Obama on Record: Supports Internet Regulation
I’m perplexed by the challenge of referring neutrally to legislation moving through Congress dealing with whether or not the government should regulate Internet service. Work with me as I untangle the Standard Federal Obfuscation™ involved here.
The White House has issued a “Statement of Administration Policy” that deals with S.J. Res. 6 (House companion H.J. Res. 37 passed in April.) The bill is a “resolution of disapproval” under the Congressional Review Act. The CRA allows Congress to reject federal regulations for a period of time after they have been finalized. Resolutions like this enjoy expedited procedures in the Senate, making it harder for Senate leadership to stop them moving.
The Federal Communications Commission voted in December to apply public-utility-style regulation to the provision of Internet service. Congress is moving to reject the FCC’s claim of authority using the CRA, and the president has now said he will veto Congress’ resolution that does that.
Well—the obfuscation continues—actually, the Statement of Administration Policy says “[t]he administration” opposes S.J. Res. 6, and, “If the President is presented with S.J. Res. 6, which would not safeguard the free and open Internet, his senior advisers would recommend that he veto the Resolution.”
At some point, it may be an important detail that the president hasn’t promised a veto yet. His advisers have promised to advise him to veto. OK. Whatever. They work for him. It’s a veto threat.
But, but,… Would these regulations safeguard a “free and open Internet”? The statement says, “Federal policy has consistently promoted an Internet that is open and facilitates innovation and investment, protects consumer choice, and enables free speech.” In a sense, that’s true: When the engineers at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency created the Internet protocol and when federal policy opened the Internet to commercial use, this made for the open Internet we enjoy today.
But it’s not federal policy driving these values today. It’s the Internet itself—all of us. Tim Lee ably pointed this out some years ago in his paper, “The Durable Internet: Preserving Network Neutrality without Regulation.” The marketplace demands an open Internet. If there are deviations from the “end-to-end principle” that serve the public better, the market will permit them. The Internet is not the government’s to regulate.
Now, some news reporting has things a little backward. Wired‘s Threat Level blog, for example, carries the headline, “Obama Pledges to Veto Anti-Net Neutrality Legislation.” Headlines need to be short, but it could just as easily and accurately read “Obama Pledges to Veto Anti-Regulation Legislation” because the question is not whether the Internet should be open and neutral, but who should ensure that openness and neutrality. Should neutrality be ensured by market forces—ISPs responding to their customers—or by lawyers and bureaucrats in Washington, D.C.?
S.J. Res. 6 would reject the FCC’s claim to regulate the Internet in the name of neutrality. It says nothing about whether or not the Internet should neutral, open, and free. Again, that’s not the government’s call.
Did you follow all that? If you didn’t, you don’t need to. Here’s the summary: President Obama has gone on the record: He supports Internet regulation.
Government Control of Language and Other Protocols
It might be tempting to laugh at France’s ban on words like “Facebook” and Twitter” in the media. France’s Conseil Supérieur de l’Audiovisuel recently ruled that specific references to these sites (in stories not about them) would violate a 1992 law banning “secret” advertising. The council was created in 1989 to ensure fairness in French audiovisual communications, such as in allocation of television time to political candidates, and to protect children from some types of programming.
Sure, laugh at the French. But not for too long. The United States has similarly busy-bodied regulators, who, for example, have primly regulated such advertising themselves. American regulators carefully oversee non-secret advertising, too. Our government nannies equal the French in usurping parents’ decisions about children’s access to media. And the Federal Communications Commission endlessly plays footsie with speech regulation.
In the United States, banning words seems too blatant an affront to our First Amendment, but the United States has a fairly lively “English only” movement. Somehow, regulating an entire communications protocol doesn’t have the same censorious stink.
So it is that our Federal Communications Commission asserts a right to regulate the delivery of Internet service. The protocols on which the Internet runs are communications protocols, remember. Withdraw private control of them and you’ve got a more thoroughgoing and insidious form of speech control: it may look like speech rights remain with the people, but government controls the medium over which the speech travels.
The government has sought to control protocols in the past and will continue to do so in the future. The “crypto wars,” in which government tried to control secure communications protocols, merely presage struggles of the future. Perhaps the next battle will be over BitCoin, an online currency that is resistant to surveillance and confiscation. In BitCoin, communications and value transfer are melded together. To protect us from the scourge of illegal drugs and the recently manufactured crime of “money laundering,” governments will almost certainly seek to bar us from trading with one another and transferring our wealth securely and privately.
So laugh at France. But don’t laugh too hard. Leave the smugness to them.
Thinking Through Merger Review
Randy May of the Free State Foundation has a characteristically good post about the AT&T/T-Mobile merger entitled: “The AT&T and T-Mobile Merger: Thinking Things Through.” Among other smart ideas, Randy highlights the competitive game-playing that goes on in the merger review arena:
When considering competitive and market impacts for purposes of merger reviews, observe the extent to which various competitors, often many competitors, mount vigorous campaigns designed to convince the antitrust authorities and the regulators that if the merger is approved there will be an absence of competition. Note the incongruity.
There’s level-headed thinking aplenty in this post from a long-time Federal Communications Commission and telecom-industry watcher. Check it out.
The Government Shouldn’t Try to Manage the Communications Marketplace
Matt Yglesias takes my recent post gathering three links a little too seriously. Beyond their subject matter—the proposed merger of AT&T and T-Mobile—the theme running through the links was that they were all to the TechLiberationFront blog, not that “the federal government should not try to manage the development of the communications marketplace.” My humor is a little odd. Not everyone gets to come along….
But it’s true that the federal government should not try to manage the development of the communications marketplace. So I’ll defend that, and first principles, which Yglesias claims to have reached their limits when it comes to communications.
First, I’ll refine my thesis: the government should not manage the communications marketplace.
What is a “marketplace”? The handiest web dictionary has the following two relevant definitions: “1. An open area or square in a town where a public market or sale is set up. 2. The world of business and commerce.”
To “manage” such a thing ["to take charge or care of: to manage my investments"] would be to have a hand in much or all of it—not just meta-rules about the terms of buying and selling, but what may be sold on what terms, often up to and including price and quality.
Given these ordinary meanings, I think “manage the communications marketplace” has a relatively broad connotation, and the argument that the government should not manage the communications marketplace is easy. The give-and-take of the market is a better way to discover consumers’ true interests and to apportion resources to serve them. For all the effort and smarts they put into it, government regulators are at a serious disability compared to the market’s manifold forces. More often than not, regulators serve the interests of the corporations that are well organized to win their succor, and they nurture their own interests in maintaining and growing power.
Voices on the AT&T – T-Mobile Merger
News that AT&T plans a purchase of T-Mobile has brought out a lot of commentary.
On the TechLiberationFront blog, Larry Downes critiqued the emotional reaction of some advocates for government-managed communications.
On the TechLiberationFront blog, Jerry Brito noted how the deal highlights the artificial spectrum scarcity created by the Federal Communications Commission.
And on the TechLiberationFront blog, Adam Thierer catalogued a series of thoughts on various aspects of the merger.
Picking up a theme? That’s right: the federal government should not try to manage the development of the communications marketplace.
Independent Agencies Test Tea Party Mettle
Is there something special about December? Perhaps it’s the spirit of giving that had the Federal Communications Commission voting yesterday to regulate Internet service. At the beginning of the month—December 1st—the Federal Trade Commission issued a report signaling its willingness to regulate online businesses.
No, it’s not the fact that it’s December. It’s the fact that it’s after November.
November—that’s the month when we had the mid-term election. The FCC and FTC appear to have held off coming out with their regulatory proposals ahead of the elections because the Obama administration couldn’t afford any more evidence that it heavily favors government control of the economy and society.
There was already plenty of evidence out there, of course, but the election is past now, and the administration has taken its lumps. It’s an open question whether there will be a second Obama term, so the heads of the FCC and FTC are swinging into action. They’ll get done what they can now, during the period between elections when the public pays less attention.
And that is a challenge to the Tea Party movement, which would be acting predictably if it lost interest in politics and public policy during the long year or more before the next election cycle gets into full swing. Politicians know—and the heads of independent agencies are no less political than anyone else—that the public loses focus after elections. That’s the time for agencies to quietly move the agenda—during the week before Christmas, for example.
So it’s not the spirit of giving—it’s the spirit of hiding—that has these independent agencies moving forward right now. It’s up to the public, if it cares about liberty and constitutionally limited government, to muster energy and outrage at the latest moves to put the society under the yoke of the ruling class. Both the FCC and the FTC lack the power to do what they want to do, but Congress will only rein them in if Congress senses that these are important issues to their active and aware constituents.
FCC Votes to Preserve the Internet . . . in Amber
Larry Downes has depth of knowledge and a way with words, both of which he puts to good use in this C|Net opinion piece on the FCC’s vote today moving forward with public-utility-style regulation of Internet service.
If you’re interested in learning detail about the issues, it’s a good read. My favorite part is the conclusion:
The misplaced nostalgia for an Internet that has long since evolved to something much different and much more useful has led to the adoption today of rules that may have a similar effect. The FCC’s embrace of open-Internet rules may indeed preserve the Internet—but preserve it in the same way amber preserves the bodies of prehistoric insects. That gloomy outcome isn’t certain, of course. Internet technology has a wonderful habit of routing around inefficiency and unnecessary obstacles. As between Moore’s Law and FCC law, I’m betting on the technology to prove the ultimate regulator—and the sensible one, at that.
The FCC Should Not Regulate the Internet
The FCC moves forward with a proposal to regulate Internet service today. It’s a bad idea.
The one thing that pleases me about the ongoing debate over Internet regulation is the durability of Tim Lee’s November, 2008 Cato Policy Analysis, “The Durable Internet: Preserving Network Neutrality without Regulation.” My introduction of it is a good synopsis.
The arguments against government regulation in the name of “net neutrality” have not changed: A good engineering principle is not made better if dogmatized and given to lawyers and bureaucrats to enforce as law. The FCC and its regulatory regime are almost sure to be captured by major ISPs and turned to their benefit, used to suppress competition and blunt innovation.
A premise of net neutrality regulation—and much other regulation—is that consumers can’t be relied on to defend their own interests. Taking that premise, which I don’t, it follows that regulators must step in. But that syllogism skips over an additional premise: that regulators can do a better job.
The Istituto Bruno Leoni (Italy) recently published a terrific paper by Slavisa Tasic (a former Cato intern) that applies the insights of behavioral economics to regulators. Academics have typically used behavioral economics to illustrate the fallibility of market actors, but Tasic turns the tables. The paper is called “Are Regulators Rational?”, and it examines the cognitive biases that are likely to produce flawed decision-making on the part of regulators.
Yes, it’s tit-for-tat to the attack on markets implicit in behavioral economics, but it’s a sound and fair paper that opens new insights onto regulation. This is a good time to do that. Too many take it as an article of faith that the FCC will do better than consumers at protecting consumers’ interests.
This is also a good time to remember that the FCC is our national censor. The U.S. government’s censorious reaction to l’affaire WikiLeaks should serve as counsel to people who would subject Internet service providers to even greater federal regulation. Regulated ISPs will be more compliant with government speech controls.
It’s a point worth emphasizing: Regulated ISPs will be more compliant with government speech controls.
For these reasons, in addition to the ones that have come before, federal regulation of the Internet is a bad idea.
FCC and its Technological Advisory Council: Shut Them Down and Use the Money to Reduce Debt
The Federal Communications Commission has established a new advisory group called the “Technological Advisory Council.” Among other things, it will advise the agency on “how broadband communications can be part of the solution for the delivery and cost containment of health care, for energy and environmental conservation, for education innovation and in the creation of jobs.”
This is an agency that is radically overspilling its bounds. It has established goals that it has no proper role in fulfilling and that it has no idea how to fulfill. As we look for cost-cutting measures at the federal level, we could end the pretense that the communications industry should be regulated as a public utility. Shuttering the FCC would free up funds for better purposes such as lowering the national debt or reducing taxes.
What Was That Ronald Reagan Line Again?
The Washington Post editorializes this morning on the “Google-Verizon” proposal for government regulation of the Internet:
For more than a decade, “net neutrality” — a commitment not to discriminate in the transmission of Internet content — has been a rule tacitly understood by Internet users and providers alike.
But in April, a court ruled that the Federal Communications Commission has no regulatory authority over Internet service providers. For many, this put the status quo in jeopardy. Without the threat of enforcement, might service providers start shaping the flow of traffic in ways that threaten the online meritocracy, in which new and established Web sites are equally accessible and sites rise or fall on the basis of their ability to attract viewers?
What a Washington-centric view of the world, to think that net neutrality has been maintained all this time by the fear of an FCC clubbing. Deviations from net neutrality haven’t happened because neutrality is the best, most durable engineering principle for the Internet, and because neutral is the way consumers want their Internet service.
Should it be cast in stone by regulation, locking in the pro-Google-and-Verizon status quo? No. The way the Internet works should continue to evolve, experiments with non-neutrality failing one after another . . . until perhaps one comes along that serves consumers better! The FCC would be nothing but a drag on innovation and a bulwark protecting Google and Verizon’s currently happy competitive circumstances.
I’ll give the Post one thing: It represents Washington, D.C. eminently well. The Internet should be regulated because it’s not regulated.
“If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.”
Net Neutrality and Unintended Consequences
Google and Verizon’s proposed framework for net neutrality regulation has provoked cries of protest from advocates of aggressive regulation at places like Free Press and Public Knowledge. Some of the loudest objections have concerned the distinction between the “public Internet,” which (at least for wireline broadband) would be subject to neutrality requirements, and vaguely defined “differentiated” or “managed” services—presumably things like IPTV or digital telephone service—which would not. This, according to the pro-regulation camp, would amount to a massive loophole that defeats the purpose of imposing neutrality rules. As Public Knowledge writes in their press release:
Thus, it is conceivable under the agreement that a network provider could devote 90% of its broadband capacity to these priority services and 10% to the best efforts Internet. If managed services are allowed to cannibalize the best efforts Internet, whatever protections are agreed to for the latter become, for all intents and purposes, meaningless.
This may be right. But if so, it sounds like a reason to be chary of the whole regulatory project. Neutrality or no neutrality, after all, there are a variety of ways to get digital content from producers to subscribers. Traditionally, the cable running to your home comprised separate dedicated channels for cable TV and broadband Internet traffic—though the trend now is toward a more efficient model where the TV content is also delivered as packet-switched data. If you’d rather watch Jersey Shore from the Jersey Shore, you can stream your video to a mobile device like a tablet or smartphone via Internet, but that’s hardly the only way to get your Snooki fix: There’s also, for instance, Digitial Video Broadcasting Satellite to Handheld (DVB-SH) or Qualcomm’s MediaFLO operating on their own dedicated frequencies. Imposing neutrality rules on wireless broadband (as the Google/Verizon proposal would not — again, to the dismay of regulation fans) shouldn’t affect these services.
My concern, then, is that if neutrality rules foreclose the possibility of cross-subsidy from the providers of subscription-based video streaming or VoIP services, these alternatives become more attractive. Maybe Netflix or Hulu Plus want to be able to offer a deal where your subscription price includes priority delivery of their packets to your smartphone or tablet, making non-WiFi video streaming feasible even if you haven’t sprung for that kind of top-shelf bandwidth for all your wireless data. If neutrality regulation forbids that kind of deal, even with respect to these kinds of “managed services,” one possible effect is to skew investment away from building out next-gen IP networks and toward these kinds of niche services, which strikes me as inefficient. Indeed, it’s precisely the effect Public Knowledge seems to fear, and there’s no obvious reason to suppose that it’s going to be a big problem within IP-based broadband services, but not affect the choice between alternative modes of digital content delivery.
I should close with the caveat that I haven’t looked very closely at the economics here, so while I think the effect I’ve just sketched is theoretically plausible enough, I couldn’t say with any confidence how significant it’s going to be in practice. That said, given that the case for neutrality regulation seems to rest on a smattering of genuine cases of bad behavior by providers and a whole lot of dire speculation about consumer-unfriendly practices that might emerge, I’ll permit myself a little extra latitude to deal in hypotheticals.
Government Promotion of Broadband? No, Thanks.
A Pew Internet and American Life poll out this week finds: “By a 53%-41% margin, Americans say they do not believe that the spread of affordable broadband should be a major government priority.” Non-Internet users are less likely than Internet users to say the government should prioritize spreading access to high-speed connections.
The federal government spent $7.2 billion in “stimulus” money on the premise that the federal government is supposed to do this kind of thing. And the Federal Communications Commission’s “National Broadband Plan” is premised on the idea that there is supposed to be a national broadband plan. It isn’t, and there’s not.
Much as I love using the Internet for work, entertainment, and social connection, I recognize that people can live perfectly happy lives without it. The invention and growth of the Internet should always be seen as having opened new avenues for people, not as having created a national communications medium in which participation is required to live a full life. Social engineers, stand down: people will use the Internet if they want it, and they won’t if they don’t.
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