Op-Ed

[Commentary] Are tech firms too smart? Some people seem to think so, and their proposed restrictions on tech companies could hurt customers. The questions of whether and how tech firms should be allowed to leverage their knowledge are at the core of some recent regulatory proposals, which I describe below. The proponents of more regulations appear to believe that the world would be a better place if tech companies benefitted less from what they know. My concern here isn’t with privacy issues, but with at least three erroneous beliefs underlying these proposals:
Belief 1: The race for knowledge is bad for competition
Belief 2: What you know belongs to others
Belief 3: All “innovations” should be promoted identically

[Mark Jamison is the director and Gunter Professor of the Public Utility Research Center at the University of Florida’s Warrington College of Business, was a member of the Trump FCC Transition team]

[Commentary] The Federal Communications Commission Chairman, Ajit Pai, a former Verizon lawyer, has spoken eloquently about the “digital divide” and his commitment to resolving it. His solution? Creating the same market conditions that fueled the divide in the first place.

Pai’s approach is a field of dreams that suggests, “If we let them (internet service providers, or ISPs), they will provide it.” But that business model, at least for many of the large incumbents, has left far too many offline. Pai has suggested that broadband deserts are created by the boogie man of government regulation. But ISPs will invest only when they need to and they likely don’t see the need to right now. The problem we face is getting service to those who are too costly to serve. Pai needs to see that the pattern of exclusion in broadband results from the failure of business models, not merely the presence of regulations.

[Maya Wiley is a Henry J. Cohen Professor of Urban Policy & Management at The New School.]

[Commentary] Italy’s antitrust chief Giovanni Pitruzzella feels so overwhelmed by the amount of information on the internet that he has called for government regulation to fight fake news. Pitruzzella builds his case by contrasting the First Amendment with the European Convention on Human Rights, which he argues provides no constitutional protection of “fake news.” This is due to an interpretation of the limits of protected speech that says that the distribution of “fake news,” in Pitruzzella’s words, violates Europeans’ “right to be pluralistically informed.” Yes, our digital era and the explosion of speech and communication on social media are unique.

But the introduction of the printing press in the 15th century and its impact on the world in the ensuing centuries may serve as an instructive analogy from which Pitruzzella may take a lesson or two. In the 16th and 17th century, access to the press triggered waves of fake news and dissemination of wild conspiracy theories about witches and millenarian crazes. Religious fanaticism was printed side-by-side with scientific discoveries. During the first century after Gutenberg, print did as much to spread lies and false information as enlightened truth.

[Flemming Rose is a WorldPost contributor and a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. Jacob Mchangama is director of the Copenhagen-based think tank Justitia.]

[Commentary] As an investor in and adviser to socially-minded startups—and as a parent of two young children—I spend a lot of time grappling with the question of how we can build a better world for the next generation. As the digital revolution remakes almost every aspect of our lives, it's more clear than ever that any forward-looking agenda must focus on expanding digital access and participation. We cannot build a more equal America, or a future with greater opportunity and economic mobility, if large numbers of Americans are stuck on the wrong side of a growing digital divide.

Above all, we need strong policies to make the internet open and free and prevent Big Tech monopolies from distorting or undermining opportunity and competition online. One of the most important things we can do to make this happen is to push Congress to enact a strong "net neutrality" law ensuring all viewpoints and communities have full access to the internet and that no one can block access to websites or manipulate the flow of data to silence critics or competitors.

[Jimmy Lee is president of Goodcity Chicago, a nonprofit that provides startup financing and organizational assistance to social entrepreneurs from low-income neighborhoods.]

[Commentary] Public street poles may not look like much, but to wireless service providers, they’re valuable real estate. Companies like Verizon want low-cost access to them to install equipment to handle the rapidly growing demand for mobile data. But poles are owned locally, and cities and counties aren’t eager to give away access at below-market rates. Doing so would essentially subsidize an already wealthy industry — nationwide, as much as $2 billion a year, money that could otherwise go to expanding low-cost broadband access. As a result, the industry is waging a war for those poles, at all levels.

Big Telecom and its allies in the White House have quietly carried out a campaign to secure rapid and cheap access to those poles, at taxpayer expense. If the industry wants the same access to taxpayer-funded infrastructure that public utilities enjoy, it should bear the concomitant responsibility to make its services available to everyone in that jurisdiction. Alternatively, if Big Telecom doesn’t want the responsibility of deploying broadband in low-income neighborhoods, then the states and the Federal Communications Commission should continue to allow cities to charge market-rate fees and leases to generate municipal dollars needed to broaden access, as San Jose is doing in several low-income neighborhoods.

[Sam Liccardo is the mayor of San Jose (CA) and a member of the Federal Communications Commission’s Broadband Development Advisory Committee.]

[Commentary] The greatest concern today for our communications industry might simply be this: Are we prepared to learn from history? Do we want to break the pattern of the past and disrupt the political bargains of yesterday that have lessened free speech (for example, the fairness doctrine) and shielded incumbents from competitive entry (for example, the long-standing power of television broadcasters)? If so, the answer is to stop the intrusive government control that favors some companies over others. It is time to stop “mother may I” regulations.
[Babette Boliek is an associate professor of law and the associate dean of Faculty Research and Development at Pepperdine University School of Law]

[Commentary] In 1994 Sen Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-NY)decried what he felt was an ongoing redefinition of acceptable behavior designed to normalize what had previously been unacceptable. He described this phenomenon as “Defining Deviancy Down.” The Trump Federal Communications Commission is following a similar “defining down” policy when it comes to what is acceptable in the all-important networks that connect us.

By quietly altering the measuring sticks, the Trump FCC is “Defining Digital Down” to reset the definition of acceptable behavior by the companies that control America’s networks. Instead of working to build the best possible future for Americans, the agency’s new definitions lower expectations, declare victory where there is none, and set the stage for anti-consumer consolidation. Instead of challenging American companies to, for instance, raise average internet connectivity speeds to levels above those of Kenya, the Trump FCC is seeking to redefine downward what constitutes high-speed broadband. Changing the measuring stick changes the outcome. Imagine how the results of last weekend’s football games could have changed if a first down was only nine yards. Quietly, and with little notice, the agency that is supposed to be protecting consumers is changing its definitions in a manner that favors the corporations they are supposed to oversee at the expense of the consumers they are supposed to protect.

[Wheeler is a Brookings Visiting Fellow and former chairman of the FCC]

[Commentary] Those against the Federal Communications Commission’s proposed rollback of network neutrality regulations fear that allowing Internet service providers to control internet speed based on ability-to-pay will lead to an internet tilted in favor of companies with deeper pockets, not necessarily better services. But according to the rollback’s supporters, the current net neutrality regulations put in place by the Obama administration are an egregious overstepping of power on the part of the federal government, and serve to stunt growth and innovation in the industry.

But both sides fail to realize there is a middle ground — one that benefits consumers, but still keeps control from being pushed too far in either direction. It does not have to be either the federal government in control or ISPs. It does not have to be one to the exclusion of the other. In fact, one could argue that a very workable compromise would be to move back to a regulatory regime — whether through FCC efforts, a narrowly focused legislative solution, or some combination of the two — in essence representing the original rules in the first Open Internet Order (no blocking, no throttling, etc.), but not including the current Title II classification.

[Doug Sicker is the Department head of Engineering and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon. He is also the previous chief technology officer at the Department of Commerce and the chief technology officer at the Federal Communications Commission.]

[Commentary] Without legislating specific net neutrality rules, Congress could take three important steps to clear away irrelevant legal impediments and make the debate more productive for regulators and the public alike.
1) Separate classification from regulation: Congress could enact legislation that removed the distinction between “telecommunication” and “information” services. The economic case for whether and how a firm should be regulated has nothing to do with what service it provides.
2) Restore a focus on the ‘public interest’: The Federal Communications Commission made a mistake by treating net neutrality as a competition problem rather than as a tool to protect speech.
3) Restore the role of antitrust in telecommunications: Focusing the FCC on the public interest would be easier if the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division or the Federal Trade Commission could guard against internet service providers engaging in monopolistic practices. At present, the antitrust agencies may not have that authority.

[Timothy Brennan is currently professor public policy and economics at the University of Maryland. He was chief economist at the Federal Communications Commission during 2014.]

[Commentary] Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act illustrates the value of sunsets. Its termination date is December 31, 2017, unless reauthorized by Congress. Experience since its enactment by in 2008 shows that section 702 has created a hole in the Fourth Amendment’s protection of privacy big enough to house the Pentagon.

Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Robert Goodlatte (R-VA), has an opportunity to become the James Otis of digital privacy by sponsoring legislation to cure section 702’s constitutional defects revealed by experience by requiring judicial warrants based on probable cause to justify invading the communications privacy of Americans.

[Bruce Fein is a constitutional scholar]