Sorry if you’ve been missing Tech at Night this week. Monday I just ran out of time as I had to do a whole bunch of housekeeping*, and tonight I’m running late. So let’s go.
In classic Tech at Night style, let’s talk about the FCC. They took forever to get the ball rolling on Net Neutrality, but it’s coming now and it’s a vehicle for censorship, says Seton Motley. As he says, “As every place we get our news and information continue their rapid migration to the Internet, Net Neutrality will lord larger and larger over the free market – and our free speech. Which is why we must rid ourselves of it as rapidly as possible.”
More fuel for the FCC reform fire: Free State Foundation points out the FCC has known for years of its problems with the intercarrier compensation system, which is how money changes hands when phone calls are carried across different private phone networks. They knew in 2001. That’s a long time coming. Though if they do tackle it now, we need to watch out for the Universal Service Fund becoming an Internet Tax.
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Friday, Friday, Friday. Black Friday? Net Neutrality rules have become one step closer to official as the FCC finally delivered something to the OMB after months of stalling. Verizon, MetroPCS, Virginia AG Ken Cuccinelli, and others ended up unable sue to throw out the illegal power grab until it’s published, so the longer the FCC waited, the longer everyone else had to wait to begin to defeat rules that will harm innovation, investment, and jobs, say Fred Upton and Greg Walden.
It’ll be 90 more days at least before the rules hit the Federal Register and the rush to the courthouse begins.
Meanwhile the FCC’s bad run in the courts continues as it lost another case. Of course, this was actually a Bush-era rule, being thrown out on a technicality. But the Obama FCC continued its defense, and lost.
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