Did Grassroots Power Push FCC in Right Direction on Net Neutrality?

No, internet giants like Google and Facebook did. People with as much money than the telecom giants did it~jef.

 

Monday, February 02, 2015

by Common Dreams

Wheeler likely to support strict net neutrality protections after backing off from pro-industry initiatives

by Nadia Prupis, staff writer

 

 

Following a months-long campaign by consumer advocacy groups that pushed for strict protection of the internet, Federal Communications Commissioner Tom Wheeler appears to be ready to introduce some of the strongest regulations possible on Thursday ahead of the FCC's final net neutrality vote on February 26, according to reports.

Those regulations include redefining broadband as a public utility under Title II of the Communications Act, a policy change that has been touted by internet watchdog groups as one of the most important net neutrality protections available.

Once a lobbyist for the cable and telecommunications industries, Wheeler initially supported lax regulations that critics said would open the door to controversial paid-prioritization policies, known as "fast lanes," allowing internet service providers to charge higher fees for speedier website loading times.

According to reporting by Politico on Monday, "interviews with FCC officials, industry executives and representatives of public interest groups reveal the origins of his dramatic pivot on this issue: an intense and relatively brief grass-roots lobbying campaign that targeted two people — him and President Barack Obama."

Pressure from digital rights groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Free Press, which galvanized support from consumers and progressive media figures, saw Wheeler steadily backpedaling on his initiatives last year. His shift appeared near-complete after President Barack Obama spoke out in favor of strict net neutrality regulations on November 10.

Wheeler proposed in April new rules that would allow ISPs to create fast lane deals with internet companies as long as they were "commercially reasonable."

In response, a coalition of internet watchdogs and consumer advocacy groups launched a months-long series of campaigns against the chairman's proposals, while protesters camped out in front of FCC headquarters.

On June 1, Last Week Tonight host John Oliver ridiculed Wheeler and his proposed rules in a segment that quickly went viral, sending hundreds of thousands of consumers to the FCC website to comment in favor of stronger net neutrality regulations. Within months, four million emails and comments had come in, breaking FCC records.

Wheeler then moved towards a hybrid proposal that would impose Title II rules on parts of the internet, but not all of it. That, too, was met with disapproval by watchdogs and tech companies alike.

Meanwhile, Obama had also been under pressure from internet advocacy groups, who urged him to speak out in favor of stricter regulations. On November 10, he did just that, issuing a statement that called for using a Title II reclassification to safeguard the internet, "one of the most significant democratizing influences the world has ever known."

Earlier this month, Wheeler indicated support for reclassification of the internet as a public utility under Title II, bringing praise from Free Press president and CEO Craig Aaron who said, "Chairman Wheeler appears to have heard the demands of the millions of Internet users who have called for real net neutrality protections."

FCC Wants to Give Corporations Their Own Internet

And now the rights of corporate ownership officially supercede those of individual citizens. this isn't new, but the courts and the bureaucracy are going ahead and getting the big govt sellout locked in so we won't be able to repeal these inane conflicts of interest for a very long time or without extreme difficulty. Fuck corporate rule! Corporations aren't people. They should be dismantled every 20 years with the remaining holdings distributed among their workers, who may then apply for a brand new corporate charter, starting over from scratch every 20 years. It would help to prohibit the ridiculous amount of control a few corporate CEOs  and their executive boards have over our joke of a political process. Lobbying needs to be redefined with stricter limits, as well. And when you are interviewing for jobs in the public and private sector, you need to choose which one you'll stay in for 7 years. No more of this revolving door between regulating agencies and the industries/companies they regulate. It's all a huge shitsoaked conflict of interest that has destroyed a whole generation of workers, at least, and cannot provide any kind of future for the next generations of US citizens. The oligarchy must be destroyed by any means possible. Corporate leadership is far from patriotic: they hold the bulk of their fortunes in tax haven banks overseas to keep from paying taxes, drastically undercutting the federal budget during a crucial period in a failing economy 6 years deep in a "small d" depression, AND these traitors get to dictate policy and handpick their own candidates to do their bidding while holding office? Bullshit! Hang them all high! They betray everything sacred about this country and her consitution, all to make themselves richer at the expense of the nation and her people.

EAT THE RICH! and pile their bones up so high they reach the moon.--jef

++++++++++++++

The New Proposal Mocks Net Neutrality
by ALFREDO LOPEZ


When a federal court trashed its “net neutrality” compromise policy in January, the Federal Communications Commission assured us that the Internet we knew and depended on was safe. Most activists didn’t believe federal officials and this past week the FCC demonstrated how realistic our cynicism was.

The Commission announced last week that among its proposals on the Internet, due for full discussion on May 15, was one which would give access providers the right to sign special deals with content producers for connections that are faster and cleaner than the connections most websites use. It’s precisely the nightmare that court decision threatened.

In the predictable outcry and immediate debate over the FCC’s announcement, however, two major issues seemed to be lost.

To deliver this faster connection, the Internet giants will have to change the Net’s protocols, establishing a fast lane that completely destroys the technological basis of Internet neutrality. They will, effectively, be allowed to set up an alternate Internet.
At the same time, the announcements raise a question about the FCC’s role. To develop this proposal, it has obviously been talking to the very companies it is supposed to regulate and has written regulations based primarily on a concern about their ability to make lots of money.

Isn’t this the opposite of what federal regulation is supposed to do?

When the debate dust settles, it appears that not only may we lose the Internet as we know but we have no agency in government looking out for our interests.

The background has been covered on this website but, to recap:

Access (or service) providers offer connections to put you on the Internet and give you several speeds to choose from. They are mainly cable companies like Comcast and telecommunications companies like Verizon. Content providers use those connections to deliver what you want to see and read. Every website owner is a content provider, including biggies like Netflix.

Net Neutrality is the principle that service providers — like Verizon and Comcast — can’t discriminate in the delivery of content or provision of access based on user, content, site, platform, application, type of attached equipment, and modes of communication. If you go on-line, you can reach everything anyone else can. It was the law until this past January.

That was when a federal court struck down the provision finding that cable companies like Comcast weren’t subject to the neutrality rules that govern telephone companies and so net neutrality, based on the telecom industry’s practices, didn’t apply to high-speed providers. They are, after all, cable companies and anyone who subscribes to cable television with its multiple “programming packages” that give you a monthly dose of sticker shock knows there’s nothing “neutral” about cable.

In short, service provider companies can now charge content providers money to speed up their content delivery and the content providers can limit access to that faster content to people paying a higher price for it.

While the decision was based on cable company practice, it obviously benefits telecoms like Verizon who also offer high-speed service.

Apparently, the FCC wasn’t too unhappy either. Chairman Tom Wheeler (a former telecom industry lobbyist) reacted in stunningly triumphant terms, assuring us all that our access to the Internet will be completely protected. In fact, he said the ruling actually gives the FCC more regulatory power. This new proposal, carving out a slice of the Internet for rich corporations to operate more quickly and cleanly, was apparently what he meant.

In his defense of the current FCC plan, Wheeler explains that we would all still have access to everything on the Internet. The proposal, he explains, “will restore the concepts of net neutrality consistent with the court’s ruling in January.” But that January ruling threw Net Neutrality out the window and it’s clear that with this new proposal our access to certain content will be slower, more prone to start and stop “buffering” and less crisp than the faster connection unless we pay more for it.

It’s like the locksmith assuring us that our broken door lock will remain broken.

If that spasm of regulatory double-speak doesn’t provoke a groan, the argument by decision defenders will: they say that, while the companies will pay for the faster connection, no access provider will charge the consumer more for it.

But the content provider will. Obviously an outfit like Netflix is not going to offer this higher speed service that it is paying the access providers handsomely for to customers without charging them more for it. In fact, if past practice is any indication, even those of us who don’t or can’t pay for faster internet service we will all see our fees for watching this kind of on-line content rise, whether we’re watching it on the faster connection or not. Netflix pays Comcast more and charges the pass-along costs (with some profit mixed in): just the kind of hustle Net Neutrality was invented to prevent.

If the proposal is approved, as is expected, Net Neutrality will be buried. But the true threat to the Internet’s existence isn’t only the “pay for speed” proposal. To make this happen, providing companies will have to restructure their technology to allow for a faster “lane” on the Internet. There already are, of course, various speeds of “high-speed” service and that is maintained by the company’s determining which connecting server the customer is going to access. When you enter the Internet you are immediately connected to a server that handles outgoing and incoming traffic at a specific speed. If you pay for higher speeds, you get the higher-speed systems with their servers.

All of this, however, has up to now been handled at the user or customer level. The Internet itself remains the same. What the FCC is proposing is a new way of regulating speed. Now it is the content provider who is assigned a specific speed lane and any user who pays can access that high-speed content. To make this possible, the access provider will have to establish not a higher speed connection server but a completely separate connection to the Internet. This isn’t a faster lane on the highway; it’s a completely separate highway.

With that “alternate Internet” established, and with a small empire of developers continuously improving it, the power of providers to control all Internet content is now in place. They can start with Netflix, but they legally have power to channel any Internet content over that super-highway, leaving most content providers in the dust. That will certain include most websites your visit, including this one. As speed over the Internet improves with new technological development, guess where most of the development investment is going? As new streaming technology improves, content developers will have to pay to take advantage of it and most of us just don’t have that kind of money.

The impact is also international because the Internet has no national boundaries and the rules governing any U.S. based company apply to all its activities world-wide unless the government of a specific country objects. That objection will rarely happen because most governments won’t care or will take a pay-off (in the form of a tax payment or licensing fee) to shut up. In fact, governments all over the world can now treat this as another form of revenue.

This kind of corporate control over the Internet and our communications is frightening and control is what the corporations are seeking. It’s been the goal of every major company to control as much access as they can, growing their “user-base” and profits in the process. In fact, the prospect of a wide open internet has now attracted a couple of “data giants”: Google and Facebook. Each company is now developing technology to provide access to everyone on earth using signal bouncing balloons (in Google’s case) and drones and satellites (in Facebook’s). While both companies protest that their intentions are altruistic (providing Internet to all humans), the timing of their plans in light of this decision seem like the good old pursuit of profit.

Rhe main question isn’t whether these people will try to do this because that’s answered by their history: Of course they will. The question then is: What is the FCC doing about it?

This week, coalitions of Internet freedom activists were making plans to make their presentations before the FCC and to lobby Congress and to do letter-writing campaigns to just about any concerned person in government. All of this has proven to be important and useful work and it has ended in some successes in the past.

But why should any of us have to do this? Isn’t the very role of the FCC to protect and represent the public? While neo-con steroids that have been driving it for the last two decades, the FCC’s legal responsibilities remain the same: not to protect the interests of corporations but to protect our interests against corporations.

Clearly, with a proposal that represents corporate interests, the FCC isn’t doing any such thing. Some of us aren’t surprised; none of us should be.

Is This the End of Net Neutrality?

Privatizing the Public Good
by DAVID ROSEN


On Tuesday, Jan. 14th, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) Open Internet Order. In its decision, the Court found that the FCC lacked the authority to implement and enforce the order it put forth in 2011.

The FCC’s order was intended to prevent broadband Internet service providers (ISPs) from blocking or interfering with data traffic on the web. This policy – if significantly watered down — is in keeping with the both the open access traditional of U.S. communications services since the 1930s and the spirit of the Internet since its inception three decades ago.

Verizon challenged the FCC’s authority to regulate digital communications. Historically, ISPs must treat all data equally and are barred from slowing down or blocking websites. Verizon claimed that FCC regulatory practice violates its 1st Amendment right to edit, prioritize or block its customers’ access to the Internet. Ironically, the Court’s decision comes after a 2010 ruling that the FCC could not stop Comcast from blocking BitTorrent’s video sharing program.

The Court found that the FCC, having deceptively reclassified the Internet as a “information” services, could not impose the same obligations as traditional “common carrier” telecom services like old-fashion “pots” (plain-old-telephone). Judge David Tatel wrote, “Given that the Commission has chosen to classify broadband providers in a manner that exempts them from treatment as common carriers, the Communications Act expressly prohibits the commission from nonetheless regulating them as such.”

The FCC’s effort to reclassify the Internet as an “information” services was part of Bush-era policy to privatize online services. Pres. Obama’s former FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski — in the face of considerable public, activists and high-tech corporate pressure — tried to “square the circle” and maintain net neutrality while classifying the Internet as an information service. The Court’s decision is a rejection this legal fiction.

Over the last decade-plus, there’s been an increasingly close relationship between the FCC and its corporate clients – to the detriment of the public good. This was most graphically displayed in 2011 when Commissioner Meredith Attwell Baker, shortly following her approval of Comcast’s acquisition of NBC Universal, took a well-paying position with the cable giant.

Similar revolving doors are evident in the career paths of some recent chairmen. Kevin Martin, a Bush-II appointee, is now with Patton Boggs, a leading Washington, DC, law firm and lobbyist. Michael Powell, Gen. Powell’s son and appointed by Clinton, now heads the cable industry trade association, NCTA. William Kennard, also appointed by Clinton, previously an executive with the banking firm, Carlyle Group, where he specialized telecommunications and media in investments; he now serves as the U.S. Ambassador to the European Union. And Genachowski took a position at the Carlyle Group.

In November 2013, Obama replaced Genachowski with Tom Wheeler, a true industry insider, long a water carrier for corporate interests. He served as head of the NCTA from 1979 and 1984, and ran the Cellular Telecom and Internet Association (CTIA) from 1992 through 2004. Most recently, was a managing director at Core Capital Partners, a venture-capital firm, and a longtime Obama fundraiser.

Wheeler is likely to continue the FCC’s pro big-telecom policies. Nevertheless, a few days before the Court’s ruling, he came out with a strong endorsement of net neutrality. “Public policy should protect the great driving force of the open Internet: how it allows innovation without permission,” he said. “This is why it is essential that the FCC continue to maintain an open Internet and maintain the legal ability to intervene promptly and effectively in the event of aggravated circumstances.”

However, in 2009, he took a more compromised position:

Rules that recognize the unique characteristics of a spectrum-based service and allow for reasonable network management would seem to be more important than the philosophical debate over whether there should be rules at all. … The wireless industry’s initial reaction to net neutrality was to question its need and warn of “unintended consequences.” Accepting the inevitability of the concept, however, and working to maximize its positive effects – from appropriate network management, to flexible pricing and even new spectrum – could be the opportunity for a big win.

Say goodbye to net neutrality.

Verizon’s challenge to the FCC’s Internet order is only one element of a multi-faceted campaign to further privatize U.S. telecommunication services. A second front is being pushed by AT&T and involves proposed Congressional legislation that would essentially end all regulatory obligations. It insisted, “AT&T believes that this [traditional] regulatory experiment will show that conventional public-utility-style regulation is no longer necessary or appropriate in the emerging all-IP ecosystem.”

A third front is taking place outside the Washington beltway. The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) has been effectively promoting “model legislation” ending traditional telephone company accountability requirements. Such legislation has been adopted by at least 23 states. This legislation removed ”carrier of last resort” requirements, thus telecoms no longer have to serve small rural communities.

Two decades ago, the telecom companies – phone and cable — promised to build Al Gore’s “Information Superhighway.” To incentivize these private conglomerates, the industry were deregulated, permitting increased pricing, decreased service requirements and nearly no public accountability. Since then, they’ve pocketed an estimated $350 billion to build a post-modern digital telecom system. What do we have today? A 2nd-rate communications system! Further deregulations – especially the killing of net neutrality – will only make things worse.

Last year, many within the broad tech, Internet and media communities organized to halt the Hollywood studios and record companies from pushing new “anti-piracy” laws through Congress. The battle against SOPA-PIPA is a model campaign for the next battle against Verizon, AT&T and ALEC to preserve net neutrality and an open Internet.

Internet S.O.S.

Saturday, September 14, 2013 by Media Citizen

by Tim Karr







Last week we learned that U.S. and British intelligence agencies have broken the back of digital encryption — the coded technology hundreds of millions of Internet users rely on to keep their communications private.

Is the Internet on life support?

Over the weekend, Der Spiegel reported that the NSA and its British counterpart are also hacking into smartphones to monitor our daily lives in ways that wouldn’t have been possible before the age of the iPhone.

This news, just the latest revelations from the files of Edward Snowden, only heighten our sense that we can no longer assume anything we say or do online is secure.

But that’s not all. In a case that was heard in a U.S. federal appeals court on Monday, telecommunications colossus Verizon is arguing that it has the First Amendment right to block and censor Internet users. (That’s right. Verizon is claiming that, as a corporation, it has the free speech right to silence the online expression of everybody else.)
It's come to this. Government and corporate forces have joined to chip away at two pillars of the open Internet: the control of our personal data and our right to connect and communicate without censorship or interference.

The Surveillance Industrial Complex

A series of reports coordinated among the Guardian, the New York Times and ProPublica revealed that the NSA and its British counterpart have secretly unlocked encryption technologies used by popular online services, including Google, Facebook and Microsoft.

Using National Security Letters and other secret court orders, intelligence agencies can wedge their way onto the large telecommunications networks that move most of the world’s Internet traffic. Getting access to the data is only half the challenge. To read and sort these communications, the NSA works with a lesser-known assortment of security vendors that filter through mountains of data, target references and patterns of interest and crack codes designed to safeguard user identity and content.

Many of the companies that ply this trade are only now being exposed through “Spyfiles,” collaboration among WikiLeaks, Corporate Watch and Privacy International designed to shed light on the multibillion-dollar industry. According to the latest documents provided by Edward Snowden, U.S. intelligence agencies alone spend $250 million each year to use these companies’ commercial security products for mass surveillance.

Without safeguards that protect users from surveillance and censorship, the Internet’s DNA will change in ways that no longer foster openness, free expression and innovation.It’s part of a sprawling complex of companies, lobbyists and government officials seeking to rewire the Internet in ways that wrest control over content away from Internet users.

While motivations may differ, the result is the same: a communications network that works against the Interests of many for the benefit of the few.

Tearing the Fabric

The Internet wasn’t meant to be like this. Bruce Schneier, an encryption fellow at Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet and Society, writes that the NSA and the companies it works with are “undermining the very fabric of the Internet.”

Telecommunications companies are doing their part by giving spy agencies access to our data. They’re also bankrolling a multimillion-dollar lobbying effort to destroy Net Neutrality — the one rule that prohibits Internet service providers from blocking or degrading our ability to connect to one another, share information and use the online services of our choosing.

If Verizon wins its case in Washington, ISPs will be able to prioritize certain online content while degrading user access to sites and services that the big companies don’t like.

It’s a business that puts at risk the most integral function of the World Wide Web. Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the Web’s pioneer, saw the network as a “blank canvas” — upon which anyone could contribute, communicate and innovate without permission.

Berners-Lee’s invention relied on an open protocol that gave everyday users power over the network. This networking principle has far-reaching political implications, favoring systems that are more decentralized and democratic.

Without safeguards that protect users from surveillance and censorship, the Internet’s DNA will change in ways that no longer foster openness, free expression and innovation.

Media Policy

If we’ve learned anything during the Summer of Snowden, it’s that corporations and governments alone can’t be trusted to be good stewards of the Internet. We need media policies that protect our privacy and promote access to open networks.

The fight for these policies is being led by a diverse and bipartisan alliance of civil liberties and communications-rights organizations, including the ACLU, EFF, Free Press and Public Knowledge.

We’re not alone. Millions joined the call for Net Neutrality in 2010; millions more stood up to defend the Internet against the PIPA and SOPA Web-censorship bills in 2012. The battle to protect users’ privacy has engaged new audiences as we've learned more about the extent of the NSA's mass surveillance.

In each of these arenas, we’re working to stop bad laws, amend others and implement new policies that put Internet users first.

A grassroots movement is fueling this fight. If you haven’t joined us yet, now’s the time to step up and save the Internet.

How Corporate Power Seized the Internet

Digital Grab
by NORMAN SOLOMON


If your daily routine took you from one homegrown organic garden to another, bypassing vast fields choked with pesticides, you might feel pretty good about the current state of agriculture.

If your daily routine takes you from one noncommercial progressive website to another, you might feel pretty good about the current state of the Internet.

But while mass media have supplied endless raptures about a digital revolution, corporate power has seized the Internet — and the anti-democratic grip is tightening every day.

“Most assessments of the Internet fail to ground it in political economy; they fail to understand the importance of capitalism in shaping and, for lack of a better term, domesticating the Internet,” says Robert W. McChesney in his illuminating new book, Digital Disconnect.
Plenty of commentators loudly celebrate the Internet. Some are vocal skeptics. “Both camps, with a few exceptions, have a single, deep, and often fatal flaw that severely compromises the value of their work,” McChesney writes. “That flaw, simply put, is ignorance about really existing capitalism and an underappreciation of how capitalism dominates social life. . . . Both camps miss the way capitalism defines our times and sets the terms for understanding not only the Internet, but most everything else of a social nature, including politics, in our society.”

And he adds: “The profit motive, commercialism, public relations, marketing, and advertising — all defining features of contemporary corporate capitalism — are foundational to any assessment of how the Internet has developed and is likely to develop.”

Concerns about the online world often fixate on cutting-edge digital tech. But, as McChesney points out, “the criticism of out-of-control technology is in large part a critique of out-of-control commercialism. The loneliness, alienation, and unhappiness sometimes ascribed to the Internet are also associated with a marketplace gone wild.”

Discourse about the Internet often proceeds as if digital technology has some kind of mind or will of its own. It does not.

For the most part, what has gone terribly wrong in digital realms is not about the technology. I often think of what Herbert Marcuse wrote in his 1964 book One-Dimensional Man: 

“The traditional notion of the ‘neutrality’ of technology can no longer be maintained. Technology as such cannot be isolated from the use to which it is put; the technological society is a system of domination which operates already in the concept and construction of techniques.”

Marcuse saw the technological as fully enmeshed with the political in advanced industrial society, “the latest stage in the realization of a specific historical project – namely, the experience, transformation, and organization of nature as the mere stuff of domination.” He warned that the system’s productivity and growth potential contained “technical progress within the framework of domination.”

Fifty years later, McChesney’s book points out:

“The Internet and the broader digital revolution are not inexorably determined by technology; they are shaped by how society elects to develop them. . . . In really existing capitalism, the kind Americans actually experience, wealthy individuals and large corporations have immense political power that undermines the principles of democracy. Nowhere is this truer than in communication policy making.”

Huge corporations are now running roughshod over the Internet. At the illusion-shattering core of Digital Disconnect are a pair of chapters on what corporate power has already done to the Internet — the relentless commercialism that stalks every human online, gathering massive amounts of information to target people with ads; the decimation of privacy; the data mining and surveillance; the direct cooperation of Internet service providers, search engine companies, telecomm firms and other money-driven behemoths with the U.S. military and “national security” state; the ruthless insatiable drive, led by Apple, Google, Microsoft and other digital giants, to maximize profits.

In his new book, McChesney cogently lays out grim Internet realities. (Full disclosure: he’s on the board of directors of an organization I founded, the Institute for Public Accuracy.) Compared to Digital Disconnect, the standard media critiques of the Internet are fairy tales.

Blowing away the corporate-fueled smoke, McChesney breaks through with insights like these:

• “The corporate media sector has spent much of the past 15 years doing everything in its immense power to limit the openness and egalitarianism of the Internet. Its survival and prosperity hinge upon making the system as closed and proprietary as possible, encouraging corporate and state surreptitious monitoring of Internet users and opening the floodgates of commercialism.”
• “It is supremely ironic that the Internet, the much-ballyhooed champion of increased consumer power and cutthroat competition, has become one of the greatest generators of monopoly in economic history. Digital market concentration has proceeded far more furiously than in the traditional pattern found in other areas. . . As ‘killer applications’ have emerged, new digital industries have gone from competitive to oligopolistic to monopolistic at breakneck speeds.”
• “Today, the Internet as a social medium and information system is the domain of a handful of colossal firms.”
• “It is true that with the advent of the Internet many of the successful giants — Apple and Google come to mind — were begun by idealists who may have been uncertain whether they really wanted to be old-fashioned capitalists. The system in short order has whipped them into shape. Any qualms about privacy, commercialism, avoiding taxes, or paying low wages to Third World factory workers were quickly forgotten. It is not that the managers are particularly bad and greedy people — indeed their individual moral makeup is mostly irrelevant — but rather that the system sharply rewards some types of behavior and penalizes other types of behavior so that people either get with the program and internalize the necessary values or they fail.”
• “The tremendous promise of the digital revolution has been compromised by capitalist appropriation and development of the Internet. In the great conflict between openness and a closed system of corporate profitability, the forces of capital have triumphed whenever an issue mattered to them. The Internet has been subjected to the capital-accumulation process, which has a clear logic of its own, inimical to much of the democratic potential of digital communication.”
• “What seemed to be an increasingly open public sphere, removed from the world of commodity exchange, seems to be morphing into a private sphere of increasingly closed, proprietary, even monopolistic markets. The extent of this capitalist colonization of the Internet has not been as obtrusive as it might have been, because the vast reaches of cyberspace have continued to permit noncommercial utilization, although increasingly on the margins.”
• “If the Internet is worth its salt, if it is to achieve the promise of its most euphoric celebrants and assuage the concerns of its most troubled skeptics, it has to be a force for raising the tide of democracy. That means it must help arrest the forces that promote inequality, monopoly, hypercommercialism, corruption, depoliticization, and stagnation.”
• “Digital technologies may bring to a head, once and for all, the discrepancy between what a society could produce and what it actually does produce under capitalism. The Internet is the ultimate public good and is ideally suited for broad social development. It obliterates scarcity and is profoundly disposed toward democracy. And it is more than that. The new technologies are in the process of truly revolutionizing manufacturing, for example, making far less expensive, more efficient, environmentally sound, decentralized production possible. Under really existing capitalism, however, few of the prospective benefits may be developed — not to mention spread widely. The corporate system will try to limit the technology to what best serves its purposes.”

The huge imbalance of digital power now afflicting the Internet is a crucial subset of what afflicts the entirety of economic relations and political power in the United States. We have a profound, far-reaching fight on our hands, at a crossroads leading toward democracy or corporate monopoly. The future of humanity is at stake.

Freedom = Censorship?

Saturday, July 14, 2012 by MediaCitizen

by Tim Karr

 

Think you have the right to speak freely via cellphones, websites and social media? Well, the companies that provide you with access to the Internet don’t.

The framers drafted the First Amendment as a check on government authority — not corporate power. But whether we’re texting friends, sharing photos on Facebook, or posting updates on Twitter, we’re connecting with each other and the Internet via privately controlled networks.

 And the owners of these networks are now twisting the intent of the First Amendment to claim the right to control everyone's online information.

Right before the Fourth of July, Verizon filed a brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit that expressed this intent in no uncertain terms. The brief was part of the telecom company’s bid to overturn the Federal Communications Commission’s Net Neutrality rules, which prohibit carriers from blocking or discriminating against Internet users’ content.

In the brief, Verizon argues that the First Amendment gives the company the right to serve as the Internet’s editor-in-chief.

The First Amendment “protects those transmitting the speech of others, and those who ‘exercise editorial discretion’ in selecting which speech to transmit and how to transmit it,” the company’s attorneys wrote. “In performing these functions, broadband providers possess ‘editorial discretion.’ Just as a newspaper is entitled to decide which content to publish and where, broadband providers may feature some content over others.”

By “content” Verizon means all digital communications that cross its wires, from photographs of your cousin’s backyard barbeque to YouTube videos of human rights violations in Syria.

Verizon filed its brief quietly just before the July Fourth holiday, but it has caught the attention of the Internet freedom community like a skunk under the back porch.

This is not the first time Internet Service Providers (ISPs) have suggested that they have a First Amendment right to stifle speech online. AT&T argued in 2010 that its role is similar to that of an editor who selects content and speaks — and that it is not merely a conduit for the communications of others.

This defense of corporate censorship is no idle threat but a pretext for a full-scale takeover of the Internet — a move that first requires killing off any consumer protections that stand in the way.

We live in a time when growing numbers of people watch television programs, listen to music, create videos and share photographs via Internet connections provided by private entities.

A 2011 report from European Digital Rights states that ISPs and other technology companies are fast becoming the information cops of the world. The report paints a picture of an emerging “censorship ecosystem” fueled by private entities that often work hand in glove with governments.

This collusion serves both corporate and political interests. ISPs are seeking new authority to interfere with user traffic, including limiting access to the content of competitors like Netflix or shutting down the accounts of users they charge with sharing too much media. Governments are demanding that access providers help them filter and police the Internet — and that they do so under a veil of secrecy.

The most dangerous threats to free speech today lie at this intersection between corporate and political power. While businesses might do many things better than governments, our government is at least by definition directly accountable to the American people. So when Verizon claims the right to decide who gets free speech on the Internet, it’s making this claim as a benevolent despot, not as a representative democracy.

The framers of the U.S. Constitution could not have foreseen a time in which technology allowed more than a billion people to communicate via mobile phones connected to the World Wide Web. Nor could they have envisioned a world in which companies like Verizon, AT&T and Comcast wield more authority over our free speech than a British monarch.

And yet the First Amendment has survived to this day in defense of democracy’s most consequential right. People on both the left and right value freedom of speech. Just days after Verizon filed its brief, a diverse coalition of more than 1,000 groups and Internet dignitaries joined together behind a Declaration of Internet Freedom that establishes freedom of expression as its first principle.

But popular consensus behind free speech on the Internet is running headlong into media giants like Verizon that want to suppress open Internet culture.

Any claim that the First Amendment protects corporations — and not people — is absurd. And it shows just how far some companies are willing to go to control 21st century communications.

High Noon for Internet Freedom

Friday, September 30, 2011 by SavetheInternet.com

by Tim Karr

 

 

As democracy movements worldwide struggle to speak out via the Internet, many here in the U.S. may have overlooked an effort in Congress to undermine this basic freedom.

It takes the form of an arcane "resolution of disapproval" now wending its way through the Senate. If it passes, the resolution would void a recent Federal Communications Commission rule that seeks to preserve long-held Internet standards that protect users against blocking and censorship.

The resolution would remove these protections. It was put forth by industry-funded members of Congress who don't mind letting the few corporations who sell Internet access in America decide what we get to see, hear and read on the Internet.

These senators are also hoping the resolution will appease the most paranoid among the Tea Party faithful, who equate any consumer safeguard put in place during the Obama era with myriad and shadowy government plots.

Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), who pushed a similar measure through the House earlier this year, stoked these fears when she said, "the FCC is in essence building an Internet Iron Curtain that will restrict more of our freedom."

Blackburn's rhetoric puts her and other supporters of the resolution far outside of the mainstream of Americans, who believe that neither the government nor corporations should be able to censor lawful content online.

If Congress succeeds in passing this measure, it will go well beyond deciding whether the FCC's recent rules are appropriate. The resolution will prohibit the agency from engaging in any effort to protect Internet freedom. The move opens the path for corporations eager to take a wrecking ball to the open architecture that has made the Internet a great equalizer for all users.

Lobbyists and lawyers working for the likes of AT&T, Comcast and Verizon have argued that these companies need to take control of your clicks in order to more efficiently--and profitably--manage the abundance of user-driven innovations online. They promise to be good stewards of this unruly medium if only regulators would take away the one network protection that ensures everyone's right to connect with everyone else on the Internet.

That's not what the Internet's founders intended. They built the network to be free of gatekeepers, giving each user equal access to all the legal content and applications online.
These engineers couldn't have envisioned that this open design would, in a relatively short time, evolve to make the network a potent political tool for freedom movements and democratic organizing worldwide.

But it has. Think of the explosion of Internet organizing and political expression that has swept the world in 2011, from Tunisia to Tehran to Beijing, and is now being embraced in America by protesters determined to Occupy Wall Street.

Americans cherish freedom of speech as much as people across North Africa, the Middle East and Asia. An open Internet allows all sides of contentious issues to be heard by anyone who chooses to listen. It opens up a global pipeline for protest movements, a window for millions to witness injustices and a platform upon which to organize for a better future.

So ask yourself this. Do you want Congress to surrender your right to choose online to a company whose sole motive is to generate as much profit as possible? Do you want to wipe away the only protection that prevents any entity--be it corporate or government--from blocking our right to connect with one another?

The hardliners in Congress who support this resolution have joined in a pact with powerful Internet providers and free-market extremists to kill off your most fundamental online right.
It's now up to us users to use the open Internet to reclaim it.

Telecommunications Companies in the US May Be Spying on You Every Day

It's Not Just News Corp: There is reason to believe that the media we've entrusted to investigate abuses of privacy are part of the cover up.
By Eliot Cohen, Buzzflash at TruthOut
Posted on August 20, 2011


When Guardian reporter, Nick Davies, broke the story that Rupert Murdoch's News of the World had been hacking British citizens' voicemail messages, including those of a murdered teenager, there was a public outcry. Unfortunately, this is the tip of a glacial iceberg that has the potential to bring down a lot more than the News of the World.

Last year, without due public debate and input, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and Justice Department approved a merger between Comcast and NBC Universal that gave the Internet cable giant control over the programming of NBC news. At the same time, pursuant to the 2008 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Amendments Act, Comcast as well as all other telecommunication companies are required to cooperate with the Federal government in providing the facility for government to search through all electronic communications sent down their pipes.

So presently, the government, with the help of Comcast and other telecommunication companies, can hack everyone's phone and email conversations. Here also lies a new 21st century media model: a telecom company that owns and operates the infrastructure for the digital transmission of news and information; simultaneously owns the newsroom; and uses it infrastructure to assist the government in mass, warrantless surveillance of all American citizens.

The News of the World spied on a relatively few number of individuals for the purpose of getting a story. Comcast routinely spies on millions of people on behalf of government. The official purpose of such spying is to uncover terrorist plots; however, racial profiling can be used to conduct searches; mass sweeps are warrantless; and adequate judicial oversight of screening criteria and procedures is lacking. Worse still, in this brave new world, the media entrusted to keep an eye on government abuses of power is now part of this overreaching power structure.

Further, given the symbiotic relationship between media and government, there is nothing to stop Comcast from examining the email messages and phone conversations of rival news organizations, political opponents, and other persons and organizations of interest in an effort to "adjust" its news coverage and massage its bottom line. In fact, Comcast has maintained that it has a broad right to monitor its customers' email messages and Internet activities. It has an established history of having spied on its customers as well as preventing them from sharing files. Further, it is presently lobbying Congress to do away with net neutrality, the principle that assures that everyone, not just giant media companies, has an equal voice on the Internet. And, in 2008, Chris Albrecht, presently CEO of Starz TV, reported that Comcast's senior VP told him that Comcast was experimenting with installing cameras into its cable boxes thereby allowing it to see into people's living rooms and identify viewers.

Meanwhile, the Justice Department now has good reason to look the other way should Comcast engage in such eavesdropping activities since it is beholden to Comcast as Comcast is to government. As for the FCC, shortly after voting to approve the Comcast/NBC Universal merger, Commissioner Meredith Attwell Baker took a job working for Comcast as a lobbyist. This latter fact may be more disturbing than the fact that British Prime Minister Cameron employed former News of the World Editor Andy Coulson as his communications chief. Yet, the British Prime Minister had his head on the proverbial chopping block for so doing, while the curious revolving door at the FCC received virtually no press whatsoever. Small wonder, of course, that Comcast/NBC didn't cover the story.

Recently the progressive political talk show host, Cenk Uygur, was fired from MSNBC because he was not towing the establishment line. According to Uygur, MSNBC head Phil Griffin told him, "I was just in Washington and people in Washington tell me that they're concerned about your tone ... I'd love to be an outsider, outsiders are cool, but we're not outsiders; we're insiders; we are the establishment."

The meanings of the terms "insider" and "outsider" in this context are subject to interpretation, but there is one thing that is clear. The head of MSNBC thinks that the newsroom must work cooperatively with government. To be on the inside as opposed to the outside means to be a partner, not an adversary. In contrast, to be an outsider is not to be "in" with government. Outsiders are therefore able to maintain distance and avoid conflict of interest. Insiders have a conflict of interest in covering the news while outsiders don't. As the Fourth Estate, the press cannot be an insider and still do its job.

As an insider, Comcast has a conflict of interest in covering the activities of government. This conflict also includes its interest in maintaining access to government spokespersons, the loosening of media ownership rules by the FCC, tax incentives, and the awarding of military defense contracts (all of which impair corporate media's ability to objectively report government malfeasance).

Comcast/MSNBC is now also poised to hire Al Sharpton as Uygur's replacement. Sharpton was in fact a lobbyist for the Comcast/MSNBC merger, so the inbreeding and disintegration of an independent media couldn't be more obvious than in the case of Comcast.

But the idea of a giant telecom corporation such as Comcast, which simultaneously privately owns and controls the digital information highway and is also a major news provider, is a brand new idea. Couple this with the fact that this information gatekeeper is legally mandated to assist government in conducting mass, warrantless surveillance of all American citizens and the possibilities for violating citizens' civil liberty are incredibly high. Want to know if the corporate media/government is targeting progressive "outsiders"? Don't ask Comcast because this "insider" is doing the tracking

Presently, the corporate media landscape is one in which giant companies motivated by an insatiable thirst for money and power attempt to establish dominance. In this dog-eat-dog corporate world of mergers and acquisitions, both successful and failed, things rarely happen by accident.

It is therefore curious that the investigation into the News of the World's illicit eavesdropping activities, which had begun back in 2005, came to a head in 2011 just before Murdoch was about to seal a deal to purchase British Sky Broadcasting (BSkyB). This company is the UK's largest pay-per view satellite company and a major broadband Internet provider.

So what would have happened if Murdoch's parent company, News Corp, got hold of BSkyB? It would have made News Corp the primary pay-per-view satellite company in Britain. It would also have made News Corp an even more formidable pay-per-view and broadband competitor to Comcast.

It is worth noting in this regard that Comcast also has a longstanding history of interest in the UK media market, including having made in 2007 a bid to purchase Virgin Media, which owns and operates UK's only national cable network. Add to this that, in 2010, BSkyB acquired Virgin Media TV, which included VMTV's entire channel portfolio, airtime advertising, and long-term rights to use of its cable TV network for Sky's own basic subscription channels. And add to this that Virgin Media has just introduced the world's fastest cable broadband for the UK, which could only have made the potential acquisition of BSkyB by Murdoch an even greater threat to Comcast.

So, the Murdoch scandal, which nixed the deal for him, was good for Comcast, bad for News Corp. Did Comcast help to stir the pot?

A likely first response to this question is that it was simply the luck of the draw, nothing more. But the point is that, we cannot put such probative questions past doubt when it comes to companies like Comcast and News Corp. These companies do not care about justice; they care about maximizing their bottom lines; and justice and maximization of profit are not necessarily the same.

Comcast is now the rising star among these behemoth monsters. The Comcast/NBC Universal merger has given this company incredible power to control both conduit and content of news and information in the digital age. Its close ties to government have eviscerated the purpose of the media as Fourth Estate. And its power to spy on all of us under the banner of "national security" has made it a formidable threat to the free world.

The corporate media has kept these facts well hidden. Meanwhile, the Murdoch scandal is all over the news, and Comcast is none too happy to cover it.

News Corp surely deserves the bad press it is presently receiving; but there is also underway an insidious assault on our basic civil liberties that isn't even being investigated. Sadly, the media entrusted to launch the investigation is part of the cover up.

Astroturfing Net Neutrality

Tuesday, April 19, 2011 by Save the Internet
by Tim Karr

Free speech online has come under withering attack from the Astroturf lobby -- corporate front groups that are determined to hand control of the Internet to companies like AT&T and Comcast.

They've joined the forces of the Tea Party and pro-corporate attack groups like Americans for Prosperity to urge weak members of Congress to betray the public interest by voting to strip the Federal Communications Commission of its ability to protect our basic freedom to access an open Internet.

And betray us is exactly what House representatives did earlier this month, passing a "Resolution of Disapproval" (H.J. Res. 37), which is designed to let phone and cable companies block any speech they don't like, charge users anything they can get away with, and hold innovation hostage to their profit margins.

If this resolution gets by the Senate and White House, there will be little anyone could do to stop these companies. The good new is that President Obama has already vowed to veto this resolution. (You can make sure that it doesn't get to his desk by urging your senators to kill H.J Res. 37).

The aim of front groups supporting this industry agenda is to stoke partisan rancor and fear over a principle called Net Neutrality -- a basic rule that keeps service providers from deciding what content we get to see and share via digital networks.

A favorite line of theirs is to portray Net Neutrality as part of a left-wing conspiracy, dismissing the vast coalition of people of every political stripe who believe that an open Internet is a basic requirement of a healthy, modern democracy.

An article earlier this month at Andrew Breitbart's website Big Government painted Net Neutrality as "oppressive" and "leftists policies" and urged readers to phone up Democrats and urge their vote for a Congressional "Resolution of Disapproval" that had been embraced by Rep. Michele Bachmann and pushed by House Speaker John Boehner.

Americans for Prosperity, the industry-funded Astroturf group with deep ties to the Koch Brothers, had asked its members to send letters to these and other congressional offices calling Net Neutrality "Obama's Internet takeover."

"Regulating the Internet under the banner of so-called network neutrality has been a far-left obsession for years," argues Americans for Prosperity VP of Policy Phil Kerpen.

Rhetoric aside -- it’s worth noting that companies like AT&T and Comcast have delivered truckloads of money to the re-election campaigns of most of those who voted against Net Neutrality. A recent report by MapLight.org illustrates the corrupting influence corporate donations have had in “convincing” members of Congress to turn against the interests of their constituents on this issue.

In the House, front groups' targeted Democratic Reps. Jason Altmire (PA-4), Sanford Bishop (GA-2), Leonard Boswell (IA-3), Jim Costa (CA-20), Henry Cuellar (TX-28), Reuben Hinojosa (TX-15), Tim Holden (PA-17), Rick Larsen (WA-2), Mike McIntyre (NC-7), Jerry McNerney (CA-11), Gregory Meeks (NY-6), David Scott (GA-13), and Heath Shuler (NC-11).

Of these, only two – Reps. Bishop and Scott – caved to industry pressure by voting for the resolution. But most every one has received considerable sums from the phone and cable lobby.

Now members of the Senate are hearing the same tune.

This push comes at a time when phone and cable companies have begun limiting our ability to connect with others and share information. Some like MetroPCS have already announced plans to block certain video applications via the mobile Web. Corporations like AT&T, Comcast and Verizon are seeking to degrade access to competing services or sites that might threaten their bottom line; they’re also moving to penalize users who use their Internet connection for more data-intensive purposes than simple Web surfing.

Net Neutrality – like the First Amendment itself – is an issue that should transcend politics.

Despite the partisan blather, it has received support from all corners -- from the socially conservative Christian Coalition to the rights advocates at ACLU, from librarians and educators to video gamers, journalists, musicians and even Harry Potter fans.

More than two million Americans have sent letters to the FCC and Congress urging leaders to "stand with the public by protecting Net Neutrality once and for all."

That's what real grassroots look like.

Just last week, Internet pioneer and die-hard Net Neutrality supporter Tim Berners-Lee said that access to the open Internet is "human right" that we all have "duty" to protect.

He’s right.

But don’t let that stop the hyperventilating among Beltway hacks intent on turning this into a divisive and politically charged issue.

Members of Congress without regard to party or ideology should ignore the astroturfing of a few to protect an open Internet that helps so many.

AT&T/T-Mobile Merger Likely to Come at the Expense of Workers

By Eric K. Arnold | Sourced from The Media Consortium
Posted at March 21, 2011

Welcome to the Wavelength, your bi-weekly field guide to the world of media policy. Over the next four months, we’ll be compiling great content, connecting the dots, building context, and reporting how media policy impacts the lives of everyday people. From the ongoing battle over Net Neutrality to the wild world of Internet regulation, from partisan crusades to media accountability, the Wavelength is here to keep you in the know.

This week, we’re focusing on major mergers, holding telecom giants accountable, and the revolving door at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

So, without further ado, let’s take a spin through the media zone.

AT&T to Absorb T-Mobile?

On Sunday, AT&T announced it had reached an agreement with T-Mobile to buy the mobile phone service provider for $39 billion. As reported in the New York Times,  the deal would “create the largest wireless carrier in the nation and promised to reshape the industry.”

The immediate upshot is that the number of nationwide wireless carriers would drop from four to three, with Sprint Nextel running a distant third behind AT&T/T-Mobile and Verizon. Another impact could be higher rates for current T-Mobile customers. Advocates of the deal suggest it could improve AT&T’s oft-criticized service, resulting in fewer dropped calls. However, critics note that the roughly $3 billion in projected annual cost savings will likely come at the expense of workers at the hundreds of retail outlets expected to close, if the deal goes through.

Both the Justice Department and the FCC have to sign off on the merger before it can be approved, a process that could take up to a year.

House adds insult to NPR’s injury

On St. Patrick’s Day, the Republican-controlled House voted 228-192 to end federal funding for NPR. The move came on the heels of a secretly recorded video from conservative activist James O’Keefe that purportedly showed NPR fundraiser Ronald Schiller expressing support for Islamic fundamentalism and disavowing the Tea Party as “racist” — leading Schiller and NPR CEO Vivian Schiller (no relation) to resign. The video was later revealed to be excerpted and heavily edited from a longer video which places Schiller’s remarks in context.

At TAPPED, Lindsay Beyerstein watched the entire two hour video, and notes that:

O’Keefe’s provocateurs didn’t get what they were looking for. They were ostensibly offering $5 million to NPR. Their goal is clearly to get Schiller and his colleague Betsy Liley to agree to slant coverage for cash. Again and again, they refuse, saying that NPR just wants to report the facts and be a nonpartisan voice of reason.

As reported in the Washington Times, the Democratic-controlled Senate is unlikely to pass the bill, making NPR’s federal funding safe—for now. However, the timing of the vote suggests that House Republicans are essentially endorsing O’Keefe’s questionable tactics, showing that their dislike of the so-called liberal media is of greater concern.

Telecoms add ramming to their list of illegal practices

A recent AlterNet story by David Rosen and Bruce Kushnick details sneaky, unethical, and possibly illegal telecom tactics, the most recent of which is “ramming.”

“Ramming” happens “when a phone company‘s customer is put on a service plan or package s/he did not need or want or cannot even use.” According to the article, “An estimated 80 percent of phone company customers have been overcharged or are on plans they did not need or even order. These and other scams can cost residential customers $20 or more a month extra and small business customers up to thousands of dollars a month.”

These practices are insidious because modern telephone bills are so cryptic that it’s not easy for even the most astute customer to figure out they’ve been duped.

Powell’s next move

Last Tuesday, former FCC chair Michael Powell announced that he has taken over as president of the National Cable and Telecommunications Association. Leading media advocacy organization Free Press snarkily congratulated Powell via a statement from Managing Director Craig Aaron:

If you wonder why common sense, public interest policies never see the light of day in Washington, look no further than the furiously spinning revolving door between industry and the FCC.

Former Chairman Michael Powell is the natural choice to lead the nation’s most powerful cable lobby, having looked out for the interests of companies like Comcast and Time Warner during his tenure at the Commission and having already served as a figurehead for the industry front group Broadband for America.

AT&T imposes monthly usage caps

Finally, we’ve got more bad news for those unlucky enough to have AT&T as their Internet and cable service provider. As fc’s Nadia Prupis recently reported, AT&T customers who use the company’s U-Verse cable TV service and DSL hi-speed Internet services in the United States can expect a bump in their monthly bills if they exceed a new usage cap – 50GB for DSL customers and 250 GB for U-Verse users. Those who exceed the storage fee will be charged $10 extra for every 50GB over the limit.

Surprisingly, the telecom behemoth continues to insist their price-gouging moves are in the consumer’s best interests. According to an AT&T press release:

“Our new plan addresses another concern: customers strongly believe that only those who use the most bandwidth should pay more than those who don’t use as much.”

Personally, I don’t spend too much time thinking about how much bandwidth other people are using, as long as I’m getting the download speeds I’m paying for.

(And we're dumping our AT&T web service. Thanks for making it so easy, AT&T!--jef)

Franken sounds Net neutrality alarm at SXSW music festival

Monday, March 14, 2011 by the Star Tribune (Minn.)
Sen. Al Franken: "It's Time for Us to Use the Internet to Save the Internet” 
by Jeremy Herb

 

Sen. Al Franken brought his mantra of Net neutrality to Austin, Tex., Monday in a speech at the South by Southwest (SXSW) music, film and tech festival.

“We need to engage more voices in the debate — people who would be hurt if Net neutrality became a thing of the past,” Franken said. “Most of them just don’t know that the Internet they rely on could cease to exist as they know it.” Franken urged the friendly audience of musicians and digital entrepreneurs to join him protecting the Internet from what he warned would be a corporate takeover if Net neutrality rules were erased.

“We need to engage more voices in the debate — people who would be hurt if Net neutrality became a thing of the past,” Franken said. “Most of them just don’t know that the Internet they rely on could cease to exist as they know it.”

Franken, who also spoke at SXSW in his pre-Senate days, told the festival-goers, "It's time for us to use the Internet to save the Internet.”

Net neutrality, the concept that Internet providers treat all traffic equally, has long been a rallying cry for Franken. But the Minnesota Democrat has taken up the cause with new urgency once again after House Republicans voted last month to reverse the FCC’s Net neutrality rules passed in 2010.

Franken, who has his own problems with the FCC’s regulations, accused conservatives of hijacking the Internet debate. “They’ll tell you that putting rules in place to preserve Net neutrality as it exists today amounts to a government takeover of the Internet, a talking point deserves a place alongside death panels and Obama’s a Muslim,” Franken said.

Net neutrality opponents argue there’s already an open Internet, and Net neutrality rules are unneeded government regulation.

Check out the Star Tribune’s complete coverage of South by Southwest, where at least 36 Minnesota bands will be playing.

The Not-So-Neutral Net

The FCC’s new rules on Net Neutrality open the Internet to corporate discrimination. But it’s not too late to preserve Internet freedom.
Tuesday, January 25, 2011 by YES! Magazine
by Jenn Ettinger

The Internet was created as an “open” or “neutral” platform, and net neutrality is the principle that ensures that Internet providers can’t interfere with a user’s ability to access any content on the Web, whether it’s a community blog, a YouTube video, or a major news site. It’s essentially the First Amendment of the Internet.

In late December, the Federal Communications Commission enacted new rules on net neutrality—rules that are supposed to protect Internet users from discrimination and to prevent Internet providers like AT&T, Comcast, and Verizon from acting as gatekeepers on the Web.

But the FCC missed the mark, and its rules not only fail to protect Internet users, but bolster the big phone and cable companies’ ability to carve up the Internet among themselves. As Net Neutrality champion Senator Al Franken said, the rules are “simply inadequate to protect consumers or preserve the free and open Internet.”

During the presidential campaign, Barack Obama came out strongly in favor of net neutrality, saying he would “take a back seat to no one” on the issue. But in the end, Obama's FCC chairman, Julius Genachowski, failed to deliver on the president’s promise, instead issuing ambiguous rules riddled with loopholes that corporate lobbyists will easily undermine.

Over the past several years, the phone and cable companies have flooded Washington with millions of dollars and hundreds of lobbyists to buy support in Congress and put pressure on the FCC. Public interest groups and a few lawmakers have tried to fight back, and more than two million people have urged the FCC to adopt strong net neutrality rules, but Chairman Genachowski ultimately caved to industry demands and turned a deaf ear to the public.

What Went Wrong: Real vs. Fake Net Neutrality

At its core, real net neutrality is a clear rule of non-discrimination that governs all Internet providers. It means that your provider can’t slow down your service in order to speed up someone else’s. It means that your provider can’t exploit legal loopholes to slow down your access to Netflix while speeding up Hulu because it happens to own Hulu. It means that there’s one Internet, whether you access it from your home computer or your mobile phone.

But the rules that the FCC passed in December are vague and weak. The limited protections that were placed on wired connections, the kind you access through your home computer, leave the door open for the phone and cable companies to develop fast and slow lanes on the Web and to favor their own content or applications.

Worse, the rules also explicitly allow wireless carriers—mobile phone companies like AT&T and Verizon—to block applications for any reason and to degrade and de-prioritize websites you access using your cell phone or a device like an iPad. That means these companies could block something like the music service Pandora, while offering unlimited access to its own preferred applications, like VCast.

We’re already seeing what a world without real Net Neutrality will look like. Just weeks after the FCC’s vote, MetroPCS, the nation’s fifth-largest wireless carrier, announced new plans that would block popular applications like Skype and Netflix while favoring YouTube. This is particularly egregious because MetroPCS serves a lower-income audience that is increasingly moving toward the mobile Web as their only way to get online.

Some companies are already marketing “deep packet inspection” technology that would allow carriers to nickel-and-dime you by charging you every time you visit Facebook or try to stream a Vimeo video. If MetroPCS gets away with its scheme—which appears to violate even the FCC’s weak rules—you can bet that AT&T and Verizon will waste no time in unveiling their own plans, which would mean higher bills and fewer choices on the mobile Web.

Lastly, the FCC’s short-sighted action failed to contend with a series of drastic deregulatory decisions made during the Bush administration that severely hamstrung the FCC’s ability to oversee the phone and cable companies. By failing to restore the agency’s authority over broadband, the FCC risks seeing even these rules tossed out in court.

The FCC rules were designed to appease the phone and cable companies—but even that didn’t work. Verizon has already filed suit against the agency, showing that these gatekeepers will settle for nothing less than total deregulation and a toothless FCC.

Undoing the Damage

The FCC’s new rules are certainly a setback in the quest to protect the Web as an open platform and an integral piece of our communications infrastructure and our democracy. In the absence of clear FCC authority and oversight of the Internet and a strong Net Neutrality framework that protects your right to go wherever you want, whenever you want online, AT&T, Comcast, and Verizon are free to interfere with your Internet experience.

The FCC still has the opportunity to put in place a solid framework that would put the public interest above the profit motive of the phone and cable companies that it is supposed to regulate. And the FCC should take immediate steps to close the loopholes it created, to strengthen its rules, and to include wireless protections. The fight is far from over. We can work to change the rules, demand better oversight and consumer protections and make sure that the big companies can’t pad their bottom lines on the backs of their customers.

AT&T's Man in the White House

Saturday, January 8, 2011 by Save the Internet

by Timothy Karr

When President Obama said he was going to "bring change to Washington," no one expected William Daley to be his choice to get the job done. 

Obama's incoming chief of staff is about as corporate friendly as any Democratic insider can be, which is saying a lot. 

For supporters of an open Internet, Daley's appointment raises the prospect that the president will break all promises to defend Net Neutrality at the urging of a chief of staff determined to cozy up with industry and protect the status quo. 

The outlook for any progress under Daley is dim. 

Daley currently serves as a top executive at J.P. Morgan Chase & Co -- concerning those who had hoped to see this president rein in a reckless financial sector.

Daley once told the New York Times that the Obama administration had "miscalculated" by moving too far to the left on health care reform -- concerning those who had hoped the president would fight Republican efforts to repeal the law. 

Daley served as a special counsel to President Clinton in 1993, helping the administration's successful push to ratify NAFTA -- concerning those across the labor movement, who delivered supporters to Obama by the busload. 

It's worse for advocates of open and democratic media. From 2001 through 2004, Daley led lobbying efforts for SBC Communications, Inc. His first assignment was to lock in the company's local monopolies while allowing it to charge extortionate rates for competitors seeking to share SBC's lines, defying a basic communications principle known as "common carriage."

He was a top executive at SBC as the company laid the groundwork for its 2005 takeover of AT&T Corporation, after which it rebranded the merged entity as AT&T Inc. During that time, Daley worked very closely with Randall Stephenson, who has since risen through the ranks to become AT&T CEO and chairman. 

He joined Stephenson and former AT&T CEO Ed Whitacre in a 2002 meeting to lobby the FCC's top brass for industry deregulation. Daley, Stephenson and Whitacre wanted the FCC to declare that high-speed Internet access would no longer be considered a "telecommunications service," but rather an "information service." The regulatory change would give phone and cable companies broad latitude to raise prices, stifle competition and control consumer choice on the Web.

An all-too-compliant FCC obliged later that year, removing high-speed Internet access services from regulation under common carriage. Daley supported this radical move, which reversed the long-held rule establishing nondiscriminatory communications networks as essential to economic opportunity and innovation. (Read Aparna Sridhar's 2010 report for a good history of this deregulatory process). 

In so doing, the FCC undercut its own ability to keep Internet providers from gutting Net Neutrality and interfering with our right to connect to any website, service or application on the Web.

AT&T Stakes Its Claim to the Oval Office

Now companies like Comcast and AT&T are vying to be the Internet's new gatekeepers -- creating special lanes for their own websites and services, or for those of a few big corporate partners, while leaving the rest of us on a digital dirt road.

However you look at it, there are very few degrees that separate Daley from his successor at AT&T, James Cicconi, who now leads lobbying efforts for the communications giant. 

Daley's appointment to the White House brought praise from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, where Cicconi serves as a director. The Chamber marches in lockstep with AT&T in opposing Net Neutrality. Working together, the two groups have been very effective in buying up opposition to Net Neutrality among Democrats and Republicans alike. 

AT&T is the largest single corporate contributor to congressional campaigns, since 1989 giving more than $45 million in donations to both Republican and Democratic candidates. It spent nearly $13 million on DC lobbyists just in 2010. 

AT&T has staked out the legislative branch. With Daley to start work in days, it can now make a claim to the White House, too. 

Thus far, AT&T-funded Republicans have introduced one bill, designed to strip the FCC of its power to protect the open Internet. The president was expected to veto this and other anti-Net Neutrality legislation should it make its way to his desk. 

But with Daley at his side, how long will it be before Obama caves?

MetroPCS mobile data plans violate net neutrality, group claims

MetroPCS mobile data plans violate net neutrality, group claims
By Eric W. Dolan
Friday, January 7th, 2011

A plan by the the fifth largest mobile carrier in the United States to block access to certain web content based on its customers' data plan could be a violation of new "net neutrality" regulations.

MetroPCS has announced it will be offering three different pay-as-you-go mobile data plans that will make different parts of the web available depending on how much the customer pays.

The lowest plan, starting at $40 per month, offers unlimited talk, texting, web browsing, and access to YouTube, but blocks other streaming video sites, like Vimeo. The use of internet phone calling apps like Skype and the internet radio Pandora are also expected to be blocked.

For an extra $10, MetroPCS customers will be able to have access to an additional 1 GB of data as well as the ability to download music when connected to a Wi-Fi network. The company's $60 per month plan provides customers with unlimited data access and MetroSTUDIO premium content such as video-on-demand channels and audio downloads.

The three tiered data plan may violate FCC "net neutrality" rules passed in December because it restricts what services and sites are available to its users. The media advocacy organization Free Press is urging the FCC to investigate the mobile carrier for building a "walled garden for the mobile web."

"In December, the FCC chose to disregard wireless protections in its Net Neutrality order, and MetroPCS’s new scheme is a preview of the wireless future in a world without protections on the mobile Web," Free Press Policy Counsel M. Chris Riley said. "Such blocking of websites, services or applications would clearly be prohibited and deemed unreasonable on a cable or DSL network. Are these the kinds of restrictions the FCC really wants to promote on wireless networks?"

The new "net neutrality" regulations do not prevent companies from selling bandwidth in capped tiers, with overage charges for users who download more than their permitted share of information, but the regulations do restrict "unreasonable discrimination" against web content, such as the outright blocking of certain sites or software services.

It is unclear what the FCC considers "reasonable" discrimination and it is likely to make such decisions on a case-by-case basis.

Tiered pricing structures are already in place for many communications providers like AT&T and Cricket, which offer wireless broadband services. Verizon said it would implement similar pricing structures in the coming months.

"The open Internet order approved in December stated that the FCC was not implicitly approving practices on the mobile Web that violate its rule against unreasonable discrimination – and now we’ll see whether the agency is willing to do anything about such practices," Riley continued. "Silence in the face of ongoing violations is no different from outright approval."

Roger D. Linquist, president, CEO and chairman of MetroPCS claims the three tiered data plan allows for "more video, more sharing of their content and more Web browsing capabilities" and lets consumers decide how much additional data access they want to pay for.

"MetroPCS’s plan will restrict consumer choice and innovation in a developing mobile market, all for the sake of further padding its bottom line," Riley added. "The FCC must not stand idly by while carriers are engaging in anti-consumer and anti-competitive behavior, and we urge the agency to investigate."