Net Neutrality is taking a real pounding this week. The Heritage Foundation has come out shooting, calling for a major rollback in the FCC’s authority, including repealing Net Neutrality legislatively. Also, The US Chamber of Commerce is calling upon the FCC to be held to the President’s standards for regulatory review, which would certainly put Net Neutrality at risk.
But its supporters press on. Even as GoGo Inflight Internet offers non-neutral Free Facebook access (just wait until the radicals start telling us that free stuff is bad!), Andrew McLaughlin says the Egypt situation proves the need for state control of the Internet through Net Neutrality. Try to figure that one out. I sure hope Vint Cerf didn’t feed him that line. He has a reputation.
Remember the arguments against Net Neutrality and the FCC power grab? Remember how I warned that if the FCC took power it did not have under the law, we’d be at risk of content and price controls, no matter how many times the Democrats claimed it was purely about network management?
Oops. The National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners is asking the FCC to impose “Content Neutrality” and price controls, justifying its request based on FCC statements on Net Neutrality and the Comcast/NBC Universal merger.
Sure makes Heritage’s plan to neuter the FCC sound better, doesn’t it?
Closing note: Google says Microsoft is lifting Google Search results for using its Bing Search, with alleged evidence to prove it. If what Google says is true, I think there’s no doubt that Microsoft is doing just that. However I don’t think we have any independent way to verify Google’s claims, so let’s grab the popcorn and watch them fight it out.