Tell the FCC: Preserve Net Neutrality! Goal: 45,000 40,109 people support this campaign. Help us get to 45,000! Have you ever received a notice like this? Dear Customer, Sorry your requested website is loading slowly—Sony Music Entertainment has purchased today’s hi-speed Comcast bandwidth and it seems you are not within their target demographic. Well time is running out—if we don’t act now, we may start seeing this all the time. That’s because a federal appeals court just struck down the FCC’s rules that until now have prevented Internet providers from blocking or slowing down some website content and speeding up other content.
In this unregulated environment, the Internet may quickly be sold to the highest bidder, chilling the free speech we now enjoy online. The good news is that the court’s ruling left the door open for the FCC to fix all of this by reclassifying broadband Internet access as a telecommunications service. As a result, the FCC just took a major step toward new rules that would keep the Internet neutral. Cable Industry Finally Admits That Data Caps Have Nothing To Do With Congestion. For years, the key rationale given by broadband providers for implementing data caps was that it was the only way they could deal with "congestion. " Of course, for years, independent researchers showed that this was bogus, and there was no data crunch coming. If you actually caught a technologist from a broadband provider, rather than a business person or lobbyist, they'd quietly admit that there was no congestion problem, and that basic upgrades and network maintenance could easily deal with the growth in usage.
But, of course, that took away the broadband providers' chief reason for crying about how they "need" data caps. The reality, of course, is that data caps are all about increasing revenue for broadband providers -- in a market that is already quite profitable. But if they can hide behind the claims that they need to do this to deal with congestion, they can justify it to regulators and (they hope) the public.
President Barack Obama picks venture capitalist, former telecom lobbyist Tom Wheeler to chair FCC - The Business Journals. Lori Cain / Bloomberg Tom Wheeler is President Barack Obama's pick to chair the FCC. Some are pointing to Wheeler's background as a lobbyist for cable and telecom companies in criticizing Obama's pick. Tom Wheeler, President Barack Obama's pick to chair the Federal Communications Commission, knows the industry he will regulate well -- maybe too well. Wheeler currently is a managing director at Core Capital Partners, a venture capital firm based in Washington, D.C.
He represents the firm on the boards of GoMobo, an online and mobile takeout food-ordering service; Jacked, a software platform for mobile video and data services; LimeLife, a Web site aimed at young women; Twisted Pair Solutions, an interoperable communications software company; and UpdateLogic, which makes an electronics device management system. He also sits on the boards of Earthlink (NASDAQ: ELNK) and Transaction Network Services (NYSE: TNS). Before becoming a venture capitalist, however, Wheeler was a lobbyist. Industry ties run deep for Obama's FCC pick. President Obama's nominee to head the Federal Communications Commission has an extensive history with the industries he would be in charge of regulating.
But that experience has some observers wondering if Tom Wheeler was the best choice for the job. He was the president of the cable industry lobby about 30 years ago and later led the lobbying group for the cellphone carriers. In recent years, he has worked at venture capital firm Core Capital, investing in technology start-ups. Larry Irving, a Commerce Department official during the Clinton administration and former Hewlett-Packard executive, argued that Wheeler's industry experience and connections will make it easier for him to "pull the levers of Washington power" and achieve his policy goals without being intimidated by powerful groups. "Tom has the ability to call up any CEO in the country," Irving said. Sen. Wheeler, the son of an insurance agent, studied business as an undergraduate at The Ohio State University. Dear New FCC Chairman Wheeler, Please Stop the Attacks on the Internet.
The Barack Obama Administration has nominated Tom Wheeler to replace Julius Genachowski as Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman. (Wheeler awaits Senate approval.) Wheeler has – Heaven forfend – actually held pertinent private sector gigs: Wheeler served as president of the National Cable Television Association (NCTA), and later as CEO of the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association (CTIA). Many on the Left find Wheeler’s real-world experience and knowledge troubling: Senator Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent (umm, he’s a Socialist), (said)… “I…am troubled that President Obama would appoint the former head of two major industry lobbying associations to regulate the industry.”
Many on the Left find it very troubling: (M)ore than two dozen public interest groups (umm, they’re government interest groups) wrote to Obama expressing alarm that the president was considering a candidate “who was the head of not one but two major industry lobbying groups. Opposition from whom? President Obama To Nominate Cable and Wireless Lobbyist To Head FCC. Commission Proposes to Expand the Availability of In-Flight Wi-Fi. Obama in Plunderland: Down the Corporate Rabbit Hole. The president’s new choices for Commerce secretary and FCC chair underscore how far down the rabbit hole his populist conceits have tumbled. Yet the Obama rhetoric about standing up for working people against “special interests” is as profuse as ever.
Would you care for a spot of Kool-Aid at the Mad Hatter’s tea party? Penny Pritzker, billionaire heiress to Hyatt Hotels, was nominated by President Obama for Commerce secretary in a ceremony in the White House Rose Garden Thursday morning. (Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images) Of course the Republican economic program is worse, and President Romney’s policies would have been even more corporate-driven. To nominate Penny Pritzker for secretary of Commerce is to throw in the towel for any pretense of integrity that could pass a laugh test. Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker? “There is no single independent regulatory commission that comes close to the impact of the FCC on every American’s life,” Johnson said. But wait. Obama taps former lobbyist to head FCC - Business Courier. Tom Wheeler has been chosen by President Barack Obama to chair the Federal Communications Commission. Tom Wheeler, President Barack Obama’s pick to chair the Federal Communications Commission, knows the industry he will regulate well – too well, according to critics.
Wheeler is a managing director at Core Capital Partners, a venture capital firm based in Washington, D.C. Before becoming a venture capitalist, however, Wheeler was a lobbyist. He served as president of the National Cable Television Association from 1979 to 1984. Wheeler also was a big-time fundraiser for Obama’s presidential campaigns, both in 2008 and in 2012. So given his close ties to the industry, will Wheeler be the fox guarding the henhouse if he becomes FCC chairman? That’s what Sascha Meinrath, who directs the New America Foundation’s Open Technology Institute, fears. The FCC, he said, has done “far too little” to address “high costs, slow speeds, abysmal consumer protections and far too many unserved communities.”
Obama to nominate former telecom lobbyist to lead FCC. WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama is expected to nominate Tom Wheeler, a friend and telecom industry executive, as head of the Federal Communications Commission as early as Wednesday, three people familiar with the administration's decision said. Wheeler, a venture capital investor, would take over an agency struggling to keep up with enormous changes in the telecom industry as consumers turn to mobile devices and ultra-fast broadband Internet for news, communications and video entertainment. Those policy issues would be fresh on the mind of the FCC nominee, who has served as adviser to both the White House and FCC on technology policy and industry trends. But to the dismay of some critics, Wheeler comes with deep ties to the nation's biggest telecom lobbying groups. He has served as head of both the wireless industry's CTIA trade group and the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, among the most powerful and deep-pocketed lobbying groups in Washington.
Verizon Claims Right to “Edit” What You See on the Internet. Like other Internet service providers, Verizon is fighting to derail the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) rules for network neutrality. But Verizon has set itself apart from other ISPs with its legal arguments for why the FCC’s Open Internet Order should be tossed out. In its legal brief filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit, Verizon lawyers claim the FCC has exceeded its regulatory authority by trying to dictate how ISPs control the flow of information across their networks. More importantly, the company claims the net neutrality rules violate its First Amendment and Fifth Amendment rights. As Verizon sees it, “broadband networks are the modern-day microphone by which their owners [e.g.
Verizon’s alarming argument has been rejected by Internet users who have read Verizon’s brief. Verizon also claims the FCC regulations interfere with its Fifth Amendment protections for private property rights. -Noel Brinkerhoff To Learn More: Google May Face Further U.K. Action After FCC Privacy Report. Google Inc. (GOOG:US) may face further action by a British privacy regulator for gathering personal data, after the agency reviews findings by a U.S. investigation. The Information Commissioner’s Office is studying the U.S. Federal Communications Commission’s report on data gathering by Google for Street View “to consider what further action, if any, needs to be taken,” the U.K. watchdog said today.
While Street View cars photograph buildings and homes to provide street-level mapping to Google users, they went beyond that to using wireless connections to gather people’s personal communications. In an agreement ending the U.K. inquiry into Street View in November 2010, Mountain View, California-based Google acceded to further ICO audits of its privacy practices. Google didn’t use the personal data it collected in any products or services and the U.S. To contact the reporter on this story: Heather Smith at hsmith26@bloomberg.net. New House bill from Rep. Maxine Waters would stop revolving door at the FCC.