“You can fool some of the people some of the time but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.”

Nowadays it seems that those who have a “feeling” of power have lost sight of this simple proclamation, especially politicians and executives in big business. More so today because those two are working hand in hand!

But this medium I have the absolute pleasure to be able to work in is increasingly putting the end to this crap these folks attempt to confuse us with! The playing field is getting leveled, and rightfully so!

How many of you noticed this?

Bush Administration Rules Limit Lawsuits

“Faced with an unfriendly Congress, the Bush administration has found another, quieter way to make it more difficult for consumers to sue businesses over faulty products. It’s rewriting the bureaucratic rulebook.

Lawsuit limits have been included in 51 rules proposed or adopted since 2005 by agency bureaucrats governing just about everything Americans use: drugs, cars, railroads, medical devices and food.

Decried by consumer advocates and embraced by industry, the agencies’ use of the government’s rule-making authority represents the administration’s final act in a long-standing drive to shield companies from lawsuits.”

And how many of you still favor immunity for telcos? Why? Did I hear anyone mention Net Neutrality lately?

Post from: EveryJoe

You Can Fool Some Of The People

Net Neutrality’s not anti-property, it’s about our property
Ars Technica – Boston,MA,USA
Scott Cleland, founder of telecom analyst firm The Precursor Group, is out blasting the developments, saying that open access and “net neutrality” advocates are “antiproperty” according to the IDG News Service. Nothing could be further from the truth. …

Net Neutrality Guru Tim Wu on Clinton and Obama
By Matt Stoller
Issues just like net neutrality have become major political issues at other crucial times in U.S. history. It happens when private power has reached intolerable levels, and particularly when private entities control new technologies that are of growing importance to the whole country. …

AT&T Filtering Plan Violates BellSouth Merger
By schang
But less discussed — and equally important — are the ways AT&T’s proposed filtering violates the Net Neutrality conditions the company reluctantly agreed to back in December 2006 to seal its mega-merger with BellSouth. …

NextGenWeb Catches up with California PUC Commissioner Rachelle Chong
By NextGenWeb
During her keynote speech, Commissioner Chong discussed how a hands-off regulatory approach has fueled Internet innovation and how open market structures have shaped its success. She also spoke about her recent paper titled “The 31 Flavors of Net Neutrality: Beware of the Trojan Horse” which argues that Net neutrality is a concept with many unintended consequences. …

Net Neutrality is Necessary for Free Exchange of Ideas
City on a Hill Press – Santa Cruz,CA,USA
Currently, the Internet is “neutral,” which means that Internet Service Providers (ISPs) cannot prioritize one website over another. According to net neutrality, cityonahillpress.com has just as much right to deliver information to its viewers as the website of the New York Times or of Microsoft. The Internet portrays a true definition of free speech to an extent that our parents could only have dreamed of, but this is being threatened.

The REAL News Creates Custom Video Player
By Steve Anderson
For those who haven’t heard about it, TheREALNews is a new, independent, non-profit, independent world news network based in Toronto. It’s the kind of project that reminds us about the importance on Net Neutrality, since innovative projects like this would never get off the ground without an open, non-discriminatory Internet.

Google’s Schmidt named chair of think tank
CNET News.com – San Francisco,CA,USA
New America Foundation has one big technology initiative, “Wireless Future,” in which reports have been written supporting the principle of Net Neutrality.

Groklaw Interview
By Nicholas Reville
It touches on a lot of issues that drive the creation of Miro and make our project different than proprietary competitors: open-source, eliminating gatekeepers, net neutrality, DRM, and others. Groklaw interview with Nicholas Reville.

Why America needs media reform ASAP
By MCM
And AT&T keeps telling us that Net Neutrality isn’t needed, that we should just “trust them” not to censor the Internet. But they won’t even allow someone to raise the issue on their show. We have arrived at a unique time in the history of media, where traditional gatekeepers to information are threatened by a revolution in communications. Big Media’s reaction is the same they have taken for decades: shut down discussion, dictate policies, increase profits, and maintain control.

My Interview in WorldChanging
The conference, focused on net neutrality and net regulation, is a must-go if you’re concerned about the future of the open Internet.JL: “Net neutrality” has always been more complex than public conversations would suggest. …

Post from: EveryJoe

Net Neutrality Links 02-11-2008

From the “Wireless Industry’s Daily Monitor” (which ought to say “something.”);

FCC: 98% of U.S. has choice of 3 carriers

“According to the FCC’s annual wireless competition report, 98 percent of Americans in 2006 had three or more carrier options, while 94 percent had four or more carriers to choose from. The number of counties with five or more carriers servicing them, however, was only 59 percent. In 2004 some 87 percent of counties in the U.S. had five or more carriers servicing them, while the number dropped to 51 percent in 2005. During 2004 and 2005 Sprint and Nextel merged, Verizon and MCI merged and AT&T bought Cingular. The FCC remains pleased with the results of the study and claimed that recent open access rules on the C Block of the 700 MHz auction would only add to the level of competition in the industry.”

Here’s the complete FCC report. Read it through and see if you don’t notice or think about how much has changed in a short time. Why do these outfits perceive us as ignorant of reality?

One quip from the report;

“The report demonstrates that U.S. consumers continue to experience significant benefits – including low prices, new technologies, improved service quality, and choice among providers – from competition in the CMRS marketplace.”

Low prices??? Choice among providers??? Improved service quality???

Yes, damn right they perceive us all as ignorant…

Post from: EveryJoe

Do You Believe This?

Grant Gross obviously has no idea that Scott Cleland is a paid shill for the Telcos, not a critic – wake up Grant.

Maybe you should not be neutral about Net neutrality
Honolulu Star-Bulletin – Honolulu,HI,USA
Tiered pricing is a key argument in the bigger fight over Net neutrality. Net neutrality is an egalitarian belief that Internet users should be able to …

US Presidential Candidates Reveal Positions On Some IP Issues
Intellectual Property Watch – Geneva,Switzerland
The best way to address the concerns of proponents of Net neutrality is to remove government-imposed barriers to entry into the Internet provider market. …

Our Tech President Endorsements: Barack Obama and John McCain
TechCrunch – Atherton,CA,USA
He is staunchly in favor of net neutrality, and has promised to make it a priority to reinstate it in his first year in office. He has proposed intelligent …

U2 Manager Wants ISPs to Filter File Sharers; Threat Level Calls For U2 Filter
By Ryan Singel
For a program to sequester all U2 packets into Room 641a, THREAT LEVEL would gladly denounce every tenet of Net Neutrality and endorse rigorous, unrelenting deep packet inspection. Atchung Baby! I’d even pay permanent surcharge on my …

Congressional Hearing Hears Testimony that Public Access Channels are Under Threat by Cable Firms and AT&T
It wasn’t until COPE hit the Senate where Senator Stevens got tangled up in tube talk and net neutrality that the federal franchise train derailed for good. COPE failed, but a legislative template had been put in place, after all the …

Telcos Win Big In The House Over Net Neutrality
VoIP-News – San Francisco,CA,USA
The Markey amendment to mandate Net Neutrality was defeated and removed before passage of the overall bill with a vote that was somewhat along party lines … Although voting on the bill and amendments was not expected until Friday (today), the FCC, telco lobby and opposition in the house to Net Neutrality all stepped up activity yesterday and rushed voting on the bill and amendments through.

Net neutrality: Return us to a productive landscape
By Robert Woodrich
There’s a lot of loose talk about network neutrality these days. Do they mean neutral as in Switzerland, or neutral as in PRNDL (think car transmission)? Network neutrality means freedom to compete honestly, freedom to innovate and, ultimately, freedom to express ideas. Net neutrality is summarized in three principles: nondiscrimination, interconnection and access. …

Telecom Colorado Campaign Donations Shift to Democrats
By Dan Whipple
As the new Congress considers legislating network neutrality for internet service providers, telecoms in Colorado are piling on the campaign cash for Democrats who will decide the issue. Campaign donations from telecoms in the state have shifted dramatically from Republican candidates to Democratic ones over the 2004-2008 election cycles.

Critic: Tech companies trying open spectrum too much
InfoWorld – San Francisco,CA,USA
By Grant Gross, IDG News Service. Tech companies pushing for access to spectrum “white spaces” and for net neutrality and open access on broadband and wireless networks have an antiproperty agenda, said one critic on Wednesday.

Open access and other conditions on the 700MHz spectrum currently being auctioned by the FCC may be suppressing bids and limiting the uses winning bidders have for the spectrum, added Scott Cleland, founder of telecom analyst firm The Precursor Group, speaking at the U.S. Congressional Internet Caucus Advisory Committee’s 2008 State of the ‘Net Conference in Washington, D.C. Cleland voiced a contrarian view during a discussion of spectrum policy; other speakers called on the U.S. Congress and the FCC to open up more spectrum to unlicensed uses.

Here Comes Trouble: The Future of Free
By Daniel Berninger
As with efforts to unwind net neutrality, competition represents a last resort for most telcos. Net neutrality keeps the dream of counting bits like minutes on hold, because as long as a voice bit costs the same as a video bit or a …

Post from: EveryJoe

Net Neutrality Links 02-03-2008

Robert McChesney’s “Communication Revolution”
OpEdNews – Newtown,PA,USA
They include challenging media concentration, protecting net neutrality, and since 2003 hosting an annual national conference for media reform that brings …

The Efficiency Risk Of Net Neutrality Rules
By admin
The Efficiency Risk Of Net Neutrality Rules George S. Ford, PhD, Thomas M. Koutsky, Esq. and Lawrence J. Spiwak, Esq., The Phoenix Center For Advanced Legal And Economic Public Policy Studies May 2006. Network Neutrality proposals risk …

Google Welcomes Washington
By David All
Google’s CEO, Eric Schmidt, was on-hand for the launch and gave a short speech on the importance of Net Neutrality and building a bipartisan coalition to better work with Washington on the policy issues it cares about. …

Filtergate: AT&T’s Growing PR Problem
By Peter Kafka
But it’s a sign of things to come: “Net Neutrality” is a hard issue to explain to most folks. But the notion of AT&T “reading your IM” is a lot easier to convey, and sure to rile folks up. This would be a tough sell even if it wasn’t an …

Internet freedom means net neutrality, not “pay-as-you-go” broadband
By Martin
This leads me to the excellent paper authored by Sascha Meinrath on how the concept of net neutrality needs to be incorporated and expanded into a larger vision of Internet freedom. Meinrath’s paper (available as a free download, …

The Economics Of Net Neutrality
By admin
Mandating net neutrality would be likely to reduce economic welfare. Instead, the government should create competition in the broadband market by liberalizing more spectrum and reducing entry barriers created by certain local …

Short codes, text messages under scrutiny
RCRNews.com – Golden,CO,USA
And I’ve testified up on Congress that there’s no need for net neutrality legislation because I believe the commission has the authority today to enforce …

Gigi Sohn on Net Neutrality
Gigi B. Sohn, co-founder and President of Public Knowledge, was a guest on C-SPAN’s The Communicators on Jan. 19. She talked about several Net-Neutrality related issues

Expanding Our Concept of Net Neutrality
By Sam
NYU Law School hosts its first Information Technology Society (”ITS”) Colloquium of the Spring semester next Friday, February 1st in Greenwich Village. 12:30-2:00pm Furman Hall 245 Sullivan Street, Room 334 New York Frank Pasquale, …

Economic downturn is worst time for net neutrality proponents to be discouraging universal broadband
By Scott Cleland
We’ll soon see if net neutrality proponents are reasonable and responsible. Do they grasp that calling for preemptive, anti-investment, regulation of broadband that would discourage deployment of broadband to all Americans — is the …

Net-neutrality sellout Al Wynn’s inept youtube video
By Cory Doctorow
Matt sez, “Al Wynn, a cosponsor of last year’s COPE Act which would have gutted net neutrality, released a fake news video to rebut charges of corruption. The funny thing is that he reiterates the charges in the video, something you …

Net neutrality: Return us to a productive landscape
Seattle Times – United States
Network neutrality means freedom to compete honestly, freedom to innovate and, ultimately, freedom to express ideas. Net neutrality is summarized in three …

Music Biz Pushes Piracy Blame To ISPs; Digital Sales Up 40 Percent
By Robert Andrews
The other carrot on IFPI’s stick is net neutrality – it’s trying to tell ISPs that P2P “chokes (their) bandwidth”, warning of a collapsing infrastructure. Stats from the IFPI’s report??? – Piracy: A 20-to-1 ratio of illegal-to-legal …

Economic downturn injects reality into net neutrality movement’s nano-management petitions
By Scott Cleland
Net neutrality proponents failed to persuade every official body in 2006 and 2007 to support net neutrality legislation/regulation, because most every responsible official could plainly see that net neutrality was a solution in search …

Free Speech and Net Neutrality: Separating Fact from Fiction
By blog@aclu.org (James Tucker, Policy Counsel, ACLU)
The debate surrounding net neutrality raises several free speech questions. Is net neutrality really the “First Amendment of the Internet,” as some of its supporters maintain? Are internet service providers (ISPs) right when they argue …

What is reasonable network management? My remarks at the San Fran net neutrality symposium
By Scott Cleland
Remarks for the University of San Francisco Net Neutrality Symposium. January 26, 2008. Thank you for including me in this forum and debate on net neutrality.

Post from: EveryJoe

Net Neutrality Links 01-27-2008

Groups Press FCC on Comcast, Net Neutrality (Washington Post)
Several consumer groups are challenging federal regulators to stop Comcast from interfering with Internet traffic on its network.

[FCC.com is the place for all news and information regarding the Federal Communications Commission. Vote for your favorite stories, or become a member to submit stories.]

I didn’t know Net Neutrality was a feminist issue
By Marianne
But in another move that lends credence to the idea that feminism isn’t about women, it’s about the whole liberal agenda, NOW put out an action alert asking its cronies to demand Net Neutrality.

Is secret favouritism ruining Net?
London Free Press – Canada
By David Canton, Freelance Writer
Net neutrality is a topic that continues to simmer and remain a going concern for some Internet activists, while for others, including Internet service providers (ISPs), it’s a non-issue and something critics and fear-mongers are espousing to create problems…

Monday Inspiration: Data Visualization and Infographics
By Vitaly Friedman & Sven Lennartz
This infographic is supposed to emphasize the importance of net neutrality; it isn’t really a data visualization, but it instantly delivers the message: this is how our future might look like …

Flattening the American Internet
TMCnet – USA
Debates around net neutrality highlight some underlying issues. The goal of net neutrality is to preserve the open and interconnected nature of the public …

Net Neutrality – Why Every SEO & Small Business Owner Should Care
By Bretton Jones
Welcome to the politics of Network Neutrality! Net Neutrality, as an issue, has come about as the result of the large telecoms claiming that while providing internet service, they have the right to limit bandwidth or block access to web …

FCC Taking On Comcast for Non-Net Neutrality?
By Kristen Nicole
The larger issue is of course net neutrality, and with this being an election year for a new president in the White House and a renewed interest in the regulation of various Internet protocol, services and related companies, …

The Common Sense Case Why Network Management Trumps Net Neutrality
By Scott Cleland
No one should mistake the FCC doing its job in investigating significant allegations (by issuing public notices for comments), for an FCC predilection against reasonable network management in favor of net neutrality supremacy. …

The Network Management Excuse
CircleID – Vancouver,British Columbia,Canada
Cleland’s willful ignorance extends to the end-to-end principle as it is embodied in Internet architecture. It surfaces in his claim that Net Neutrality would overturn the Americans with Disabilities Act. He ignores the fact that the Internet shifts the whole idea of “accessibility” to the application layer. He ignores the fact that once a carrier provides the pipe, it doesn’t need to worry about the accessibility of the applications. The programmer, not the carrier, turns text to speech for the blind, amplifies the lower frequencies for the hearing impaired, and provides the voice command interface for those unable to use a keyboard. Only in telcoland are apps and pipes inextricable.

Could Use-Based Broadband Pricing Help the Net Neutrality Debate?
By David Robinson
… they can monetize, and against the traffic they can’t. By allowing them to monetize all traffic, a shift to use based pricing would weaken one of the most persuasive reasons network operators have to oppose net neutrality.

Akamai As Proof Of A Non-Neutral Net?
WebProNews – Lexington,KY,USA
An interesting Net Neutrality micro-debate has surfaced surrounding Akamai and whether Akamai’s services are a violation of Net Neutrality principles. …

FCC starts Comcast cover-up on net neutrality
ZDNet Blogs – USA
The Bush FCC has launched an “inquiry” which will likely kill net neutrality complaints by deeming throttling of BitTorrent traffic “reasonable. …

Doing the Big Thing
By Doc Searls
With Time Warner Cable does the right thing, David Isenberg breaks ranks with fellow net neutrality advocates by lauding Time Warner Cable’s “plan to charge more when you send or receive more Internet data”. David explains, …

Post from: EveryJoe

Net Neutrality Links 01-20-2008

You might want to read the articles about how AT&T has been lying/manipulating/fudging again to get their way…

Eight technology law issues to watch in `08
Toronto Star – Ontario, Canada
Net neutrality concerns mount but politicians do not respond.

Net neutrality, which has been simmering as an issue in Canada over the past three years, will reach a boiling point this year as leading ISPs implement traffic throttling technologies that undermine the reliability of some Internet applications and experiment with differing treatment for some content and applications. Despite consumer concerns, politicians and regulators will do their best to avoid the issue.

Net Neutrality Wins Iowa
Matt Stoller’s article reprinted from The Huffington Post
An open and accessible media is the only fully mature part of the progressive infrastructure, with a sound governance theory (put media as close to the people as possible), and strong adherents in most sectors, including Congress and …

E-Vote: Assessing the Influence of Technology on the 2008 Presidential Elections
Government Technology – Folsom,CA,USA
TechPresident, a Web site “covers how the 2008 presidential candidates are using the Web and … how content generated by voters is affecting the campaign.” Questions include net neutrality, warrantless wiretapping, America as a theocracy, medical marijuana and many more.

CNET political article provides dose of reality for net neutrality
By Scott Cleland
CNET has a great article: New Hampshire voters: Net Neutrality? Huh? that exposes what we all know — that net neutrality is a niche special interest issue that is not at all on the minds of average Americans. …

A Net Neutrality Investigation Pending
By admin (MIT.edu)
The FCC’s response will be an important test of its willingness to enforce “Net Neutrality,” the principle that Internet traffic be treated equally by carriers. The agency has a broadly stated policy supporting the concept, …

Is AT&T Siding With NBC To Get Rid Of Neutrality?
Techdirt – USA
I tend to be skeptical when people start screaming “net neutrality” when it’s not warranted, but here’s a situation where it may be worth asking a few …

AT&T Concessions Prove Meaningless
WebProNews – Lexington,KY,USA
Remember how after AT&T made Net Neutrality concessions to get their merger with BellSouth approved, FCC Chairman Kevin Martin was so quick to remind …

Net Neutrality and Price Discrimination
In the latest of a series of looks at the economics of the Internet, mathematician Andrew Odlyzko, director of the Digital Technology Center at the University of Minnesota, takes a dispassionate look at the dispute and concludes that while carriers certainly have a strong interest in charging premium prices, it is hard to come up with an economic justification for them doing so.

Hillary Clinton’s Lobbyist Driven Telecom Plans
By Matt Stoller
Hillary Clinton’s ‘Connect America’ plan to expand broadband access, which is based on a private-public partnership model called Connect Kentucky. Well, it turns out that Connect Kentucky is basically a fraudulent front group funded by government grants set up by telecom interests to advance their legislatve agenda and lie about internet access. And what Clinton wants to do is spread it nationwide.

Frustrated net neutrality zealots are lashing out at a universal broadband success story
By Scott Cleland
An obviously frustrated Art Brodsky of Public Knowlege, trashes the Nation’s leading and successful pilot effort to promote universal broadband in the country — Connect Kentucky — in a voluminous post that’s best described as a …

Post from: EveryJoe

Net Neutrality Links 01-13-2008