ReasonedResponse.com

Here's the sad truth about the self-styled consumer groups, the "progressive" think tanks and others pushing the network neutrality agenda:  they could care less about about truth, fairness or neutrality.  They just don't want to lose their status and money.

Because if we really allow a free and competitive market to sort out possible neutrality problems, and empower consumers to think and act for themselves, what do we need those guys for?  Well, nothing.  And that's the crux of the matter.

I don't live and breath the NN debate, nor do I take time away from working on the fuel system of my 1987 Gold Wing Interstate motorcylce worrying about what outrageous blather these guys and their henchmen at FreePress.org and MoveOn.Org will do next.  What they do will be shown as nonsense in coming weeks, but the erratic fuel system on my motorcycle could prevent me from enjoying the skyline of the Blue Ridge Mountains this summer.  One has to have priorities in life.

But I am struck by some of the idiocracies that seem to come almost daily now:

• Google helped to champion the NN debate by proclaiming that no content provider's traffic should recieve special treatment by being moved over special, more reliable networks.  And yet Google does exactly that, using the private Akamai network to move its content.
• NN advocates screamed long and loud -- and demanded immediate FCC action -- over Verizon's initial decision not to carry policitical text messages related to abortion.  The media went ballistic, pundits raised a howl, FCC petitions were launched, etc.  Yet this week, when a UK group sued Google for not allowing their anti-abortion message to be advertised on Google's search engine, no one raised a peep.  Not one.  So much for their  commitment to neutrality.
• One of the foundation stones of the NN movement is that America has fallen behind in broadband deployment (though in truth, the OECD data showing the US in 14th place was based on adoption rates, which are different from deployment rates).  The OECD data was trumpeted by every left-wing, anti-American, anti-broadband web site in the galaxy.  This week, a better and truly independent study that showed the US to be 4th in the world in its broadband infrastructure and getting better every day was announced by the World Economic Forum, and few so-called tech media outlets could be bothered to mention it.  (CNet and the New York Times did, to their credit.  Not much of anyone else.)

There's a political agenda at work here, and a nasty one.  The truth is being ignored, so that "progressive" liberal sites can hold on to what little power they have and can do their best to dismantle and destroy what is universally recognized as the best and most effective broadband infrastructure in the world.

Shame on them.  They do an injustice to those liberals who truly want the best for our nation.  They do an injustice to the thousands of broadband companies and workers who have worked long hours and invested billions of dollars in this country's infrastrucutre.  And they mightily underestimate the intelligence of the Congress, the government employees and the consumers who aren't buying their smoke and mirrors.

And shame on us, for not speaking up against it more often.  

Actress Jane Ace left us that little gem, one of a long string of malapropisms she uttered during the long-running radio show Easy Aces.  And though she's been gone for more than three decades now, I can't help but think how well she's described Google.

Google isn't the first company to arrive in Washington, DC, with a pocketful of arrogance and cash, nor will they be the last.  If they are very, very lucky they will learn fast and perhaps go on to survive, as companies such as Microsoft and AOL have before them.  If they don't smarten up quickly, though, they are in very real danger of becoming just another flash-in-the-pan West Coast Internet has-been.

Think it's not true?  Let's do a quick tally of the wins and losses.

After successfully going public in August of 2004, and arguably heralding in a new era of successful Internet IPOs, Google saw its market capitalization skyrocket and its stock price nearly quadruple.  The company whose motto was "Don't be Evil" seemed well on its way to a significant role in the Internet community.  This was bolstered by a string of acquisitions aimed at diversifying away from being simply a "search engine."

Almost immediately, though, the company became embroiled in a series of Internet censorship cases, the most serious of which has been the blocking of content deemed inappropriate by the People's Republic of China.  This and other incidents have embroiled the company in a conflict between its role as a cosmic "good guy" and the realities of global citizenship.  And the conflict has, for free speech advocates, seriously tarnished Google's reputation.

Nor did the company's efforts to "game the system" in Washington, DC, help its reputation much.  Putting its money and status to the test, Google sought to use its influence to have the Congress and FCC mandate that it would never have to pay any distribution costs for providing content to consumers -- that consumers themselves would have to bear the cost of distribution of content over the Internet.  Wrapping its self-interests in the banner of "network neutrality" and promoting it as an effort to protect consumers, Google pushed for legislation in 2006.

That effort has largely backfired.  Google has lost credibility with both the Congress and the federal agencies, while at the same time aligning itself with far-left advocacy groups and alienating the majority of long-term Internet companies it will eventually have to do business with.

Nor did Google's follow-up to the "network neutrality" debacle help it.  Hoping to convince the FCC to mandate a market for its future "android" cellular system, Google pushed for and got a requirement that some of the spectrum auctioned off by the FCC in 2008 be deemed "open" to any cellular device or platform.  The result was a sluggish auction for that segment of the spectrum that cost taxpayers up to $12 billion in lost revenues.

These gaffes need not be permanent, and the company could in fact work its way back both to a position of credibility and prominence if it takes stock of its silliness and reinvents itself.  But there is little evidence the company is even considering such a move.

Worse yet, the company is slipping financially.  From a high of nearly $750 per share last fall, Google's stock price has plummeted to less than $460.  With revenues missing Wall Street's expectations and a looming economic downturn, those numbers will likely fall even more.

Nor have its diversification moves helped much.  Though it has made a series of acquisitions and entered a number of new businesses, most consumers perceive it primarily as a search engine.  And consumers do not seem to favor the company's growing role as the primary invader of privacy through its advertising initiatives.

Washington DC is much like any small town or country club in that they will gleefully take your money while mocking your self-importance and keeping you out of the serious business of running things.  While you are busy gaming them, they are just as busy gaming you -- and they are better at it because they've had more practice. 

If Google starts small, makes strategic alliances in its own industry, works diligently within the system and pays its dues for a while, it may someday gain access to the kind of real power that gets things done in Washington.  If it continues to ignore its own corporate slogan of "Don't be Evil" and embroil the industry in unnecessary, petulant and self-interested conflicts, it will be quickly relegated to has-been status. 

What's scary, funny and boring at the same time?

Maybe it's the way in which Peter Svensson at the Associated Press uses bombastic rhetoric about mundane things like ISP Terms of Service Agreements.

You may remember Svensson as the AP writer who stirred a tempest in a teapot over Comcast slowing the connections of some users on its network who were abusing their connections with massive BitTorrent file swaps.  Never mind that what Comcast did was not (and still is not) a violation of any law.  Never mind that its efforts were intended to protect the rights and interests of the hundreds of other Internet users.  Svensson got 15 minutes of fame, the taxpayers were billed millions of dollars for the FCC to spin in circles, and in the final analysis most subscribers to the Internet arestill happier if their ISP is doing something to keep bandwidth hogs from sucking up all of their capacity on the Internet.

But now Svensson is at it again -- this time, noting that the Terms Of Service (TOS) agreements used by most ISPs fail to be the the bill of rights he imagines they should be. 

Sorry, Peter, but those TOS agreements exist more than anything else to protect the ISPs from a myriad of lawsuits, misunderstandings and abuses they would otherwise suffer at the hands of a tiny minority of litigation-minded users -- not to protect consumers from their ISPs.  Consumers are protected by thousands of pages of consumer laws and at least two full-time federal agencies, not to mention a couple of self-appointed "watchdog groups."

TOS Agreements are written in complicated legalese because in the real world they have to protect the ISPs in a court of law, not on the front pages of USA Today.  They are arcane in nature because in our litigation-minded society they have to be.  They are lengthy because you never know when some wacky consumer will cost you thousands or millions of dollars by finding a loophole in the TOS and launching a nuisance lawsuit in the hopes of getting rich quick.

If you read far enough down in Svensson's article -- past the part where all the progressive liberal pundits pontificate on how this demands government intervention and/or control of the Internet, he does actually point out that the real use of these agreements has been to stop spammers and other miscreants.  He actually notes how the TOS agreements have been used, and shows how they aren't nearly as vile in real life as his lead in to the story would lead the reader to believe.  (He might have also noted, but didn't, that the right of an ISP to remove objectionalbe content was specifically demanded in law by the Congress in 1996.) 

But let's face it, if the point of his article had been to show how effective these TOS agreements are in stopping the bad guys, he could have simply said that up front.   

And a memo to Mr. Svensson:  if you want to read some eye-watering legalese that leaves the average subscriber with little or no rights, take a gander at the legal agreements the Associated Press foists on you if you want to use their content on your web site or in your newsletter. 

For a far more human -- and interesting -- take on ISP Terms of Service Agreements, I really like Svensson's follow-on piece, which takes a lighter view of the TOS agreements and pokes a little fun at some of their more arcane provisions without stirring up unnecessary conflict.  I found it over on Yahoo.

As I've noted before, I spent more than a decade in Internet public policy fighting the RIAA and other content providers over file sharing, protecting the right of the technology to exist and opposing legislation that would have been detrimental to consumers.

But as we move forward, and more legitimate sources to buy music and video online make sharing it seem more like theft than sharing, I grow weary of all the debates over it.  If you are downloading to the point that you are violating a TOS agreement, you aren't just downloading security patches from Microsoft.  You aren't just downloading an occasional song or two, or even watching a lot of YouTube videos.

You are stealing.

And I'm content to let that be between you and the copyright holders, until it comes to you sucking up the bandwidth I pay for so you can have your bootleg music and videos.  When it comes to that, I hope my ISP invokes the TOS, hangs you by your thumbs, flogs you without mercy and lectures you sternly.  Then cuts off your access.