YouTube is already displaying the scrupples of its new owner Google, i.e. "Censorship is fine if it suits our business interests; but, if not, its a matter of principle.".
This World Net Daily article is a bit sensational in the sense that the send up of Albright was not blocked but had an extra warning jump installed in front of it.
On the other hand, a few weeks ago Michelle Malkin was evicted from youtube.
So much for "net neutrality".
I've often wondered if I should bother putting my phone on the don't call list, apparently it works.
I am far less offended by telemarketers than by the inveterate spammers who seem to stop at nothing to take over my computer (last week, not only did I receive hundreds of e-mails I didn't want, but some one of these cyber villains took over my computer and began e-mailing 10 thousand of my closest friends).
I wouldn't exactly call the 'Do Not Call List' a private market solution, but it seems to be sort of a government negotiated truce in a telecom war. I'm waiting for the cyber market to find a more seamless and simple solution, before someone decides the government has to do it.
From IT&T News:
Prompted by questions around the blogosphere about how network neutrality will affect the “computing-as-a-utility” model, I offer this slightly jaded appraisal of how net neutrality regulation would end up playing out in a world where both public and private networks co-exist.
Steven Titch is probably too modest to boast about his own work, but he's written an excellent op-ed on net neutrality that's been picked up by the San Francisco Chronicle.
Just a few months ago, network neutrality was a fairly esoteric subject confined mostly to technology sites like this one.
Overnight, it seems, calls for enforced network neutrality reached a fever pitch and are finding their way onto editorial pages and political Web sites everywhere.
MoveOn.org is convinced that without network neutrality, the end of the Internet is at hand. Popular musicians like Moby and Michael Stipe have lent their voices to the cause, exhorted breathlessly at www.savetheinternet.com. Now Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) has introduced legislation that would impose a network neutrality scheme on service providers. Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, wants to make it an antitrust violation to set preferential rates for Internet services.
Continue reading "In a Net Neutral World, Who Pays for Bandwidth Management?" »
The three-percent tax in long-distance service, a 107-year old relic of the Spanish-American War, is no more.
The Department of Treasury announced it would no longer collect the tax, meaning phone bills just got a little bit cheaper. One can hope this might have some impact on the rationale for state excise taxes (usually much higher) on service.
Large companies had been suing the IRS—and winning—on whether the tax could be applied to flat rate charges.
More info here.
It's funny, as anecdotes of diminishing privacy in the electronic age continue to flow from that 'unlikely' source of government - and the Bush administration in particular, the less reasonable and precedented our expectation of privacy implicated in a certain 'breech', the more cogitated I become.
The latest foible (I hesitate to say the latest, as a putative later foible is reported here on The Volokh Conspiracy) is, ironically enough, not constitutionally invasive. So called envelope information, e.g., who you send a letter to, or who you call on the phone, is not protected by the 4th amendment, only the contents of the communication is protected constitutionally. A serious discussion of the distinctions between envelope and content information attends Orin Kerr's tour de force: Internet Surveillance Law After the USA Patriot Act: The Big Brother That Isn't.
Nontheless, libertarian shops have an expected propensity for rejecting the legitimacy of these phone record collections, but an ironic apparent affection for stautory law that appears to make phone companies the villains here (see good compilation at Reason.com).
What is distinctly lacking in prevailing libertarian analyses is a distaste for statutory liability being visited on private parties whose relationships with their customers ought to be governed by freedom of contract and not opportunistic legal activism -- even if fueled by libertarian principle.
Continue reading "phone phishing -- for a good time call..." »
[The Heartland Institute released the following statement on May 11, 2006. It may be quoted or reprinted in full, with proper attribution. The statement is also available here. - Editor]
"Network neutrality," a misguided policy that would require phone and cable companies to make no distinctions in the way they transmit all Internet traffic, is being cloaked in the robe of Internet freedom. Truth is, the network neutrality campaign is little more than an attempt by the nation's largest bandwidth users to avoid paying the cost of the network disruption they cause.
Within a week of each other, agencies in two states ruled that Internet Protocol (IP) video service, as designed, is not a cable TV service and therefore not subject to state regulations regarding the payment of video franchise fees.
The decisions are as courageous as they are logical and come at a time when both state and federal legislators are revisiting the local video franchise process. In Oklahoma, Attorney General Drew Edmondson issued an official opinion stating that a telephone company with existing statewide authority to place its phone lines in the public rights-of-way doesn't need to obtain separate municipal franchises if it plans to provide additional services -- including video -- over its phone lines.
Continue reading "Franchise Bombshells in Oklahoma and Connecticut" »
In a decision that drives home the stakes of video franchise reform, the village of Roselle, Ill., this week passed an ordinance halting AT&T’s broadband upgrades for 180 days while the village determines if the network additions require a separate video franchise.
The vote coincides with a coordinated push by the DuPage (County, Ill.) Mayors and Managers Conference to halt AT&T network upgrades in cities, villages and towns within in this suburban county that comprises Chicago’s outer western surburbs.
In a memo to DuPage city officials, Mark Baloga, executive director of DMMC, recommended towns immediately pass ordinances similar to Roselle’s that outright halt local broadband upgrades. He further advised communities stop granting right-of-way permits for AT&T Project Lightspeed and urged cities to adopt new ordinances that specificially create franchise regimes that cover the services AT&T is proposing.
Continue reading "DuPage County, Ill., declares war on broadband" »
Common Cause Tuesday issued a report “exposing” a group of organizations as supposed “lobbying fronts” for the telecommunications industry. The report, “Wolves in Sheep’s Clothing: Telecom Industry Front Groups and Astroturf,” lists nine organizations it says “try to mimic true grassroots, but that are all about corporate money, not citizen power.” Despite the title, it takes no position on artificial playing surfaces.
You can find this list here.
Admittedly, some groups on the list, such as mywireless.org, Keep It Local NJ and Consumers for Cable Choice, are principally funded by single sectors within the telecom industry. However, like many liberal groups these days, Common Cause undermines its own case by overreaching.
Most of the reporting of the AT&T-BellSouth merger can’t help but raise the irony that it seems to be re-assembling the old Bell System. After all, the combined AT&T-BellSouth will incorporate four of the seven regional Bell companies created by the 1984 settlement that ended the six-year antitrust case against the old Ma Bell.
Certainly the irony is fair to cite, but beyond that, a lot has been forgotten about the details of the antitrust settlement and its original goals. All that remains is the popular assumption that local and long distance service must be kept separate to preserve telecom competition.
The AT&T break-up is commonly misunderstood to have been a judicial order and a punitive judgment against monopoly behavior.
Continue reading "A Little Bit of History: The AT&T Break-Up Was Not Court-Ordered" »
From a Heartland News Release Yesterday:
"The proposed merger of AT&T and BellSouth is another step in the necessary transition of the U.S. telecommunications industry from voice toward integrated broadband and video services. Consumers will benefit in many ways."The cost of last-mile broadband access--the most expensive part of the broadband network--will continue to drop because AT&T will be able to take advantage of greater economies of scale. The same holds true for the cost and quality of content. A combined AT&T-BellSouth will be in a better position to give consumers nationwide what they want: a functional bundle of basic and premium broadband services and applications that work across voice, video, and wireless platforms.
"Still, news of the merger has brought the same predictions from opponents who warn of higher prices and less competition. They appear not to have noticed--or do not wish to acknowledge--that despite more than a decade of carrier consolidation, broadband prices continue to drop and competitive alternatives flourish.