September 2008

The Association of National Advertisers on Sunday came out against a controversial search advertising alliance between Yahoo and Google, complaining to the Department of Justice that the partnership will "control 90 per cent of search advertising inventory and states ANA's concerns that the partnership will likely diminish competition, increase concentration of market power, limit choices currently available and potentially raise prices to advertisers for high quality, affordable search advertising." The two companies said they would delay implementing the partnership for 100 days to allow the Department of Justice to study it.

[Commentary] Less than seven years ago, the Taliban ruled Afghanistan with a murderous fist, depriving Afghans of their most basic rights. A key component of the Taliban's suppression was preventing people from communicating with one another; the country had virtually no telephones and no access to the Internet. To call relatives and friends who lived abroad, Afghans literally had to leave their own country. Today, Afghanistan bears little resemblance to the nation it was long forced to be. Working together after the Taliban was removed from power, the U.S. and Afghan governments recognized the importance of dramatically increasing access to communications networks and establishing access to the Web. Experts from around the world helped Afghanistan establish a modern ministry of communications, capable of quickly licensing private mobile phone providers, effectively regulating a competitive communications environment and encouraging direct foreign investment into the extremely challenging post-conflict economy. Improved access to communications and the decreased cost of using these transformative technologies have allowed the Afghan people to explore new ideas and information that counter the monopoly of misinformation and lies used for centuries to oppress women and others. These tools help deliver essential government services, including education and health care, more efficiently and less expensively throughout the country. [David A. Gross is ambassador and U.S. coordinator for international communication and information policy. Amir Zai Sangin is Afghanistan's minister of communications and information technology.]

Ten years ago, the Federal Communications Commission was asking, "Is Internet over cable a 'cable service,' a 'telecommunications service' or an 'information service'?" A working paper released by the FCC began to address this question and how the agency should approach regulation. The paper was meant to begin a discussion between branches of the government and industry. "The whole point," said the paper's author, "is to say, hey, we've got this problem, and it's a big problem. When you have the capability the Internet provides -- now you can do almost anything over one medium -- you have to start thinking which rules are applicable, or whether any of our rules are applicable at all."

The Republican Party platform talks little about media issues, despite the oft-expressed media-policy concerns of its presidential nominee, Sen. John McCain (AZ). That puts it in strong contrast to the Democratic platform, which bears the distinctive imprint of Sen. Barack Obama's (IL) relatively aggressive communications agenda. The Republican platform is silent on the issues of network neutrality, media ownership, broadband penetration, content control of the media and, surprisingly, cable a la carte. The only mention of television is a reference to the government-run broadcasting service to Cuba, TV Marti. "Cable" and "media" do not appear at all, and "broadband" comes up once in reference to providing long-distance education. The Internet is referred to numerous times, including the party's desire to "permanently" ban Internet-access taxes, block any new "cell-phone taxes," and block online child porn, predators and Internet gambling. Erik Huey, a veteran Democratic political strategist and partner with law firm Kilpatrick Stockton, called it "curious" that McCain's platform didn't contain much communications policy, "given his prominence on the Commerce Committee over the past decade." But Huey had some theories, including that the campaign was not focusing on those issues because "you don't want to take on any battles you don't need to take on. Maybe [McCain] just said, 'We'll table [a la carte]. I don't want to get into a fight with friends in the cable industry, particularly when those folks are making contributions to the campaign.'" Huey admitted that it just might be that the campaign has bigger fish to fry. "The reality is oftentimes that the communications issues, compared with some of the bigger issues, get lost in the shuffle," he said. Harold Feld writes that "it is unbelievable that the Republicans treat a multibillion dollar industry that has become one of our most critical pieces of infrastructure and major drivers of our economy as an afterthought to the business of cutting taxes and extending offshore drilling."