The Chris Bowers pagerank scam using a linking scheme driven by recruited websites is still in the works, but Google has not delisted Daily Kos. Interesting bit of bias there, huh?
And all I need say about Net Neutrality this week, and the urgent need for legislation to stop the runaway FCC, was said by Seton Motley at the Washington Examiner.
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Good evening. Welcome to the special, totally planned, and not at all a fallback because I wore out after a week of catching up after the RS Gathering, Saturday edition of Tech at Night. I did want to make sure we all read about this poll by Hart Research Associates which shows over 75% of likely voters (MoE should be about 3.4 for a sample of 800) saying that the Internet works.
Further, support for regulating the Internet is trailing badly at 51 against to 37 for, which means per my handy analysis tool I wrote myself for Unlikely Voter, there’s only a 1% chance per this poll that likely voters actually favor regulating the Internet. This poll is a clear and convincing rejection of the entire FCC/Free Press agenda.
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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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A key story from today centers on John Dingell and his criticism of Chairman Julius Genachowski and the Obama FCC. Hillicon Valley reports that Dingell is criticizing the Commission harshly for failing to justify its Title II Reclassification plans to Deem and Pass Net Neutrality regulation of the Internet, and is telling them to stop and let the Congress do its job. Seriously, this is strong language from Democrat to Democrat:
“Unfortunately, the paucity of substantive responses to my [questions] has served only to substantiate my fear that the commission’s proposed path with respect to the regulation of broadband is based on unsound reasoning and an incomplete record, and is thus fraught with legal risk,” Dingell said.
He said the commission should instead look to Congress to grant it more power.
“In this way, the Congress and the commission may ensure the establishment of a steadfast legal foundation for an open Internet,” Dingell wrote.”
The fact is that the Free Press/Google “third way” to Net Neutrality is an illegal power grab online. Support for it is the radical extremist position.
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Good evening. Once again we see shoddy thinking from the FCC as they continue the push for the National Broadband Plan. Not all Americans have equal access to high speed Internet connections they complain, ignoring the fact that some Americans choose to live out in the middle of nowhere, and that choice comes with costs.
Chairman Julius Genachowski and the rest of his socialist team on the FCC don’t care, and just want to pass those costs onto the rest of us, it sounds like. Watch out as they try to declare a right to a good Internet connection, even if you’re off in the hills.
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Here a few updates in the intersection of Internet, the law, and politics:
Free Press is still being hypocritical: They took out a full page ad denouncing (in true Communist style) FCC Chairman Genachowski for having one closed door meeting with the likes of AT&T and Verizon. Free Press has had over 30. By their own standard, the FCC has sold out to the neo-Marxist Free Press itself, not to ISPs.
FCC plans threaten the recovery: The Hill warns that 500,000 good jobs in the industry could be lost if the FCC proceeds as Free Press demands. Net Neutrality and Title 2 “Third Way” Deem and Pass reclassification must be stopped.
No, really, Free Press is two faced about the FCC, and is holding themselves and ISPs to a double standard. Communists get to do what they want, but people who create good jobs in America have to sit in silence as the industry is attacked with crushing regulation, if they get their way.
Remember the Andrew McLaughlin Emails? Timothy Carney points out that they reveal the White House to be violating the pledge to attack special interest lobbying.
It doesn’t matter that nearly all House Republicans are against it, and a good number of Democrats besides. It doesn’t matter that ATR is against it, CNBC warns it could “kill the Internet,” or that we just don’t need it.
The FCC has gone ahead and put out a Notice of Inquiry to go ahead with Deem and Pass reclassification of ISPs away from being “information services” under the law, which was the plainly obvious intent of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. You see, in Comcast v. FCC, the courts have strictly limited how much regulation the FCC can do of information services. So, the FCC is going to declare that ISPs are now phone companies, and regulate accordingly.
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When the FCC announced plans to declare that ISPs are no longer information services, but are instead phone companies, the FCC claimed the authority to regulate content and prices on Internet service nationwide. And no matter how many times the neo-Marxists at Free Press (and their front group Save the Internet) claim that Net Neutrality is all about “preserving an open Internet,” the FCC’s actions are all about command and control.
Even Democrats see the problem, as 72 House members of the Democratic persuasion signed a letter to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski urging him to slow down and let the Congress do its job, instead of taking matters into his own hands and defying the law and the courts to do so.
Update: It’d help if I link the right letter.
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