Or so says Paul Kapustka with his list of “Top Ten Net Neutrality Influencers”, on which I do not rank even an honorable mention.
Tip of the hat, however, to friend-of-the-blog and occasional sparring partner Richard Bennett included in the honorable mention slot.
On the plus side, no one will care if I take Wednesday and Friday off.
Stay tuned . . . .
Two cute woof-woofs from dear old Atrios, at Eschaton. ( I will link to him even though he refuses to acknowledge my existence (I hate that).)
In the most recent bark, he ironically says, Damn those unions for destroying Citigroup!!!. In the immediately prior arf-arf, he says,
I guess the Very Serious People are incapable of seeing how absurd this all is.
Nov. 24 (Bloomberg) — The U.S. government is prepared to lend more than $7.4 trillion on behalf of American taxpayers, or half the value of everything produced in the nation last year, to rescue the financial system since the credit markets seized up 15 months ago.
I missed this when it came out at the Consumer Electronics Show this year. Hilarious.
I know he doesn’t, but oh….wouldn’t it be cool if he did.
Here is his Most Awesome Thruthiness riffing on my favorite subject, the worshipers of the Gods of the Marketplace.
Stay tuned . . . .
I’m pleased to post a guest blog posting from Professor Alan L. Feld of Boston University School of Law. Two disclaimers are in order. First, the views expressed herein by Prof. Feld are his own, and not those of B.U. Second, he is my Dad — a matter on which I am quite pleased and proud.
For his position on the proposed auto industry bail out, see below . . . .
The Pains is now available for you to read, for free, online. It’s under the Creative Commons license, about which more in a moment. It’s also available for you to pre-order printed copies. I would advise your buying several copies: it’s the surest way to avoid extraordinary rendition to an undisclosed location and being subjected to enhanced interrogation techniques.
UPDATE
I’ve updated this entry with some more info about Creative Commons.
What can you do in a virtual world? Quite a bit, although we’re still quite far from the answer being, “Anything you can do in the real world.” Here’s a baseline list of today’s raw capabilities, in the language of virtual worlds. (The higher level activity one does with these capabilities is another story.)
To update on the question of whether cable companies think they are above the law. According to this piece by Ted Hearn in Multichannel News, all 13 cable cos responded to the FCC’s letter of inquiries (LOIs) issued in response to the consumer complaints. The FCC is apparently now reviewing the adequacy of the response.
Mind you, according to the article, we are still likely to find that the cable cos responded in a less than thorough way, and will necessitate the FCC coming back with another request. But this is merely the usual fun and games by which large companies avoid obeying the law, rather than an outright statement of defiance that the law simply doesn’t apply to them.
I suspect the cable cos will do their best to run out the clock, in the hopes that the next FCC will be more tolerant of their exercise of market power. Whether that is true or not (and it will certainly NOT be true if either Adelstein or Copps is chair), I would hope that all the FCC Commissioners, but especially the two Democrats, back Martin on this investigation and make it clear to the cable cos they will not tolerate any efforts to run out the clock.
As President-elect Obama observed at his first press conference: “The United States only has one President at a time.” Similarly, the FCC has only one Chairman at a time. Certainly when it comes to investigating consumer complaints, all FCC Commissioners need to stand united in making it clear to industry that a time of transition is not a time when you can get away with screwing consumers.
Stay tuned . . .
Good news right before Sabbath kicks in. According to this article, Obama’s FCC transition team will now include Susan Crawford and Kevin Werbach!!!
These are not just people who “get it.” These are people who “got it” waaaaayyyyyy ahead of the curve. They are also so totally not captured by any interest — but are also sufficiently “mainstream” that they will not be marginalized as radical left-wing progressive cooks. (Defensive? Me? How dare you suggest it!)
Gotta shut down now before sunset, so can’t wax nearly as enthusiastic as I would like. Suffice it to say t makes a very pleasant way to close out the week.
Stay tuned . . . .
I clearly missed a class in law school. Not once in my Administrative Law class did my professor ever tell me that you could respond to a federal investigation by telling the agency “We know you have authority, but we’d rather not answer these questions because you are a great big meany.” But then, I’m not working for the cable industry, which has repeatedly shown it has trouble with the concept that federal law really applies to them and that the FCC is supposed to be a regulator not a lap dog.
Today’s episode of “I Can’t Believe The Chutzpah” comes from the ongoing investigation by the FCC over whether cable operators are using the confusion around the DTV conversion to push users into buying digital tier service, and rent new digital set-top boxes in violation of the rules on set-top box interoperability, or just generally violating the law by changing channel line ups without notice to either subscribers or local franchise authorities, migrating stuff off basic tier without warning, or charging for additional tiers to get channels required by law to be available on the basic tier. Mind, I’d also like them to explicitly ask whether the cable guys are unfairly migrating unaffiliated channels to digital in violation of Section 616, but that’s just me.
Anyway, after getting a bunch of consumer complaints and reading Consumers Union’s letter to Congress (or at least hearing about it on NPR), the FCC sent out a bunch of letters of inquiry to the named cable companies and Verizon asking them to provide a boatload of information which would allow the FCC to determine if the consumer complaints were, ya know, true. Given that this is lots of people being potentially ripped off big time, the agency told the everyone that got a letter they had two weeks to reply.
Mind you, this is hardly an original process or unique to the cable industry. I should know. The FCC did the same thing in response to my complaint about the wireless microphone guys back in August. The FCC (also under Martin I should add) acted with similar swiftness and intensity back in 2006, when Verizon and BellSouth tried to keep charging USF fees on DSL after they were phased out. The phone companies, apparently under the same misconception that I was that even if you are a big company you actually have to obey the law, backed off. The cable companies have other ideas. And, if they get away with it, I’m sure the Bells, broadcasters, and every one else will follow suit.
So yesterday, NCTA,the trade industry for the cable guys, sent a lengthy letter to the FCC explaining that the FCC is not allowed to investigate the cable industry. They recommend that the FCC rescind the letters of investigation and, instead of having the Enforcement Bureau actually act on consumer complaints, the FCC should hold a nice, quiet Notice of Inquiry instead. Then, if Martin gets all the other Commissioners to agree, and the FCC asks nicely and without any legal compulsion to answer honestly or completely, cable operators might consider responding.
Now I just know, KNOW that there are people out there who hate Kevin Martin so much that they will decide that it is really O.K. for cable to tell the FCC to “fleeting expletive off and die,” because it is the poor helpless widdle cable guys and the evil Kevin Martin (I cannot help but observe that Verizon does not seem to have any problems complying with this request, but of course they are an evil minion of Kevin Martin, or the other way around. Besides, Kevin Martin hates the cable industry, so there!)
As what is often called a “consumer advocate,” I’m a little alarmed that we will now have a new doctrine that says “consumers can complain, but the FCC can’t protect them if we think the FCC Chair might enjoy it.” And while I would flippin’ think that the idea that the cable companies need to obey the law like everyone else would be bloody self-evident, not to mention that the consequences of letting industry dictate to the federal watchdog agency what it will and won’t respect on enforcement go well beyond the poor picked on widdle cable guys to whatever industry you don’t like (in my case, wireless microphone manufacturers — I can hardly wait for Shure to refuse to cooperate with the FCC next), I long ago learned that even bloody obvious things need explaining when it comes to the cable industry and their rabid defenders.
So I address the actual legal issues below . . . .
