Mary Bono Mack, pay attention: Here’s the model for any privacy ventures you should attempt: voluntary action by private individuals, educated by simple government actions. If you really must get government involved, teach the people to fish, so that they can protect their own privacy for a lifetime.
Because if we insist on regulating the Internet problems of the moment, not only do we expand a government that’s already to big, we risk looking pretty stupid, too. Ah, Prodigy. I never did get their modem to work.
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Wednesday I told you guys to look for two posts of mine. One is still pending, but I at least got my post on the California Amazon tax, and possible referendum shenanigans posted yesterday. At least I’m halfway there.
Beyond self promotion, we still do have other matters, like the pending AT&T/T-Mobile deal. Despite being left out of the Sprint coalition, Free Press is still on the warpath, fighting both the CWA union and the free market. Free Press argues that the deal is bad in part because T-Mobile was supposed to spend more in capital investment, over double AT&T’s planned level. But here’s the problem: he’s effectively double counting. T-Mobile, as an independent network, would have to spend more just to catch up with AT&T. Once the two join forces, they will need to spend less as they will need less spectrum, fewer towers, less backhaul, and everything else that is currently duplicated in markets serviced by both companies now, or serviced now by AT&T with service planned by independent T-Mobile.
Not that Free Press really cares about accuracy. They ran with a Reuters lie about News Corp, and didn’t bother to correct even after Reuters did. No wonder they think we need state-run media. Since they don’t care about the truth, they assume everyone else is as shady as they are.
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I’ve said before that the case against the AT&T/T-Mobile deal makes no sense. Not only does the historical record suggest that the merger will increase competition, but the actions of key players are the opposite of what we’d predict if the merger were expected to reduce competition and raise margins.
There’s something more to it, though. That something is astroturf pushing a basic agenda of an expanded government role in the media. Why yes, the same forces were behind Net Neutrality are now behind the anti-AT&T coalition, in addition to Sprint who wants to keep prices higher and competition lower, by preventing AT&T and T-Mobile from getting together and being more effective.
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