San Jose Mercury News

A Q&A with Dane Jasper, co-founder of Sonic, a Santa-Rosa (CA) based Internet service provider.

Asked, "Why do you support net neutrality and the FCC’s just discarded privacy rules?"

Jasper said, "I think it’s good business to take care of your customers. Your customers will be loyal to you when you take good care of them. That might be good pricing. That might be good customer service. Or it’s that you don’t sell them out to advertisers or that you don’t engage in practices that would violate their privacy for whatever small commercial gain that you might have. Also, I think the ecosystem of the internet is something that needs to be preserved. As I’ve watched the internet blossom from the early start of my career more than 20 years ago, I am stunned by the wonderful ideas and amazing services that people have put together. And they’re the reason that every day, consumers are signing up for Sonic. It’s important to preserve neutrality so we can continue to see great new ideas come to fore, even if those ideas use a ton of bandwidth, or even if those ideas require really low latency."

Q FCC Chairman Ajit Pai has criticized the net neutrality and privacy rules as being examples of “heavy-handed regulation” and regulatory “overreach.” He’s argued that cutting such regulations will increase competition, lower prices and get higher speeds to broadband consumers, because it will encourage innovation on the network side and will free things up so that you can get investment on the network side. What do you say to those arguments?

A One of the things Pai has said is if you regulate broadband like it’s a monopoly, you end up with a monopoly. That’s not entirely unfair. If there is a vibrant, competitive environment with many, many choices, then I think that bad behaviors will be held in check, and innovation in business model and infrastructure and in the network won’t be a bad thing.

In today’s environment, though, where consumers have, in many cases, only one choice at greater than 25 megabits, what we see is rent-seeking behaviors and abuses of the consumer, whether it’s bad customer service or expensive pricing or network neutrality concerns.

Q Has Sonic’s ability to innovate been affected by the FCC’s decision under Obama to re-regulate broadband?

A No. And we certainly supported former FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler in his efforts to protect network neutrality. And that didn’t hamper our investment or our concerns about our future ability to monetize the networks that we build.

[Commentary] If Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai’s network neutrality proposal was shocking, his justifications for it ranged from the misleading to the flat-out false. Chairman Pai argues, for example, that Tom Wheeler’s net neutrality rules represented a radical departure for the FCC, moving it from a “light-touch” regulatory regime that had allowed the internet to thrive over the last 20 years to an outdated and “heavy-handed” one that’s put the internet under government control. There’s so much wrong with this argument that’s hard to know where to start.

But that was just one of Pai’s misleading justifications. Relying on industry-backed studies, he also argued that investment in broadband has declined over the last two years thanks to the net neutrality rules. But according to a study authored by Free Press, in the two-year period following the passage of the new rules, investment by the broadband providers that are public companies is actually up compared with the two-year period immediately before they were passed.

Network neutrality is under threat, but you can do something to defend it. Activists working on the issue have numerous suggestions. But they all boil down to this: Make your voice heard. Hard as it may be to believe sometimes, policymakers do actually listen to the public. “The short answer is to raise hell,” said Craig Aaron, CEO of Free Press. That’s how net neutrality was saved before. Millions of everyday citizens made their voices heard, and the FCC responded. So how exactly can you make your voice heard?

Here’s what the advocates recommend.

• Call or send a snail mail letter to your senators and congressional representative.
• Call and leave a message for Chairman Pai.
• Sign a petition.
• Sign up for alerts.
• Join and donate to an advocacy group.
• Encourage others to get involved.
• Be prepared to send in comments.

[Commentary] Silicon Valley is rightly focused on President Donald Trump’s immigration order. But it should be gearing up for another fight that’s vital to both tech companies and their customers. Network neutrality is in the crosshairs again. Ajit Pai, the new chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, has made it clear that he’s no fan. He’s already halted a net neutrality-related investigation launched by hi predecessor and recently reaffirmed his belief that, one way or another, the “days are numbered” for the Open Internet rules. Advocates think internet users — who flooded the FCC with comments in support of net neutrality — played the key part in getting the rules in place and will play a crucial role in defending them. But they are hopeful the tech industry will have their backs. The tech companies “have a responsibility, in my opinion, to not only stand up for their users, in terms of their policy positions, but to fight for them,” said Evan Greer, a campaign director at Fight for the Future.

[Commentary] If Congress and the president won’t take up the pressing need for an online consumer bill of rights, the California Legislature should. Lawmakers have to provide a road map for striking a proper balance between the public’s right to information and individuals’ right to privacy. Ideally, the laws would foster free expression but also provide privacy for individuals and businesses where it is merited. (And yes, ‘merit’ is the concept to be defined.) The lack of a legal guide leaves Silicon Valley giants like Google and Facebook struggling to deal with a legal quagmire. The United States needs to join other advanced nations and establish an online consumer bill of rights. It will help the courts, the tech industry and individuals struggling to make sense of challenges unimaginable in the day of Thomas Jefferson.

In December 2016, a bunch of bigwig tech executives met with President-elect Donald Trump in New York. Apple’s Tim Cook was there. So were Oracle’s Safra Catz, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and investor and Trump supporter Peter Thiel. In some ways, it looked like the nation’s tech titans — many of whom either didn’t support Trump or were flat-out against his presidential bid — were trying to make peace with the man who will be the nation’s ultimate chief executive for the next four years. When you’re going to meet the boss, it helps to tell him or her something they will like. And one of the things bosses like most is being able to save money. For politicians, this means the ability to tell the voters, “Look what I did for you.” And on that day in December, those giants of the tech sector presented Trump with a plan to save the government more than $1 trillion over the next 10 years. How? Enacting a slate of new tech-based policies. Among the proposals are improvements in supply chain operations ($500 billion), getting rid of fraudulent payments ($270 billion) and just modernizing IT facilities and operations ($110 billion). The idea would be to use that $1 trillion for a widespread infrastructure overhaul and the creation of thousands of “new collar” jobs.

Google’s dream of delivering internet access to developing countries using solar-powered drones apparently got hit with a huge dose of reality. Alphabet confirmed it has disbanded a team tasked with exploring the use of these drones, which fly at a height of 12 miles. After encountering setbacks, the company decided to instead focus on delivering internet access from high-altitude balloons. Google purchased Titan Aerospace in 2014. Facebook also reportedly had been interested in buying the U.S. maker of aerial drones. Titan later became part of X, Alphabet’s moonshot lab, in late 2015. After Google purchased Titan, it faced a setback when a Titan Solara 50 crashed during a 2015 test flight in New Mexico. Alphabet’s closure of the Titan program highlights some of the recent challenges tech firms face as they try to deliver internet to developing countries.

[Commentary] The United States, home of Silicon Valley, remains the only major developed nation without fundamental online user protections, and that is appalling. Congress has to establish clear privacy protection of personal data, both from unwarranted government intrusion and from tech companies’ widespread sharing of personal data for profit.

President Barack Obama tried twice, in 2012 and 2015, to introduce a Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights, but each time tech companies argued that it would stifle innovation. That’s the politically acceptable buzzword. They also fear their profits will be affected if they can’t monetize customers’ private data at will.

Basic privacy protection of personal information should be a fundamental right of Americans. Can’t we just get it done?

Google has come under attack by a mysterious group that keeps mum about its sponsors while issuing scathing reports about the company’s influence on government. Among its recent revelations: High-ranking Google execs have had more than 20 "intimate" meetings with President Barack Obama, and the company has a revolving-door employment relationship with the federal government.

While the backers of the "Google Transparency Project" may be hidden, its purpose is clear, observers say: To offer purportedly objective research and commentary that can be used to thwart Google's burgeoning power in Washington (DC) and elsewhere, much as similar "think tanks" have sought to undermine the environmental lobby or promote development projects. When you're successful, you're on top of the hill. You become a target," said Michael Cusumano, a professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management who studies the technology industry.

"Silicon Valley and Hollywood are now joined at the hip," says Bill Baker, co-founder and CEO of the Celebrity Food Network, based in Southern California.

Why now? Tech billionaires who've become overnight celebrities; Hollywood's star-making culture seeking to exploit that fame; and the sheer preponderance of tech in our lives, starting with the smartphones most of us are now glued to. And Hollywood, Baker says, is being powered by cutting-edge technology like never before. "The new kinds of cameras, the digital-editing machines, the fiber, the satellites," he says. "These are the guts of what Hollywood does, and a lot of it comes from the tech world. So you have this mutually symbiotic relationship."

The ensuing confluence can be dizzying as valley companies create their own shows instead of just offering entertainment produced in by others.