Net neutrality: would it have killed the iPhone? Now here's an interesting claim: had net neutrality been the law of the land several years back, we might not have the iPhone. It's an idea buried in Bret "Exacloud" Swanson's recent comments to the FCC on net neutrality. We've already noted his use of the new term "exacloud," but there's another surprise buried in the short document. "The Apple iPhone may never have emerged if we had blocked or discouraged the type of 'exclusive,' 'discriminatory' deals like the one Apple (a new entrant to the mobile market) struck with AT&T," writes Swanson. "Apple’s entry was a move fraught with uncertainty, and the partnership with AT&T allowed both sides to make the investments of time and money necessary to execute a monumental project. The iPhone unleashed wave after wave of innovation in the mobile arena—like 'app stores'—thus pushing all competitors at many layers of the wireless value chain towards more dynamism and openness than ever before.
" What does this mean? Senate takes companies to task for ignoring Internet freedom. Earlier this year, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave a speech in which she made it clear that Internet freedom would be a major theme of the US government's attempts to get information to the citizens of repressive governments. Things haven't change much in the interim, with the conviction of Google executives in Italy serving as a reminder that it's not simply repressive regimes that put companies in legal hot water. With those events as a backdrop, the US Senate's Judiciary Committee heard testimony today on Internet freedom that emphasized how challenging it will be to find a way to open up the flow of information in repressive regimes. The Google-Italy case did figure briefly, as an example of how even a country with values that have a significant overlap with those of the US can have significant legal differences when it comes to online activities (Italy lacks the US' safe harbor provisions for hosts of user-generated online content).
Obama admin declassifies major cybersecurity plans. Bowing to pressure from activist groups and to the dictates of common sense, the Obama administration has done what the Bush administration wouldn't and declassified some general information [PDF] about the Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative (CNCI), a sweeping program that the Bush White House launched in early 2008 to protect the government and critical civilian networks from cyberattacks. It turns out that, like at least one other effort launched by the Bush administration in the name of national security, the program was too secret for its own good. In May of 2008, some members of congress became frustrated with the CNCI's combination of extreme secrecy and hefty pricetag, and asked in vain for someone from the Bush administration to give a bit more information on it than a former DHS official's brief description of it as a "Manhattan Project to defend cyber networks.
" This past Tuesday, the the Obama administration lifted a bit of the veil on the program. EFF demands FCC close copyright "loophole" in net neutrality. The Electronic Frontier Foundation might be expected to love the FCC's "Open Internet" push, but the group has one big concern with the rulemaking: the presence of "a loophole for copyright enforcement in its proposed regulations for network neutrality. " The EFF has now submitted a petition to the FCC with 7,000 signatures, asking for the provisions to be stripped from the final rule.
"Before the ink is dry on net neutrality regulations, we already see corporate lobbyists and 'public decency' advocates pushing for loopholes," said EFF Civil Liberties Director Jennifer Granick. "A loophole like this could swallow network neutrality, with ISPs claiming copyright enforcement as a pretext for all sorts of discriminatory behavior. " At issue is the "reasonable network management" exception to net neutrality. The FCC makes clear that network neutrality rules only apply to "lawful content," and neutrality does not apply to the illegal transmission of copyrighted work.
Anti-data caps rep resigns from Congress today. Rep. Eric Massa (D-NY) resigns from Congress this evening at 5pm, which is good news to ISPs that serve more than two million customers apiece. In the wake of last year's monthly data cap trials by Time Warner Cable, Massa announced publicly that he would introduce a bill that would limit such caps, and he did so in June 2009. The "Broadband Internet Fairness Act" was simple; it would make it illegal for "major broadband Internet service providers to offer volume usage service plans imposing rates, terms, and conditions that are unjust, unreasonable, or unreasonably discriminatory. " ISPs of more than two million subscribers would need to file a "service plan analysis" with the federal government any time they proposed or altered "volume usage service plans.
" The Federal Trade Commission would then weigh in on these plans, which would need to justify the "economic reasonableness and necessity for imposing such tiers. " Google tells Australia its 'Net filters go way too far. This can't be the way that Australia wanted it. One day after Google announced its decision to stop censoring its search results in China, the Australian government released the results of a public consultation on its own Internet censorship proposal. Predictably, Google has some objections (PDF), including its oblique comment that Australia's mandatory filtering scheme could "confer legitimacy upon filtering by other Governments.
" "Australia is rightly regarded as a liberal democracy that balances individual liberty with social responsibility," continues the Google filing. "The Governments of many other countries may justify, by reference to Australia, their use of filtering, their lack of disclosure about what is being filtered, and their political direction of agencies administering filtering. " Google is unlikely to come right out and compare Australia to China, but the implication is obvious—and has been made explicit by other groups.
What's being blocked Refusing classification. AT&T wants 3 strikes tribunal, government website blacklist. Pop quiz: what organization recently provided the following quotes on "graduated response" to the White House's Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator, Victoria Espinel? "Private entities are not created or meant to conduct the law enforcement and judicial balancing act that would be required; they are not charged with sitting in judgment of facts; and they are not empowered to punish alleged criminals without a court order or other government sanction. Indeed, the liability implications of ISPs acting as a quasi-law-enforcement/judicial branch could be enormous. " "There are instances in which such [infringement] notices [from rightsholders] may be misdirected against non-infringing members of the household, against persons who have valid defenses, or against persons who are victims of unauthorized access to their home networks.
" It sounds like something right from the Electronic Frontier Foundation's playbook, but in fact all of these concerns were mooted by AT&T (PDF). State court: Internet filtering at libraries constitutional. Libraries that choose to filter Internet access are not engaging in censorship, according to the Washington Supreme Court. The court made its decision late last week on 6-3 vote, with the majority noting that libraries are not obligated to provide universal access to all constitutionally protected speech just because it exists. Still, the dissenting justices feel that filters should be removed at the request of an adult, and that the decision is "draconian. " The case was originally brought against the North Central Regional Library (NCRL) by three patrons who found that they were unable to access certain sites on the library's computers. NCRL had implemented a use policy—as well as FortiGate filtering software across all its branches—that barred access to certain kinds of content, such as porn, gambling sites, Web chat services, proxy avoidance tools, and other "adult" content.
Still, not everyone agreed with the methods and policies involved in filtering the Internet at NCRL. Comcast: net neutrality should be less filling, taste great. The star ISP in the drama over the Federal Communications Commission's proposed Open Internet rules filed comments with the agency on that subject this week (as did every other stakeholder in this fight). Comcast comes to the task after having convinced a Federal court to overturn the FCC's order sanctioning it for P2P throttling. You might think, then, that the cable giant's comments would be full of triumphant swagger.
Quite the contrary, they're diplomatic and make recommendations based on what Comcast sees as the consensus among filers in this proceeding. That broad agreement, the company thinks, boils down to two major points—the agency should come up with Open Internet policies for everybody, and they should be as unobtrusive as possible. And: "the Commission should not adopt an absolute ban on 'discrimination' . . . Them too So who does Comcast suggest should share the burden of "gatekeeper" scrutiny? Comcast responds that it isn't so simple.
Unreasonable The Get Google Club.