Net Neutrality Sought by Government Officials Seeking More Control (Updated)

Today the FCC is set to begin drafting new rules and legislation on how broadband companies must manage access to the internet in an effort to provide you with more government controls over the citizens of the United States while providing exemptions to some companies.

The whole net neutrality issue comes along to fix a problem when no problem exists. Many have come to believe that this effort to further regulate the internet is

driven solely by political agenda as a way of suppressing opposition to the current administrations agendas. With much weight given to this concept as closed door meetings are reportedly being used to negotiate exemptions, along with other things, for companies like Google and Skype, as reported on

“Contrary to the lingo, ‘net neutrality’ is anything but neutral,” said CAGW President Tom Schatz. “Before the FCC has even gaveled the meeting to order, special, politically-driven carve-outs are reportedly being negotiated behind closed doors.” Today’s CongressDailyAM reported that “Democratic FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski has been pushing to exempt online companies such as Google and Skype from the network neutrality regulations he wants in place to preserve the Internet’s openness…Instead, a set of proposed rules — which the agency’s five commissioners plan to vote on Thursday — would subject only broadband providers, such as AT&T, Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Verizon, to tighter regulation.”

A point could be made that any exemptions provided to Google could involve conflicts of interest since Google CEO, Eric Schmidt, was part of Obama’s transition team back in November of 2008. Back in April of this year, it was also reported that Eric Schmidt was appointed to the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. Do you see any potential conflicts of interest here?

To add to this, you may also recall Schmidt having “campaigned for Barack Obama in the 2008 U.S. Presidential election”, as reported on Mediafile. Webmasters, who watch their traffic carefully, have also seen Google algorithm discrepancies if they use Google Analytics. While checking between analytics and my sites actual traffic stats, I’ve found Google to oddly be showing only about half the visitors. Recently there have been many issues seen on the Google owned YouTube, where videos opposing the obama administration’s agendas have seen the number of views being locked at a certain number in an effort to keep these videos from reaching a featured status. These are all intersting points to take into consideration when you look at Schmidt’s potential for a conflict of interest while we are haunted by net neutrality restrictions.

To add to the irony of this whole issue it was found in research, by Bobbi, that Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez (D-CA) reported the following on her website:

Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez (CA-47) today applauded House passage of House Resolution 672, legislation that she authored calling for greater internet freedom in Vietnam. The Rep. Sanchez-sponsored resolution supports the right of Vietnam’s citizens to access websites of their choosing and to have the freedom to share and publish information over the Internet. It also calls on the Government of Vietnam to repeal its laws restricting free speech and release all political prisoners, including bloggers and cyber activists who use the Internet to express their views.

H. Res. 672 received broad bipartisan support and was co-sponsored by 21 Members of Congress. Earlier today, Rep. Sanchez gave the following floor speech in support of her resolution:

“Madame Speaker, I come to the floor today in support of my resolution, H.Res. 672, which calls on the Government of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam to release imprisoned bloggers and respect Internet freedom.

“I would like to first thank Chairman Berman and the committee staff for their help in bringing this resolution to the floor. It is particularly timely considering recent actions by the Vietnamese government.

“Since I came to Congress I have been working to improve human rights in Vietnam. As a Co-Chair of the Congressional Caucus on Vietnam, my fellow Caucus Members and I have focused on urging the government of Vietnam to respect individuals’ rights to freedom of speech and expression.

“We have also worked with multiple U.S. Administrations to make human rights an important part of the U.S.-Vietnam relationship.

I find her position on Vietnam rather interesting when our own government is trying to restrict our own usage of the internet. Do you see the irony in this?

Update: The Federal Communications Commission voted to approve new rules aimed at so called “net neutrality”.

“These new rules should rightly be viewed by consumers suspiciously as another government power grab over a private service provided by private companies in a competitive marketplace,” Sen. John McCain wrote in an opinion article published by The Washington Times.

Google has been a strong supporter of net neutrality regulations and yet they are suppose to receive exemptions when they have been one of the leading controllers of what you see on the internet, because they believe that they know more about you and they will decide what you want to see. Myself and others have been carefully following and logging controlled search results for several months. By aligning themselves by being supportive of these regulations this could easily be considered as their reaching out for a power grab to ultimately take control of the internet and while controlling what you do and do not see.

For those still convinved that this is such a great idea:
Before the FCC has even gaveled the meeting to order, special, politically-driven carve-outs are reportedly being negotiated behind closed doors...

Uh huh...but wait, it gets better!

Recently there have been many issues seen on the Google owned YouTube, where videos opposing the Obama administration’s agendas have seen the number of views being locked at a certain number in an effort to keep these videos from reaching a featured status...Democratic FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski has been pushing to exempt online companies such as Google .. from the network neutrality regulations he wants in place to preserve the Internet’s openness.

All content is equal, but some content is more equal than others.

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Recently there have been many issues seen on the Google owned YouTube, where videos opposing the Obama administration’s agendas have seen the number of views being locked at a certain number in an effort to keep these videos from reaching a featured status...

Democratic FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski has been pushing to exempt online companies such as Google .. from the network neutrality regulations he wants in place to preserve the Internet’s openness.

Ok, so what we have here is two facts, granting for the sake of discussion the veracity of the first statement. Putting them in proximity to one another doesn't prove a connection between them. Net Neutrality wouldn't stop Google from continuing to limit views of certain videos on servers it owns, so this looks like purposeful mis-information on net neutrality.

It would however stop your ISP from purposefully slowing YouTube content, of any ideological stripe, to your system unless Google paid them on top of what you pay for your connection every month. Same with content from Netflix, ESPN, hell, even Microsoft.

It seems not many on FR are tuned in to this, and some are for it based on the activism by some consumer groups in years past.

I read the current NPRM at FCC and it is largely what was originally proposed (measures to prevent bandwidth shaping based on a content provider's relationship with a service provider, for example). But, this NPRM includes a lot of language dealing with the unrelated issue of enhanced government law enforcement access, plus language mandating as yet unpublished policies in support of undefined objectives (e.g. “social benefit”, whatever that is).

It bothers me that FCC is involved with the issues of content and marketing of private wireline networks at all. There is a federal commission that perhaps has some authority to deal with the interstate commerce issues that arise from the operation of these private networks, but it is not the FCC.

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