Category Archives: Distributed Participation

Principles: the FCC’s Don’t Mean Squat –Cleland

fccprinciples.png Duopoly apologist Scott Cleland spells out what everybody should have already known:
The petitions assume that the FCC’s policy of network neutrality principles have the legal and binding effect of formal FCC rules or law and that they trump all existing law and rules. This is preposterous.

— The Common Sense Case Why Network Management Trumps Net Neutrality, Scott Cleland, Precursor Blog, 15 Jan 2008

Indeed, it is preposterous to think that the FCC ever meant to enforce its net neutrality “Policy Statement” of August 2005. Even if it did, the very way the four “principles” in that statement are worded, every one in terms of consumers, excludes the very existence of participatory services such as BitTorrent.

Cleland’s blog goes to great lengths to spell out what he considers common sense (which means he knows he doesn’t actually have a legal argument). Don’t be surprised if his items get parrotted by other anti-Internet-freedom blogs. And don’t be surprised if the FCC rules in favor of Comcast, even though any competent network engineer can tell you that there are ways to do network management that don’t involve faking reset packets, a technique that would be considered malicious denial of service if it came from any entity other than an ISP, not to mention Comcast’s BitTorrent stifling seems closer to the fraudulent promise of unlimited service that got Verizon fined by New York State.

[Clarified:] It’s not about network management. It’s about a few corporations and their political allies trying to stifle net neutrality and Internet freedom against the best interests of everyone else, including their own customers.

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Virtual Web, Real World

raphael.raph.koster.jpg Muddying the web:
Raph Koster makes the point that virtual worlds are becoming more and more intertwined with (and perhaps indistinguishable from) the web. Anything with an avatar, a way to have both real-time and not-real-time communication, and some spatial metaphors is both a virtual world and… Facebook.

So here’s a downloadable manuscript called The Web: Hidden Games. It’s not the deepest piece of writing, but it’s an implementation of the Raph idea. The author cheerfully suggests that Facebook, YouTube, and Digg are addictive because they’re really games. They’ve got set rules, they’re fun, and you can try to beat the other guy.

— Are you winning at Digg? Susan Crawford, Susan Crawford Blog, 10 Jan 2008

I think this is right, and it’s just an extension of how Mosaic, the original web browser came to be: Marc Andreesen decided to mix computer game interfaces with Internet access.

I don’t think Raph or Susan goes far enough. Continue reading →

FCC: Shocked to Hear There’s Gambling Going On!

captain_renault.jpg The dateline is ironic:
LAS VEGAS (AP) — The Federal Communications Commission will investigate complaints that Comcast Corp. actively interferes with Internet traffic as its subscribers try to share files online, FCC Chairman Kevin Martin said Tuesday.

A coalition of consumer groups and legal scholars asked the agency in November to stop Comcast from discriminating against certain types of data. Two groups also asked the FCC to fine the nation’s No. 2 Internet provider $195,000 for every affected subscriber.

“Sure, we’re going to investigate and make sure that no consumer is going to be blocked,” Martin told an audience at the International Consumer Electronics Show.

—FCC to Probe Comcast Data Discrimination, By PETER SVENSSON, AP, 8 Jan 2008

In other news, Las Vegas Board of Realtors announces investigation of gambling! Sorry; I made that up.

Note that Martin is not only chair of the FCC that continues to enable telecom and media consolidation, he also continues to refer to ISP customers and participants as “consumers”, as in the old broadcast model where the broadcasters produce and you the customer are expected to consume whatever they give you.

The organization doing the most investigating of stifling, blocking, etc. by Comcast, Cox, et al., has been the Associated Press, which also originated this story. Interestingly, the AP is not owned by any of the usual five companies that own most of the media in the U.S. The AP is a non-profit cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers. So one of the few national news organizations in the U.S. that has not been consolidated is the one that has been investigating stifling by ISPs.

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PS:

“I’m shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!”

—Captain Renault, Casablanca, 1942

Users Revolt: Net Neutrality Wins

NodeMagazine.jpg This is the path to net neutrality:
“See-bare-espace… it is everting.”

—Odile Richards, Spook Country by William Gibson, 2007

Long version:
Top Ten Predictions for 2008

1. The Users Revolt. As advertisers focus in on social networking sites, users revolt against this trend, and power shifts in the worlds of Social Networking from owner to user, on issues ranging from Second Life rules and Facebook privacy to Cellphone Billing. Users will gain new leverage.

— My Top Ten Predictions for 2008, Mark Anderson, Strategic News Service Blog, 22 December 2007

He picks up on some of many signs of users’ discontent, such as Facebook’s Beacon fiasco: Continue reading →

Edwards on Net Neutrality

Yes and yes:
U.S. presidential candidate John Edwards is for net neutrality, already sent a letter to the FCC about it, and would only appoint FCC commissioners who support it. He also gets the connection with media consolidation:
“What we have to do is make certain the net does not go the way of broadcast television and commercial radio where only a few corporate voices are heard.”

John Edwards: Net Neutrality, answering www.10questions.com, YouTube, Dec 2007

Among other candidates, Barack Obama already answered the question. Hm, looks like Huckabee has, too; more on that in another post.

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Moderate? Comcast Stifling Isn’t

MagrittePipe.jpg Promising unlimited access, not delivering, and refusing to admit it is managing a network for the good of the many above the activities of the few? Pete Abel thinks so:
Earlier this month, Comcast — the nation’s largest cable broadband company — was caught doing what any good Internet Service Provider (ISP) should do, i.e., manage its network to ensure that the online activities of the few don’t interfere with the online activities of the many,

Fair vs. Foul in Net Neutrality Debate, By Pete Abel, The Moderate Voice, 24 November 2007

The problem with Comcast stifling BitTorrent by faking reset packets from a participant is not that Comcast is trying to manage its network: it’s that Comcast used a technique that if it came from anyone other than an ISP would be considered malicious denial of service, that Comcast still hasn’t admitted doing it, and that Comcast bypassed numerous other methods of legitimate network management, such as those used by PlusNet. Comcast could even use the Australian model and sell access plans that state usage limits and throttle or charge or both for usage above those limits. What Comcast is doing it seems to me is much closer to the false advertising of unlimited access that got Verizon slapped down for wrongful account termination.

The biggest problem with what Comcast (and Cox, and AT&T, and Verizon) are doing is that their typical customer has at most one or two choices, which in practice means that if your local cable company and your local telephone company choose to stifle, throttle, block, or terminate, you have no recourse, because there’s nowhere to go. Competition would fix that.

Abel tries to back up his peculiar interpretation of network management with revisionist history: Continue reading →

FaceBook Beacon Bulb Changed: Online Mall Changes Due to Users’ Privacy Concerns

minority_gap.jpg One problem with outfits like MySpace and Facebook is the same as that with shopping malls: they feel sort of like public space, but they’re not. They’re privately owned and operated, and you never know what the private cops are doing with their security camera information, or the stores are doing with all that purchase information. In the case of Facebook, when Facebook announced (to advertising executives, not to its own users) its Beacon system to provide its users information to companies for targetted ads, and that Coca-Cola, Sony, and Verizon had already signed up, Om Malik told Facebook’s users (and the Internet at large), and the users didn’t like it.

Facebook tried ignoring Malik, tried painting him as an elitist pundit, and finally announced users will be explicitly asked whether they want to publish the information that Beacon uses. Facebook didn’t do this until after moveon.org got involved and turned it into a political issue. Malik is chortling over bringing about this Facebook about-face in only three weeks: from 7 to 29 November.

The moral here seems obvious, and twofold:

  1. Internet users do expect some modicum of privacy.
  2. An Internet company can’t announce something to somebody else that affects its users without the users finding out about it.

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Verizon Unlocked by 2008?

padlock_unlocked.png Well, this is news:
Verizon Wireless today announced that by the end of 2008 it will “provide customers the option to use, on its nationwide wireless network, wireless devices, software and applications not offered by the company.” — Verizon Wireless To Open Its Network, Platform, GigaOm, by Om Malik, Tuesday, November 27, 2007 at 6:38 AM PT Comments (12)
Reacting to Google bidding for 700Mhz? Responding to customer demand? Of course, it says by the end of 2008, so Verizon will know who won the U.S. elections by then and could change its mind.

Om Malik follows up with some speculations and consequences, including you’ll have to pay full price for your phone. He didn’t mention that that might mean that Verizon is also reacting to the iPhone, which, while closed (in the U.S. at least, although unlocked in China) already has users paying full price, and plenty of users did.

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Obama’s CTO

obama3.jpg U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama says he will appoint a Chief Technology Officer (CTO) for the government, and he has specific tasks for this person, which go well beyond the current administration’s reactive defensive technology policies. For example:
He wants Cabinet officials, government executives and rulemaking agencies to hold meeting that are open to the public and transmitted with a live feed. The CTO’s mandate will be to ensure this happens. Specifically, Obama wants the public to be able to comment on the White House website for five days before legislation is signed.

— Exclusive: Barack Obama to name a “Chief Technology Officer”, By Matt Marshall, VentureBeat, 13 November 2007

Well, that would be a bit different from the current FCC, which doesn’t even announce hearings on its own web pages. Continue reading →

Normative net neutrality: Milton Mueller on free association and free trade

milton-mueller-1.jpg Free as in free speech, free association, and free trade: Milton Mueller drafts an Internet governance paper using net neutrality as its central principle.
… as a normative guide to policy, network neutrality transcends domestic politics. The network neutrality debate addresses the right of Internet users to access content, services and applications on the Internet without interference from network operators or overbearing governments. It also encompasses the right of network operators to be reasonably free of liability for transmitting content and applications deemed illegal or undesirable by third parties. Those aspects of net neutrality are relevant in a growing number of countries and situations, as both public and private actors attempt to subject the Internet to more control. Because Internet connectivity does not conform to national borders, net neutrality is really a globally applicable principle that can guide Internet governance.

— Net Neutrality as Global Principle for Internet Governance, Milton Mueller, Internet Governance Forum, 5 November, 2007

Basically, instead of getting mired in discussions of bandwidth or technical methods of stifling, throttling, or censorship, let’s get back to deriving net neutrality from general political and economic principles, which turns out to make net neutrality a convenient lens by which to view those principles and to apply them to the Internet. Continue reading →