Internet/Broadband

[Commentary] To distract you while they smother network neutrality, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai and acting Federal Trade Commission Chair Maureen Ohlhausen have offered confident assurances that the FTC can step into the role abdicated by the FCC and protect net neutrality with its antitrust and consumer protection enforcement authority. It sounds plausible (plus most people aren’t entirely sure what the FTC does), so you nod along, but don’t fall for it; it’s a ruse. The FTC would be far more limited in how it can protect net neutrality, because:

1) The FTC is prohibited from enforcing its laws against common carriers, like telephone companies
2) The US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit has broadly interpreted that law to mean that the FTC can’t act against even the non-telephonic services of telephone companies, like broadband
3) Even if the 9th Circuit decision gets reversed, the FTC can’t use antitrust law to protect individual websites and content providers
4) It’s doubtful whether net neutrality could be enforced through the FTC’s other enforcement tool, consumer protection laws

[Anant Raut is the former counsel to the assistant attorney general of the DOJ’s Antitrust Division, as well as a former FTC attorney. He is currently a visiting fellow at Public Knowledge]

[Commentary] The desirability of regulations applicable to broadband internet service should be measured against their impact on investment, competition, and consumer welfare. If the regulations cause more harm than good, it’s time to revise them. This type of analysis is going on now at the Federal Communications Commission as the agency examines the desirability of continuing to apply what is called “Title II regulation” to the internet. Title II regulation, whose name comes from Title II of the Communications Act of 1934, was applied to the Internet two years ago by the agency at the behest of the previous Chairman. But the new Chairman has concluded tentatively that Title II regulation should be eliminated based on the test outlined above, and as a result, the agency is expected to decide soon whether to do so.

Go! Foton agrees with the new FCC chairman that Title II regulation does more harm than good. We therefore welcome the FCC’s action to examine the implications of Title II internet regulation and ultimately roll it back.

[Dr Simin Cai is Chief Executive officer at Go! Foton]

Verizon announced that its existing unlimited data plan is being divided into three new options: Go Unlimited (starting at $75 for a single line), Beyond Unlimited ($85 for first line), and Business Unlimited. Unlike the relatively straightforward unlimited plan that Verizon surprised customers with in February, these new monthly plans are chock-full of fine print and caveats. And in a move sure to anger network neutrality advocates, the regular “Go Unlimited” plan throttles all smartphone video streaming to 480p / DVD-quality. The new plans go into effect beginning tomorrow, August 23rd, so this change is happening fast. Existing postpaid customers can keep their current plan, but some things will change even for them.

Rep Darrell Issa (R-CA) wants us to get real about how much faith we should put in encryption. Rep Issa argued on an Internet of Things panel that it’s high time for a straight-talk discussion about how secure popular encryption protocols actually are. ‘The former FBI director [James] Comey came before Congress and swore under oath that he had no ability to get what he needed from the San Bernardino bomber [sic] except by forcing Apple to create an active remote backdoor into the problem,’ Issa said. ‘Now a matter of weeks later, an Israeli company for a million dollars gave him the data he wanted.’ And, Issa pointed out, a few weeks after that, a University of Cambridge professor appeared to crack it again. Said Issa, ‘We have to have a real debate about whether encryptions and protections are real and unbreakable.’

One of the biggest pressure points for anti-racist activists right now is domain registrars like GoDaddy, which sell addresses that point web users toward a site. While anyone can hook up a server to the internet, domain name sales are regulated by the multinational organization ICANN, which hands off management of generic top-level domains (gTLDs) to organizations called registries.

Registries can then sign contracts with ICANN-accredited registrars, which act as middlemen and sell domain names to the public. If registrars refuse to serve a site, the seemingly obvious solution — which several people have mentioned online — is to found your own “free speech” registrar. However, obvious isn’t the same thing as practical. ICANN usually takes a hands-off approach to moderating registrars’ content, and some registrars play host to unsavory spam and malware domains. But even if an alt-right registrar could get accredited, it probably wouldn’t be a profitable business.

Shortly before the inauguration, I outlined four general areas where actions could be taken to reinvigorate investment: one, undoing harmful policies; two, clearing regulatory underbrush; three, developing and executing a strong pro-innovation agenda; and, four, overhauling the Commission’s arcane processes and its organization. I’m pleased to say that we’ve seen significant progress on each front....The Internet is arguably the greatest man-made technology of my lifetime and a testament to free-market principles embodying the American Dream. The government must remain steadfast that this platform should be unfettered by regulation. Doing so is the way to ensure that the economic revolution and expansion of opportunity, unsurpassed in modern history, will continue for future generations and empower their American Dreams.

Shortly after Aug 12’s white nationalist march through Charlottesville, outraged internet users took to social media to call out some of the participants in the march. Internet vigilantism is nothing new—experts point to a case in China from 2006, when internet users tracked down a woman captured on video crushing a kitten to death, as one of the first examples. Police around the world have warned this form of publicly administered retribution can in some cases actually hinder the legal pursuit of justice. They say they need the public’s assistance in catching criminals, but warn that amateur assistance can go too far, notifying suspects of evidence against them and possibly endangering lives if cybersleuths step out from behind the keyboard. Observers have also raised questions about the ethics of exposing people’s identities they mean to keep secret—what both online activists and trolls often call “doxing”—though many feel this is less of an issue in situations like the Charlottesville march, where participants did little to hide their identities.

[Commentary] The disturbing implications of abolishing internet privacy rules go far beyond how the internet is used. By selling customer data, larger internet service providers could capture more of the market, albeit unfairly, leaving smaller ISPs in the dust and harming what little competition exists. A decrease in internet access competition will be bad for consumers, as competition is what drives companies to provide the best possible service to consumers at the lowest possible price. T

he bottom line is that private information should be kept private, both for the good of the consumer and for the overall health of the internet ecosystem. With Congress stripping away consumer privacy protections, it’s up to states push back against the repeal of federal policies that protect basic consumer rights. California and other states have already taken the first step toward making that a reality. Now the question remains: Will other states follow?

[Dane Jasper is the CEO and cofounder of Sonic, the largest independent ISP in northern California]

Cable companies were mostly up and the top telecommunications companies all were down in high-speed Internet subscriptions during the second quarter 2017. In all, the top 14 providers – companies that serve about 95 percent of the market – netted almost 230,000 new US broadband subscribers, according to an assessment by the Leichtman Research Group. “Cable companies added about 3.1 million broadband subscribers over the past year, while Telcos had net losses of about 550,000 broadband subscribers,” said Bruce Leichtman, president and principal analyst for Leichtman Research Group. “At the end of 2Q 2017, cable had a 64% market share vs. 36% for Telcos. The broadband market share for cable is now at the highest level it has been since the first quarter of 2004.” The cable industry still dominates, with 59.9 million broadband subscribers compared to the telcos’ 34.2 million.

[Commentary] In the wake of Charlottesville, both GoDaddy and Google have refused to manage the domain registration for the Daily Stormer, a neo-Nazi website. Subsequently Cloudflare, whose service was used to protect the site from denial-of-service attacks, has also dropped them as a customer, with a telling quote from Cloudflare’s CEO: “Literally, I woke up in a bad mood and decided someone shouldn’t be allowed on the Internet. No one should have that power.” We agree.

Even for free speech advocates, this situation is deeply fraught with emotional, logistical, and legal twists and turns. All fair-minded people must stand against the hateful violence and aggression that seems to be growing across our country. But we must also recognize that on the Internet, any tactic used now to silence neo-Nazis will soon be used against others, including people whose opinions we agree with. Those on the left face calls to characterize the Black Lives Matter movement as a hate group. In the Civil Rights Era cases that formed the basis of today’s protections of freedom of speech, the NAACP’s voice was the one attacked. Protecting free speech is not something we do because we agree with all of the speech that gets protected. We do it because we believe that no one—not the government and not private commercial enterprises—should decide who gets to speak and who doesn’t. For any content hosts that do reject content as part of the enforcement of their terms of service, we have long recommended that they implement procedural protections to mitigate mistakes. These are methods that protect us all against overbroad or arbitrary takedowns.