Consumer Groups Discuss Broadband at FCC Workshop

The Federal Communications Commission's National Broadband Plan workshop Wednesday focused on transparency, consumer control, and better broadband data. Taking dead aim at broadband data-collection efforts to date was Sascha Meinrath, director of the Open Technology Initiative at the New America Foundation. He said that nobody really knows the impact of broadband on the consumer because networks have refused to provide sufficiently granular data and the FCC has "facilitated that uncertainty" by refusing to mandate the kind of data collection that leads to informed policy, saying instead that broadband policymaking "continues to exist in a self-imposed veil of ignorance." Joel Kelsey, policy analyst for Consumers Union, focused on three areas: cyber crime, behavioral tracking, and deep packet inspection. He acknowledged that surfers had to take some responsibility for protecting themselves from cyber crimes, but that government and industry, which collects and shares sensitive information, also bears some responsibility. Ari Shcwartz, of the Center for Democracy and Technology, said companies have failed to respond to consumers' basic concerns and that they were still working from a 1980's direct marketing playbook that the data belonged to the companies doing the marketing rather than the users from whom it was collected. Debra Berlyn, who heads up the FCC's Consumer Advisory Committee, said the committee had shifted its focus from the DTV transition to broadband, particularly helping older populations adapt to and adopt broadband.