the FCC really wants to pick a Title II fight in the Courts, another with Democratic coalition members and yet another with Congress. That kind of path has the potential to be lose-lose-lose for the FCC and for Democrats.
But another story that emerged last week may be the most interesting fight of all.
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Good evening. It’s going to be short tonight, because I don’t actually have anything new to say about G—– or F— P—- tonight, as against freedom as they both are.
But I will say this about Net Neutrality: competition from new technology is the way out of any problems we have with the ISP monopolies and duopolies that state and local regulators cram down our throats. It’s not theoretical, either: Sprint is deploying 4G WiMAX service over more and more of the country.
Technology, not Net Neutrality regulation, is what we need.
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