1. Application manufacturers, and manufacturers of operating systems for mobile and tablet devices (and, soon, notebook computers running on Google Chrome, for instance), seem to rely on the realization that the Internet has so fractured the consumption of information that users are more likely to choose a set number of “favorite” sources or services by which they receive or generate data, as opposed to looking for as many and varied sources as they can find. It is significant to note that the web was initially presented to users mostly via the web browser — a tool to access a seemingly infinite number of sources in a generally non-hierarchical way. While applications do provide access to those same sources, the development of apps specifically tied to the products of particular companies or news outlets provides the possibility for a kind of preferential treatment by each individual user for certain types of data at certain points in time. Ease of access to data via applications (as opposed to the somewhat more steps involved in finding sources through a browser) can, in this way, become traded for the diversity of information sources.

2. It’s interesting to note that Apple seems to have been a driver of innovation in the graphic user interface (GUI) market from the very beginning of its existence, at least in terms of GUI’s commercial availability. The Macintosh first appeared on the market in 1984, followed closely by the commercially successful presentation of Windows 1.0 in 1985. Microsoft’s Windows OS became a dominant platform for personal computing, but it was Apple that once again revolutionized the GUI market in 2001 with the introduction of OS X.

Apple’s move toward the kind of channeled access to Mac programs via singular icons (as experienced by the end user) is what is most interesting to me. At least until Windows 7, Microsoft developed operating systems that relied on the user’s knowledge of the structure of his/her own device, limiting plug and play and demanding the user’s awareness of how to install or uninstall new products. But Apple’s OS, especially the OS X, has been much more reluctant to openly reveal the back-end functions of its own operating system to the individual user. What appears to the Mac audience is a simple, manageable, but rather mysterious interface that, by its sheer functionality, distances the user from understanding his/her own device.

The frameworks of the iPhone and, subsequently, the Android and Windows mobile operating systems are extensions of this kind of OS-manufacturer-controlled user experience. Easy-to-use applications drive the facilitation of content access, and channeling becomes the norm as tablet computers continue to develop and grow in market dominance. And once again, Apple has led the way in revolutionizing the mobile device market through the introduction of the iPhone and iPad platforms and GUI.

3. We live in a world where it is no longer sensible to deny Google’s dominance of the online content market, especially as it relates to the company’s ownership of massive amounts of private data (e.g. Gmail, Google Docs, YouTube) and Internet usage tendencies (e.g. search). The company is sitting on a goldmine. And admittedly, we average folks are in a love-hate relationship with the giant: our monkey brains swim in starstruck euphoria as Google develops newer and newer user-friendly innovations, while our rational brains occasionally awaken us to the possibility that all of this might one day result in KBG-style revenge on our self-imposed ignorance.

Beyond Google, though, the lucrative business in the ownership and management of online content is difficult to overlook. Facebook, Skype, Apple, Twitter – even when some of these companies haven’t monetized yet, they are vessels for the kind of information that could prove to be of considerable financial value when controlled by companies with holdings in other forms of telecommunications services.

Here’s my point: The question is not whether someone will one day manage oversight of our private information and online experience. The question is who is doing so, and how.

We have already handed over to the technology industry a large amount of control over our own privacy, as well as some of our capability to devise our own path in experiencing the Internet. Those ships, at their own pace and leisure, have sailed. The new concern becomes how the ownership of these assets will be handled by the industries that now possess them. In other words, how the online marketplace will develop in the next several years.

More on that soon…

But this is far from the first time the FCC has shown a lack of political courage or will to protect consumers in the face of powerful industry pressure. History shows us that the FCC has presided over a progressive decline in investment and competition in the Internet space over the last decade, due to deregulation brought on by the agency’s willingness to bend to pressure from the cable and telecommunications lobby Goliath. From placing broadband Internet access under a weak regulatory regime in 2002 and 2005, to weakening infrastructure build-out requirements from communications franchising rules in 2006, the FCC has erased more and more important policies that ensured competition and innovation in the Internet marketplace.

It is time for the FCC to end this downward spiral of deregulation, and to stand up for what is best for the economy, the public, and the future of competitive business. Contrary to the agency’s actions earlier this decade, it is not the absence of regulation that will ensure investment and consumer protection. In fact, without the strong likelihood of a financial return, companies cannot be trusted to spend funds strictly for the benefit of the public without adequate regulation. (I wish I had a penny for the number of times this was proven true.) An effective government demonstrates the leadership necessary to ensure that the free market system operates fairly. It proactively eliminates opportunities for companies to place the bottom line before the public interest.

The following review of Internet policy deregulation in the last decade should be a significant cause for alarm.

From Competition to Duopoly

The 1990s was the age of dialup Internet, with its myriad of Internet service providers vying for the attention of consumers. America Online, Earthlink, NetZero – many of these companies still serve low-income and rural households.

The kind of intense competition available for dialup, but not for cable, DSL, FiOS, or mobile wireless, is due to “common carriage” rules imposed on carriers by Title II of the Communications Act of 1934. Among other things, Title II requires these companies to open up their networks to competing Internet service providers. Telephone service has had to abide by these requirements for a century or more (and thus, dialup does too).

Cable carriers soon entered the Internet service provision market – but in 2002, their massive lobbying might convinced the FCC not to impose the same requirements for cable modem service. Cable carriers used the same threats about investment to avoid common carriage that they are using today to avoid net neutrality rules: they said competition from other Internet service providers would place too much of a financial burden on them to carry out upgrades and build-out needed for increased bandwidth capacity, or would diminish their incentive to invest if they cannot monopolize the returns on that investment.

The result of this harmful FCC decision is evident in today’s cable broadband market: subscribers in most markets can receive cable Internet only via one incumbent cable carrier. The carrier gets to name the price for its services, and unsurprisingly, Internet users pay much more for slower service than those in other nations do.

In 2005, in another radical policy departure in support of large incumbents, the FCC extended the same treatment to telephone company broadband offerings. The agency reclassified DSL, which is transmitted via the same phone lines used to provide dialup, removing it from Title II of the Communications Act. The ruling thus removed common carriage requirements on DSL providers, diminishing consumer protections for the vast majority of high-speed Internet service users.

Today, DSL carriers offer similarly high prices for snail-like speeds compared to the broadband offerings of other developed and even developing nations. They also fail to provide consumer choice for DSL service in most regions.

In 2006, deregulation continued when the FCC dramatically eased build-out requirements in local franchising laws across the United States. Franchise agreements are made between local and state governments on one hand, and providers of video services like cable television on the other. The specifics in these agreements dictate where companies are allowed to and required to build their video systems – which typically are the same systems they use to provide Internet service. The Bush-era FCC’s decision limited state and local governments’ ability to require companies to connect underserved and unserved regions in their own communities. Instead, it permitted carriers to cherry-pick lucrative areas to provide broadband service.

The Investment Scare Continues

For a few short months, current FCC Chairman Genachowski gave the public impression that he understood the importance of an effective regulatory agency. He asked an independent team to develop a National Broadband Plan. He spoke in support of strong network neutrality rules applicable to both wireline and wireless networks. Later, in response to new challenges, he developed an agenda to “reclassify” broadband under Title II, albeit with some new limitations on FCC authority.

He even commissioned the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University in 2009 to study “open access” in the broadband context, tipping his hat to the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which encouraged line sharing to ensure broadband competition.

The Berkman study came out with strong, compelling evidence, based on international comparisons and economic analysis, that line sharing is a critical component of a country’s strong broadband development. In the countries studied, the report stated,

“open access policies – unbundling, bitstream access, collocation requirements, wholesaling, and/or functional separation – […] provided an important catalyst for the development of robust competition which, in most cases, contributed to strong broadband performance across a range of metrics” (13).

But after asking for public comment on the Berkman report, the FCC did not follow through on the report’s recommendations. Blair Levin, former director of the National Broadband Plan team, poured cold water on any hopes of FCC action on the issue in an interview earlier this year.

Many recommendations made by the National Broadband Plan were similarly underwhelming, proposing universal broadband speed targets lower than those proposed or already achieved in many other nations. And the agency still has not moved to reassert its authority over broadband access, so that it can implement strong network neutrality protections.

Instead, the FCC hosted closed door meetings without public interest involvement to develop a watered-down industry compromise on what only the carriers could believe passes for network neutrality. Worse, because the agency has not acted to make sure that it can oversee broadband access, it is unclear how any net neutrality rules it creates could be enforced. All because some large providers threaten to withhold investment in their infrastructure if the FCC dares impose any tangible regulations on them. (Yet somehow, Comcast, AT&T, and Verizon can afford to pay for expensive commercials, billboards, sponsorships, and outdoor advertising like virtually no other commercial industry in business today.)

Time for a Stronger FCC

When carriers warn of the looming downfall of investment due to network neutrality rules or broadband reclassification, their scare tactics should rouse considerable feelings of déjà vu in any historian or longtime advocate of communications policy. These are not new arguments. They are tried-and-true weapons used to weaken the FCC’s political will. And the long-term memory loss of the Washington policy world provides a perfect excuse for their continued use.

The solution to the FCC’s rightful concern about investment is not the abandonment of net neutrality protections. Doing so would leave carriers free to discriminate against or block traffic on the Internet, gutting free expression, technological innovation, and competition in online commerce. Doing so would also fail to provide any concrete assurance that carriers will in fact invest to expand and upgrade broadband networks, as they promise to do.

If the FCC is truly concerned with investment, it will strengthen its competition policy, not weaken it. It will create rules to ensure consumer choice and infrastructure development, instead of bowing to carriers’ intimidation tactics by enacting diluted, unenforceable network neutrality provisions.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski should remember one simple message as his agency clarifies its authority over Internet access services: The agency’s job is to serve the public. Accordingly, the FCC’s primary concern should be the needs of the nation, not those of big telecommunications or cable carriers.

Yet last week, Chairman Genachowski held closed-door meetings with industry, in an effort to search in vain for a compromise on open Internet principles and other public interest protections. Despite its goal to serve the public, the FCC did not invite citizens’ organizations to the table at these meetings, and did not divulge details regarding the discussions that took place.

The agency should put a stop to such private meetings with industry, and must continue an open dialogue on the future of broadband directly with the American people, who are the real stakeholders in these critical decisions. Keeping the process transparent will stay true to the Obama promise of an open government.

Roughly two years have passed since Candidate Obama began to build a nationwide following around common dreams of “change” and “hope.” He spoke of encouraging public service and fostering a culture in which the American people could take on serious energy, health care, finance, and foreign policy challenges. He promised an open Internet, to give all communities equal access to information and self-empowerment in the digital world. In fact, Candidate Obama built his remarkably successful campaign using the open Internet. His statements on all of these topics promised a government built on dedication, honesty, and transparency, and he motivated thousands of undecided or apathetic voters to believe that corporate influence and backroom deals would no longer rule Washington.

These dreams can still become reality, but they require bold leadership at all layers of government – including the FCC. Chairman Genachowski must engage his Commission to follow President Obama’s leadership on transparency and accountability. Yet the FCC’s closed-door meetings did not echo such an approach.

The groundswell of corporate lobbying dollars being spent by AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, and others to weaken Chairman Genachowski’s stance on his broadband oversight proposals should not surprise the Commission. These companies are doing their jobs as profit-seeking entities working to ensure maximum returns for their shareholders.

But as our nation has experienced, and as Candidate Obama recognized, the private sector sometimes does not act in the public’s best interest. Unchecked market forces actually can foreclose possibilities for growth and access, shut out innovation, and even cause environmental, financial, or medical disasters. The federal government must set reasonable rules of the road for us to have fair and safe markets, promoting innovation, investment, and industry by ensuring a level playing field for all.  Regulators must fill in gaps and close harmful loopholes to ensure long-term national benefit.

The truth is that Internet service providers have never been leaders in innovation. The seemingly limitless possibilities for access, collaboration, and commerce online that we see today are the work of content and application producers, who have relied on the open Internet to create brand new businesses and products. With a strong and effective FCC, able to continue protecting users’ access to the Internet, this new economy will continue to grow.

Without fair and clear ground rules set by the FCC, on the other hand, big cable and telecom companies will decide how and when their customers can access information on jobs, educational opportunities, health care, and civic participation.  Historically marginalized groups will have to continue to endure media representation that has little or no relevance to the struggles these communities face daily. And as recent disasters on Wall Street and in the Gulf have shown, we all lose when powerful business interests get to set their own rules and prioritize their own huge windfalls over public safety and transparency.

The FCC has proposed restoring the light-touch oversight of broadband Internet access that the agency exercised during the last several years. The proposal is fair, reasonable, and timely. Chairman Genachowski must move ahead with the transparent, committed proceeding he promised to implement in that plan. He must not compromise on open Internet principles, and cannot allow special interest pressure at the FCC and on Capitol Hill to weaken the Commission’s power to protect consumers online.

Genachowski’s actions today will define the future of online business and public access to information on the most democratic, participatory communications platform of our lifetime.

Follow Kamilla Kovacs: www.twitter.com/kamillakovacs

Follow Media Access Project: www.twitter.com/mediaaccess

Reposted from Voice of Philadelphia

A federal appeals court decision made last Tuesday has far-reaching impact on the future of freedom of expression and access for communities throughout the country – and especially Philadelphia.

The decision overruled a 2008 order made by the Federal Communications Commission requesting that Comcast stop blocking Internet traffic to a popular peer-to-peer file sharing service called BitTorrent. Last week, a federal appeals court found that the Commission failed to demonstrate its “ancillary” authority, or implied authority, to regulate the Internet, and thus, to direct Comcast on its practices of network management.

The court decision affects all Internet users in the country. Philadelphia residents are especially impacted, since Comcast is so dominant in this market. Due to last week’s decision, if Comcast chooses to continue to slow down traffic to certain applications and services online, Philadelphia residents will have limited options to move to another broadband provider. They will be locked into a relationship with Comcast if they wish to continue to receive cable Internet service – further worsening the consumer impacts of the company’s market power in the city.

Last week’s ruling massively limits the Commission’s ability to oversee the Internet and to protect openness, free expression, and competition online. As FCC General Counsel Austin Schlick admits, it also limits the FCC’s ability to successfully implement its National Broadband Plan to promote the development of high-speed Internet services nationwide – a plan the Commission’s staff designed over the last year. But the FCC still has options to reinstate its authority, if it has the political courage to do so. To understand what is at play, however, a review of some dense legal history is required.

In 2002, the Bush-era FCC classified cable modem service as “information service” under Title I of the Communications Act. Unlike Title II, which regulates telecommunications services, Title I does not require cable Internet service providers to abide by “common carrier” rules that mandate providers to carry traffic in a neutral manner, without favoring some users over others.

In 2005, the FCC’s ruling was upheld in a Supreme Court decision on FCC v. Brand X. In the same year, the FCC also classified DSL (transmitted across telephone networks) as a Title I service. By the end of 2005, the FCC’s legal authority over the Internet was severely diminished.

Though painful, last week’s court decision pointed out the obvious: that classifying cable and DSL as information services is just not enough. Despite protests from large, incumbent cable and telecommunications providers, it is time the FCC acted to protect its power to defend widespread public access to low-cost, high-speed, open broadband services, both for wireline and wireless networks.

If the FCC is truly committed to undertaking an ambitious effort to bring high-speed Internet into local communities; to ensuring that the United States stays internationally competitive in broadband penetration; and to moving forward on President Obama’s commitment to protect an open Internet, it should explore all of its options, including reclassifying broadband as a Title II telecommunications service. Only through this action will the Commission ensure its authority to move forward on these critical issues.

In a Senate hearing Wednesday, Senator John Rockefeller (D-WV), chairman of a committee that oversees communications policy, emphasized that the Commission should do anything in its power to pursue the objectives it set out in the broadband plan. Rockefeller also voiced his commitment to helping the FCC ensure its authority. “In the long-term, if there is a need to rewrite the law to provide consumers, the FCC, and industry with a new framework, I will take that task on,” he said.

In a statement posted on SaveTheInternet.com Wednesday, Senator John Kerry (D-MA) also urged the FCC to consider reclassification, rather than putting the burden on Congress and risking many months of “procedural hurdles.”

The Commission has support from Members of Congress, as well as a large number of businesses and consumer groups. It now must act to overcome the disastrous impacts of last week’s Comcast ruling and to ensure the swift delivery of high-speed Internet services to families and businesses around the country.

Kamilla N. Kovacs is communications and development director at Media Access Project, a DC-based nonprofit, public interest law firm working to advance policies that promote freedom of expression, independent media, and low-cost, universal access to communications services.

What would that mean for women today?

It occurs to me that most of us ladies have never considered, and certainly never internalized this possibility. Yet I think it would bestow upon us considerable responsibility and empowerment.

If allowed to go through, the Comcast-NBCU deal would result in unprecedented consolidation in media. For the first time, it would allow a single company to control both the cable system and a broadcast station in a dozen of the largest U.S. media markets. Folks living in Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, Washington, San Francisco, and other major cities would receive their household cable hookup from the same source that runs their local NBC broadcast station. As a result, Comcast would be more tempted to discriminate against its competitors online by charging higher fees to rival cable providers for access to NBC content, or by blocking the access of other programmers to its network, as it has attempted to do in the past. Comcast customers could also be left with higher monthly cable bills.

No company in history has enjoyed such extensive powers of control over how the public shares and receives information, and how that information is produced. Why is a deal like this being considered now? Not as a result of pure coincidence. Before 2002, federal regulations prohibited exactly such business arrangements.

In 1970, the FCC put in place the Cable-Broadcast Cross-Ownership (CBCO) Rule to ensure the preservation of competition in broadcast media ownership. The Rule was intended to ensure that cable operators would not be able to leverage their market power by favoring the carriage of their own broadcast content over content owned by other broadcasters. Thus, the Rule ensured that audiences would receive a diversity of programming, to the extent possible under the existing market framework.  CBCO codified pre-1970 protections against cross-ownership and served the public interest in this regard for most of the following three decades.

The 1996 passage of the Telecommunications Act, however, laid the groundwork for massive deregulation in media ownership. Among other directives, Congress mandated that the FCC review and reconfirm the efficacy of all broadcast media ownership rules on a biennial basis (later modified to take place every four years). At face value, these reviews may have seemed useful to Congressional lawmakers – but in practice, they provided broadcasters with the ability to scrutinize and attack these important public interest policies on a regular schedule.

It didn’t take long for industry lobbyists to use this convenient loophole to begin a full-on war against media ownership protections.

While the FCC continued to treat the ownership review process as a mundane, procedural reporting requirement, in 2002, Time Warner caught the FCC off-guard in court by presenting an all-out challenge against the Rule. The cable provider convinced a panel of conservative judges to reverse the FCC’s 1998 decision, which saw the CBCO Rule as essential to preserve competition and protect diversity and local programming.

With the CBCO Rule out of the way, Comcast in particular began to explore cable-broadcast mergers almost immediately. In 2004, the company attempted, but failed, to undertake a hostile takeover of ABC-owner Disney. A combination with NBCU is the first time that a cable-broadcast cross-ownership deal would be put to the test – and with it, the intentions of Comcast to protect diversity, competition, and the public interest would be tested as well.

Precedent in this regard is no cause for optimism. Not long ago, Comcast was reprimanded by the FCC for blocking BitTorrent applications in an anticompetitive manner, without informing its customers. The company recently created Xfinity, a means by which some online video can be accessed only via a Comcast cable subscription. Comcast has even intervened with the application for economic stimulus funding to develop broadband in underserved areas of its own hometown of Philadelphia. Clearly attempting to forgo any threat of competition, the company has argued that it adequately serves the entire city with broadband services, despite strong arguments to the contrary by local residents and community associations. (Comcast also tried to shut out Verizon from wiring the city for FiOS service.) These and other infringements are why Media Access Project, Free Press, Consumer Federation of America, Consumers Union, and other public interest organizations are opposed to and concerned about this merger.

The moral of this short glance at recent telecommunications history is that Comcast-NBCU and deals like it aren’t mere inevitable next steps in the media business. Less than a decade ago, the federal government considered such transactions to be against FCC rules and threatening to the free flow of information to American citizens. But the strength of our nation’s media ownership protections is now but a shadow of its recent past.

The Obama administration and Congressional lawmakers must turn back the tidal wave of mergers and deregulation of the last 20 years. They must recognize the serious threat posed by Comcast-NBCU to consumer welfare, civic participation, and local and  independent media production – and they must stand up against this acquisition.

But I have to say… Twitter is sorta different. It’s really kind of nuts how close you can get to people that you admire and how many new things you can learn with this technology. Degrees of separation get broken down to an extent that we have been sincerely hoping for in other areas of the Internet, but aren’t quite seeing in the same as of yet. I mean jesus, I am following some hip hop artists that I’ve admired for ten years or hope to one day see in concert, in part so I can be closer to them — and now reading random crap they write and seeing who their inspirations are and the things they are following or coming out with. Same goes for folks in media policy – information is disseminated at lightning speed for everyone to see. That is intense.

I realize this is all so not new; I’d just like to make a note that, for the time being, I am throwing in the towel and jumping with open heart onto the Twitter train. And seeing where it’ll lead me. Because I’ve never learned so much in so little time from one outlet as I have from this.

As I thought more about it, I starting wondering why people come to have such dissimilar, often opposing viewpoints about any given social or political issue. A person’s past, their interactions with people, families, friends, where/how they grew up… all of this influences their choice of work or political views in a massive way. And yet I think this too often tends to get overlooked in everyday life.

In my world of policy and advocacy, we tend to get so damn wrapped up in our own views. It almost becomes “clear” to us that our way makes all the sense in the world, and we can’t seem to wrap our heads around why anyone would actually disagree with us, unless they are somehow in the pocket of the industry. Or uneducated. Or disabled in some way. We keep on pushing our views and hope that we can convert a few more people onto our side.

I say this not because I think advocacy is a bad thing. Obviously. I believe in it and I do it. And I think it’s important to shed light on unrecognized problems, unfair treatments, and the like. But I think we need to start thinking about all of this in a different way. Perhaps one could say, more compassionately.

We could start by asking ourselves, why do I do what I do? Why do I believe in what I believe in?… It sounds cheesy, sure. But if we were to take the time one day, as we butter the bread or walk down the escalator, to really think about this, we may realize that our lives took certain turns in certain moments in a way that really defined some core ideals. Some central moral tenets.

And it did the same inside everyone else.

And now that we’re all adults, we spend the rest of our lives fighting amongst ourselves about who is right or wrong, based on our personal series of arbitrary life events.

Understanding and accepting the fact that we all have our own journey may actually help to guide the public interest advocacy, in specific. What could we lose if we were to one day think about how we’re going to phrase our campaigns in a way that is less combative, less “us vs. them” and more compassionate and unifying?

I have no examples to contextualize this idea. Mostly because any given example would restrict me from interpreting it in the widest, most variable way possible. I rather suggest that maybe, the compassionate approach could become one of the few guiding principles for how public interest advocacy is conducted.

It may actually motivate a few more like-minded folks to get out of their armchairs and into active positions. Humanizing any given constituency – as opposed to “othering,” or designating them the “enemy” – tends to have that kind of empowering effect on an audience.

What are the reasons for those core differences between you and one person you hopelessly disagree with?

I’ll leave you with that thought.