Commentary: The Dark Side of Interactive Marketing

'Digital Destiny' Author Jeff Chester on How New Media Is Causing the Brandwashing of America

We are witnessing the creation of the most powerful media and communications system ever developed. A flood of compelling video images propelled by the interactivity of the internet will be delivered though digital TVs, PCs, cellphones, digital video recorders, iPods, and countless mobile devices. These technologies will surround us, immerse us, always be on, wherever we are -- at home, work or play.

Following our travels
Much of the programming will be personalized, selected by us with the help of increasingly sophisticated, but largely invisible, technologies that will "sense" or "know" our interests, dislikes, and habits. Information about our travels -- in cyber and real space -- will be collected and stored, most often without our awareness. Our personal data will be the basis of computerized profiles that quickly generate commercial pitches honed to precisely fit our psychology and behavior.

A ubiquitous system of micropersusaion is emerging, where the potent forces of new media are being unleashed to influence our individual behavior. From the ad industry's initiatives to better perfect measures such as "engagement," to the MI4 research effort (Measurement Initiative for Advertising, Agencies, Media and Researchers) to harness the power of the unconscious mind, to the rapid evolution of "rich media" virtual applications, a marketing technological "arms race" is underway that will further permeate advertising and marketing in our daily lives.

Wherever we are -- online or in the street connected by mobile devices -- Americans (and much of the world) will be increasingly influenced by the technologies of digital marketing. Such a system will be greatly aided by the scores of supplemental "real world" marketing efforts, including teams of viral street marketers and brand evangelists (many of whom are not yet old enough to vote!).

Increasing power
The ad industry likes to claim that the public has more control over what advertising they see or whether they like it at all. Many Ad Age readers point to the increasing expansion of the media and argue that advertising is now less powerful. But such assertions are disingenuous. Fueled by global media consolidation, advertisers are now working even more closely with content companies. Product placement has morphed into "program" placement and beyond. Like radio and the early days of broadcast TV, marketing, distribution and content are increasingly seamless. The broadband internet, digital TV and new forms of mobile communications are all being shaped by the forces of marketing. As I argue in my new book, "Digital Destiny: New Media and the Future of Democracy," advertising is becoming more powerful, not less.

In the book, I chronicle the ad industry's role in helping shape the early development of the internet, including how groups and companies such as the Advertising Research Foundation (ARF), Procter & Gamble Co., and The New York Times promoted what was once called the "Internet Advertising Ecosystem." It covers the evolution of the "one-to-one," "new media" marketing paradigm that still serves as the industry's basic digital blueprint (further fueled today by sophisticated off- and online data collection, web analytics, interactivity and the branding power of video). The ad industry's substantial research and political infrastructure -- including ARF, Association of National Advertisers, American Association of Advertising Agencies, Interactive Advertising Bureau, its many councils and committees and global groups such as Esomar -- are also explained.

From online "behavioral targeting" to interactive ad networks to "virtual hosts" and other "socially intelligent interfaces," the book attempts to lay bare what marketers plan for the country's "digital destiny." Although readers of Ad Age know well what is now underway and its likely impact, the public is largely uninformed. One of my goals is to encourage a meaningful national debate about the current direction of the ad and marketing industry and its impact on society.

Let consumers decide
One of the most serious concerns is about privacy. Most marketers and advertisers are opposed to permitting consumers/users to have real control over their data. They want the default to be the collection of information so we can be precisely targeted. That's why privacy groups, including my own Center for Digital Democracy (CDD), want Congress to pass legislation requiring a full disclosure of what information is being collected, via what method, and how it is to be used. After examining such details, each consumer would decide on a periodic basis whether to agree to permit the collection of their data (known as "opt-in").

The current "opt-out" system, where consumers have to proactively seek to place their personal information off-limits, is designed to ensure that most consumers consent by default to data collection. New threats to our privacy from marketers and advertisers have emerged, including behavioral targeting, online retargeting (where consumers are digitally shadowed over ad networks), and the emergence of "intelligent ad engines" placed in cellphones and other mobile devices.

Recently, CDD and the U.S. Public Interest Research Group jointly filed a petition with the Federal Trade Commission asking the agency to declare many of today's interactive advertising industry practices, including behavioral targeting and virtual advertising, unfair and deceptive. It appears that the FTC is now slowly lifting its head out of the digital sand to seriously investigate the industry based on our complaint. But it will take prodding from the new Congress to get the FTC to act.

Safeguards for new technology
Beyond privacy, interactive-marketing technologies also raise unique concerns about "vulnerable" populations. Unleashing personalized and cyber-virtual marketing to children, teens, prescription-drug users, and the elderly raise important questions related to public health. These groups will need to be protected with new safeguards. But even more is at stake. The entire system of interactive advertising must become more transparent and requires intense public scrutiny, debate, and -- where needed -- effective public policies.

For example, advertisers are now working to harness the power of our emotions through research on "neuroscience" and "psychophysiology." As the ARF and AAAA explained in 2005 during Advertising Week, the industry wants to "capture unconscious thought, recognition of symbols and metaphors."

"Emotional responses can be created even if we have no awareness of the stimuli that caused them," the ARF and AAAA noted. Such potential manipulation of a consumer's unconscious will be even more powerful when delivered by virtual agents (such as avatars) that have been fashioned (via data profiling) to dovetail with our desires and interests.

What's the long-term impact?
I fear that such a powerful psychosocial stealth-marketing machine, backed by the yearly expenditure of many billions of marketing dollars, will drive personal consumption to greater excess. What will be the impact on our environment, such as global warming, as a steady stream of interactive marketing messages are planted deep into our brains wherever we go? Will the digital push to buy and positively associate with brands promote an even more narcissistic human culture? What will be the impact of our personalized communications marketing system on the healthy development of children, families and communities?

The ad and marketing industries have an important role to play in our society, especially helping financially support news, information, and entertainment services. I recognize that advertising will continue to be a very powerful force in our lives. But marketers need to demonstrate greater social responsibility. They must ensure that consumers fully understand and consent to digital techniques; make certain that approaches to target our emotions and other brain behaviors are truly safe (including the impact of virtual reality); and, most importantly, help our media system evolve in a way that strengthens civil society.

Such a goal is not for the U.S. alone, but also involves how the marketing industry serves the public in the developing world. For example, what will be the impact on the world environment as China's emerging digital infrastructure is bombarded with one-to-one commercial messages promoting automobiles?

The creation of a broadband media system will be viewed by future generations as one of our society's most significant accomplishments. Will it be seen as one of the highest achievements for a democracy, a place in cyberspace that helped enrich the lives of many and offered new opportunities for an outpouring of cultural and civic expression? Or will it been seen years hence as a new version of what the late scholar Neil Postman aptly described as a medium even more capable of "amusing ourselves to death"? The readers of Ad Age will help determine that answer.

This column was adapted from Mr. Chester's new book "Digital Destiny" (The New Press, 2007).

Digital Media Marketplace: The Next Frontier for Media Reform

By: Jeff Chester

(This is a reprint of the original article published in AlterNet January 2007)

On Friday, several thousand U.S. media activists will converge in Memphis to attend the Free Press group's "National Conference for Media Reform." Much of the conference is focused on current and upcoming public policy battles designed to help make this country's media system more democratic. Right now there is greater interest in media policy than we have seen since the 1960s.

Among the key concerns is fighting against the Federal Communications Commission's current plan to permit greater consolidation of our nation's newspapers and broadcast stations; battling Congress over the broadband Internet (network neutrality); and highlighting the lack of ownership of media outlets by women and people of color. These are important topics, but the real action it requires must take place outside of the D.C. beltway.

With network neutrality legislation now being introduced in the new Democratic-controlled Congress [VIDEO], it is likely that many attending the Free Press conference will leave Memphis feeling that fighting for its passage should be the progressive media movement's top priority. After all, hundreds of thousands of activists, bloggers and media makers just successfully fought to a standstill plans by the former Republican-controlled Congress to pass legislation giving phone and cable companies greater control over the future of the Net in the United States.

But our most urgent task is to proactively intervene to shape -- on behalf of progressive values -- the emerging commercial digital communications system. This will require a strategic intervention to create sustainable "new media" services that help harness the power of digital media to better promote social justice. Our digital media system will have the capability to help "define" political and social "reality" for the majority of Americans. Unless progressives can seriously "program" the new media -- in every community and across the nation -- we will face even greater obstacles promoting our agendas.

Critical moment of media transition

Urging that activists focus on a commercial communications strategy may sound strange coming from someone who has devoted much of his adult life to public interest media policy. But it's important to be strategic at this critical moment of media transition. A powerful and ubiquitous system delivering personalized and interactive content is emerging. Soon most of us will be connected to an "always-on" media system of communications -- via the principal "platforms" of PCs, cell phones and increasingly digital TV sets.

It's this new system we should be concerned about, as it will have the capability to influence the attitudes and behaviors of the majority of Americans. As Wall Street and the major media companies recognize, the distinctions between broadcast and cable TV channels and the Internet are beginning to disappear. The commercial media industry, fueled by the hundreds of billions spent each year by advertisers and marketers and also backed by Wall Street, is helping create what will be our new media reality.

They understand the power and the potential profits from this country's (and much of the world's) "converged" media system. They have strategically invested in this new system to help ensure they can play a leading role in the evolution of broadband (and reap the many billions in profits).

For example, there were more than $72 billion worth of entertainment and media mergers alone in 2006. That followed a spate of similar deals between 2004-2005 worth $244 billion, according to a report by PricewaterhouseCoopers (involving the content, distribution and technology sectors). The same study noted that there have also been 2,200 corporate alliances in the media, telecommunication, and technology sector since 2001. We all know that Rupert Murdoch's Fox acquired MySpace in 2005 for around $600 million (in a deal ultimately involving Google). Google itself spent more than $1 billion last year to scoop up YouTube (all of this to better serve the interests of advertisers, by the way).

But not much is known about the myriad corporate alliances designed to help determine our digital destiny, with giants such as Cisco, H-P, Microsoft, Disney/ABC, GE/NBC, Apple, Yahoo and Intel in various partnerships. Although the new media, including podcasts, broadband videos, and RSS feeds, now offer an explosion of alternatives, media diversity may really be on a short digital leash.

Ten companies earned nearly three-quarters of all Internet ad revenues in the U.S. in 2005, according to a November article in Advertising Age. "TV's Big Four environment has turned into the Big Four online, with Google, Yahoo, MSN and AOL dwarfing other online players," the trade publication reported. It explained that although "[t] here has been much talk of how the democratizing web has opened a brave new long tail, [the Internet] seems to be shaping up to look a lot more like the broadcast world, with a handful of players dominating marketers spending."

Perhaps the most revealing statistic for progressives is that more than $1.5 billion has also been invested by venture capitalists in Web 2.0 social network startup companies over the last two years. Such social network sites potentially pose both an opportunity and a challenge for the progressive agenda. Social networking sites are based on the notion of connecting users to a community, including the sharing of personal information, opinions, photos, videos, etc. Many will become key outlets for advertising and marketing, while also likely serving as important places for organizing and politics.

What will be the impact to the public interest if entrepreneurs and corporate investors who don't embrace a social change agenda operate the principal sites in a community and the nation? What will happen to the progressive agenda if it can't meaningfully reach out to young people, who view their own identities through a digital media prism. Advertisers will be focusing all their collective economic power to target young people to become passionate consumers. Without an alternative approach, much of the digital media I fear will further drive impulses fostering a narcissistic (and politically impotent) culture.

But should the profits from Web 2.0 and the like go to progressives, especially to networks of activists and media makers? Yes, they should and must. After all, the public will be buying products from these sites, many of whom are consumers who might support some part of the public interest agenda. We cannot afford to permit all of the revenues generated by digital media to leave our community. Progressive causes require a serious business model to help support what will be likely a very long effort to secure social and economic justice (let alone peace!). It cannot count on foundation handouts, donations from the well-to-do, or even personal support (such as viewer/user pledges).

Progressives will need a steady influx of cash to help pay for all the organizing that must be done and also to underwrite the costs for multimedia production. Ultimately our new media system is about the production and distribution of multimedia content. If we are going to change the hearts and minds of the public, the key 21st Century place to do so will be via digital media. That's why it's urgent now that we place ourselves squarely within the emerging digital enterprise to help harness its media and financial power for social change.

Imagine, a progressive Web 2.0 service owned and controlled by low-income residents of New Orleans. It could be a powerful independent media force serving as an agent for justice, while offering a variety of programming revealing what the mainstream media continues to ignore. Such a service would also be a place for community conversation, and a networking hub that could help generate revenues. It would help make more visible, especially through local online search services, the array of progressive voices.

At this point with U.S. media, the only way we can ensure that women, persons of color, and low-income Americans control electronic outlets is to encourage ownership of such new media content services. Public policy cannot, sadly, play a serious role here to enable such diverse ownership of broadband content.

There is another pressing need for a swift progressive response. Our present media system of broadcasting, cable and newspapers cannot be counted on to effectively inform the public. From its failure to criticize and expose the Bush administration's lies during the runup to the Iraq war, to its failure to cover the post-Katrina tragedy in the Gulf, to the overall absence of coverage on the plight of the poor, to ignoring recent plans to scrap habeas corpus protections -- our mainstream news system cannot be relied on to promote a civil society.

Yet the stakes for our country -- and the world -- have never been higher. If we are going to promote a society that is just, we will need to build a sustainable media infrastructure of local and national progressive multimedia programmers. The burden is now on us to create the kind of media system we want -- not through policy, but through a focused and strategic marketplace intervention.

I'm not saying to totally forsake public policy. Fighting for network neutrality is still important to ensure that the phone and cable companies won't have the total control they desire. Critical too, are policies that enable every low-income American to have free broadband access. Policies are also necessary to protect online privacy, support non-commercial communications, check advertising abuses, and protect community communications (such as public access and municipal wireless).

If progressives can successfully create programming for cell phones and digital cable and satellite TV, they will also likely need some policy help to pressure the gatekeepers to carry it. But achieving any or all of these goals will be a tough battle, given the corrupt nature of U.S. communications politics (especially with the golden revolving door between the FCC, Congress, and the media lobby).

The government -- even under the Democrats -- isn't going to intervene in the short-term to shape the media marketplace so it truly supports democracy. But it's exactly the short-term -- the next five to 10 years -- that we must be concerned about, as the digital media system fully matures into a serious force in our lives.

Much of media reform activism has been a rear guard action to hold back the growth of communications giants, attempting to provide some measure of diversity and accountability in programming. Activists such as myself knew we had to keep the major broadcast, cable companies, newspaper chains, and phone companies from buying up every media outlet in sight. We also recognized that without a fight -- including political pressure -- these media giants would ignore the public interest.

But the new digital media system is structured in a way where policy solutions are less likely to have the kind of impact that can make a real positive difference in our lives. Backed by Wall Street, Madison Avenue, Silicon Valley and Hollywood, much of our new media will be a digital version of Neal Postman's "Amusing Ourselves to Death" (or Mark Crispin Miller's aptly put "national entertainment state").

Unless we compete to offer the public meaningful alternatives, such attractions will occupy the public's attention. What we need is for progressive funders and others to invest in a sort of new media "Marshall Plan." Social network and new media pilot projects, especially at the community level, should be supported.

We need to explore all kinds of models, including private ownership, community control, co-operatives, etc., to see what may work best. Establishing services which respect consumer privacy and support a serious public interest agenda could give us a key advantage over more traditional consumerist approaches.

The new digital communications system will give the country more outlets and different business models, and help create new personal behaviors for using media. It's time to fashion out of this emerging marketplace a communications infrastructure that will help us leave a positive media legacy -- along with a more progressive political future for the next generation.

 

 

Funding for PBS Must Be Tied to Real Reform

 

Groups such as Moveon.org and others have rightly responded to the proposed Bush Administration budget slash to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (around a 25% reduction to CPB's funding for public television and radio). There is now a campaign to help restore funding and also politically pave the way for some form of permanent support-such as a "Trust Fund."

Google: Search and Data Seizure

By: Jeffrey Chester

(This is a link to the original article published in The Nation, September 2007 )

 

Should we be worried about Google? Ten years after the search engine was launched by two Stanford University graduate students, Google has become an empowering force and a adopted behavior that has transformed the way we access news and information, shop for goods and services and--increasingly--how we engage in politics. Who would have imagined four years ago, that Google and its subsidiary YouTube would co-sponsor debates in which ordinary citizens could directly engage with presidential candidates?

 

Last week, Google's stock hit an all-time high, on the strength of reports that the company will earn more this year than the $10.6 billion it earned in 2006. But while Google has almost overnight become a trusted source of information for the technologically attuned, few have thought to question the extent to which its success poses threats to both our privacy and our aspirations for the positive potential of the Internet.

The War Against Google

By: Jeff Chester

(This is a reprint of the original article published in The Nation March 2007)

 

Fearful of the growing dominance of Google, some of the country's most powerful media companies are seeking to rein in the digital giant. Viacom's $1 billion copyright infringement lawsuit against Google's YouTube and the recent deal between NBC Universal and News Corp./Fox to establish a rival online video site have made the headlines. But this is just the beginning of a larger effort designed to weaken and undermine Google. The stakes are high, not only for Google and the other media conglomerates but for the future of the broadband medium and the public interest.

Privately, a number of media giants have been exploring ways to limit Google's growing clout in the advertising marketplace. Among the options, insiders say, is a possible federal antitrust case, similar to the 1998 case brought against Microsoft. Another avenue is possible actions against Google at the Federal Trade Commission over the company's interactive data-collection apparatus.

Representatives from Google's growing list of competitors say that unless checked now, Google will ultimately control most of the interactive advertising revenues for broadband. Industry insiders understand that control over ad revenues will give Google tremendous clout over the future of content online, since it will have the resources to fund whatever it desires. Consequently, Viacom's legal action against Google is less about copyright infringement over clips from The Daily Show appearing on YouTube than about cutting the search and advertising behemoth down to size.

Currently, Google garners nearly half of all US online searches. The company has also aggressively expanded its advertising services into newspapers, radio, television and mobile communications. As commerce, communications, entertainment and information further merge online, companies that control both the most popular sites and the interactive targeted-marketing (and data-collecting) apparatus will dominate.

The media industry now finds itself in a critical period of transition, which will determine what the financial relationships will be among the major content providers (such as Viacom), mobile and cable systems (such as Verizon) and advertising powerhouses (Google). Viacom chief Sumner Redstone knows firsthand how legal action can humble potential competitors. He successfully took on cable TV baron John Malone more than a decade ago in another well-known entertainment industry lawsuit. As with the case against Malone, Viacom's legal action against Google is not just about humbling a rival but also about getting the best deal for splitting revenues.

Time Warner, Viacom, Fox, Google and the others are really arguing about the role that interactive advertising will play in determining the future of digital content and its distribution: Who gets the lion's share of revenues from ad and content sales? How much access can advertisers have to our personal data? How much advertising can they send our way? To what extent can media giants control the monetization of our eyeballs and our psyches? This is also everything about pleasing the biggest deep-pocketed advertisers, who don't want to see their ads adjacent to videos that might undermine their message. Google has already implemented a technology fix to prevent unwanted content from appearing on YouTube and other sites. Its "advanced content identification architecture" is designed to insure major program producers and advertisers that it can identify and remove any problematic content.

There is real danger that the media buzz around disputes like the Viacom suit and the new NBC-Fox online venture will obscure real concerns about privacy and other rights we have as consumers of online content. As media powerhouses seek to make the new digital landscape a better environment for large advertisers, those who care about the potential of broadband to serve the public interest should be engaged in the debate. We should not leave decisions about how digital content is paid for and distributed just to Google and its ever-growing list of corporate competitors.

 

 

A Ten-Point Plan for Media Democracy

By: Jeff Chester

(This is a reprint of the original article published in The Nation June 2006)

Ten years after the passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, digital technologies are rapidly reshaping the country's communications system. It will be the most powerful media environment ever created--always "on" with connections via PCs, digital TVs and an array of mobile devices, delivering a torrent of personalized, interactive and virtual content, much of it coming from the nation's most powerful traditional and new media companies (e.g., AT&T, Comcast, Google, Microsoft). The next several years are critical to insure that the promise of what we now experience online--and its vast potential to help build a just civil society--is fulfilled. With Congress poised to pass legislation that rewrites key parts of the Telecom Act, the following ten action items should be on any media reform agenda.

1. Media Ownership

The GOP-controlled FCC wants to eliminate key media ownership restrictions affecting TV and radio stations, cable systems and newspapers. Expect fewer owners of our most powerful outlets and a further decrease in journalism budgets.

Action: Join the new "Stopbigmedia" coalition (www.stopbigmedia.com) to promote diversity of media ownership and content. Also, work against the renomination of FCC chair Kevin Martin.

2. Mergers

Sprawling new media powerhouses are emerging, in which offline and digital content and distribution, advertising and marketing are tied to the same multinational giants. For example, the pending AT&T and BellSouth merger will create a colossus spanning voice, broadband and video.

Action: Join with Media Access Project (www.mediaaccess.org) to fight the AT&T/BellSouth merger. Push for new laws to restore our trust in antitrust.

3. Network Neutrality

We can't permit the Internet to come under the control of phone and cable companies, like Comcast and AT&T, that want to transform it into a toll road, with fast lanes for corporate media and a digital dirt road for everyone else.

Action: Join the "strange bedfellows" coalition, which includes MoveOn.org, the American Library Association and the Christian Coalition, pressing Congress to pass "network neutrality" rules to protect the principles of nondiscrimination and open access. Join Save the Internet (www.savetheinternet.com).

4. Spectrum Management

The wireless Internet (Wi-Fi) has been an unprecedented success, with more than 35,000 hot spots (many of them free) operating in the United States. But for the wireless broadband revolution to continue, it needs new unlicensed spectrum. Big communications companies, including broadcasters, want to keep for themselves what should be the public's airwaves.

Action: Urge the FCC to set aside additional spectrum for unlicensed use and support legislation currently in Congress that will make unused TV spectrum available for Wi-Fi applications. The New America Foundation (www.newamerica.net) has been leading the charge for enlightened spectrum management.

5. Community Broadband

Municipal wireless systems represent the most promising alternative to the two-fisted stranglehold that cable and telephone companies currently have over the broadband Internet. Fourteen states, acting at the behest of the cable and telco lobbies, have passed laws limiting these efforts, and others are considering such restrictions.

Action: Urge your Representatives to support federal legislation (e.g., the municipal broadband provision in the otherwise objectionable Communications Opportunity, Promotion and Enhancement [COPE] Act) that will restore the right of cities to undertake their own broadband projects. See Free Press's Community Internet page (www.freepress.net/communityinternet/=US).

6. Privacy

As the recent furor over NSA access to millions of private telephone records makes clear, we need to update privacy protections for the digital age. Such protections should extend into the commercial arena too, where new data-collection and -mining technologies, coupled with personalized marketing campaigns, represent a new threat to our personal privacy.

Action: Call for a thorough overhaul of existing privacy regulations, beginning with a requirement for "affirmative consent" before personal data can be collected, and covering the latest developments in digital data collection and analysis. See the EPIC website (www.epic.org).

7. Intellectual Property

Just as privacy protection must move from the analog to the digital domain, so must copyright law reflect the reality of networked computers and other personal devices. Congress's initial effort in this regard, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, went way overboard in its desire to protect content owners (namely, the entertainment industry), and the principle of "fair use" suffered accordingly.

Action: Urge your Representative to reject the Bush-backed Intellectual Property Protection Act (which compounds the DMCA's excesses) in favor of legislation that preserves fair use. See www.publicknowledge.org.

8. Universal Digital Service

Millions of Americans still lack basic Internet, let alone broadband. We need new approaches to achieving "universal service," the policy that sought to make telephone service affordable for low-income and rural Americans.

Action: Call for Congress to expand the Universal Service Fund in the digital era, and support efforts to bridge the digital divide through municipal Wi-Fi and community networking projects.

9. Diverse Broadband Content

The phone industry is building a new system that will deliver interactive TV programming and broadband content (e.g., Verizon's FiOS and AT&T's Project Lightspeed). Cable is also expanding its network offerings. Progressive media must make sure their content is on these networks. We must also build and expand new media services, including digital TV programming channels, broadband websites and mobile networks.

Action: Urge phone and cable companies to open their system to progressive, alternative and diversely owned content. Funders must support an independent digital infrastructure.

10. Minority Ownership

African-Americans, Hispanics and others have fared poorly in the media business, owning only a handful of radio and TV stations. Most of the cable outlets aimed at minorities are owned by corporate giants (e.g., Viacom now owns BET and Comcast controls the new TV One service for African-Americans).

Action: Civil rights groups need to take a more adversarial approach to the media monopoly--seeking minority ownership of local and national broadband outlets.

 

 

 

 

Congress Poised to Unravel the Internet

Congress Poised to Unravel the Internet

By: Jeff Chester
The Nation
August 2006

 

Lured by huge checks handed out by the country's top lobbyists, members of Congress could soon strike a blow against Internet freedom as they seek to resolve the hot-button controversy over preserving "network neutrality." The telecommunications reform bill now moving through Congress threatens to be a major setback for those who hope that digital media can foster a more democratic society. The bill not only precludes net neutrality safeguards but also eliminates local community oversight of digital communications provided by cable and phone giants. It sets the stage for the privatized, consolidated and unregulated communications system that is at the core of the phone and cable lobbies' political agenda.

In both the House and Senate versions of the bill, Americans are described as "consumers" and "subscribers," not citizens deserving substantial rights when it comes to the creation and distribution of digital media. A handful of companies stand to gain incredible monopoly power from such legislation, especially AT&T, Comcast, Time Warner and Verizon. They have already used their political clout in Washington to secure for the phone and cable industries a stunning 98 percent control of the US residential market for high-speed Internet.

Alaska Republican Senator Ted Stevens, the powerful Commerce Committee chair, is trying to line up votes for his "Advanced Telecommunications and Opportunities Reform Act." It was Stevens who called the Internet a "series of tubes" as he tried to explain his bill. Now the subject of well-honed satirical jabs from The Daily Show, as well as dozens of independently made videos, Stevens is hunkering down to get his bill passed by the Senate when it reconvenes in September.

But thanks to the work of groups like Save the Internet, many Senate Democrats now oppose the bill because of its failure to address net neutrality. (Disclosure: The Center for Digital Democracy, where I work, is a member of that coalition.) Oregon Democrat Ron Wyden, Maine Republican Olympia Snowe and North Dakota Democrat Byron Dorgan have joined forces to protect the US Internet. Wyden has placed a "hold" on the bill, requiring Stevens (and the phone and cable lobbies) to strong-arm sixty colleagues to prevent a filibuster. But with a number of GOP senators in tight races now fearful of opposing net neutrality, the bill's chances for passage before the midterm election are slim. Stevens, however, may be able to gain enough support for passage when Congress returns for a lame-duck session.

Don't Ask, Don't Tell

Thus far, the strategy of the phone and cable lobbies has been to dismiss concerns about net neutrality as either paranoid fantasies or political discontent from progressives. "It's a made-up issue," AT&T CEO Ed Whitacre said in early August at a meeting of state regulators. New Hampshire Republican Senator John Sununu claims that net neutrality is "what the liberal left have hung their hat on," suggesting that the outcry over Internet freedom is more partisan than substantive. Other critics of net neutrality, including many front groups, have tried to frame the debate around unsubstantiated fears about users finding access to websites blocked, pointing to a 2005 FCC policy statement that "consumers are entitled to access the lawful Internet content of their choice." But the issue of blocking has been purposefully raised to shift the focus from what should be the real concerns about why the phone and cable giants are challenging federal rules requiring nondiscriminatory treatment of digital content.

Verizon, Comcast and the others are terrified of the Internet as we know it today. Net neutrality rules would jeopardize their far-reaching plans to transform our digital communications system. Both the cable and phone industries recognize that if their broadband pipes (now a monopoly) must be operated in an open and neutral fashion, they will face real competition--and drastically reduced revenues--from an ever-growing number of lower-cost phone and video providers. Alcatel, a major technology company helping Verizon and AT&T build their broadband networks, notes in one business white paper that cable and phone companies are "really competing with the Internet as a business model, which is even more formidable than just competing with a few innovative service aggregators such as Google, Yahoo and Skype." (Skype is a telephone service provider using the Internet.)

Policy Racket

The goal of dominating the nation's principal broadband pipeline serving all of our everyday (and ever-growing) communications needs is also a major motivation behind opposition to net neutrality. Alcatel and other broadband equipment firms are helping the phone and cable industries build what will be a reconfigured Internet--one optimized to generate what they call "triple play" profits from "high revenue services such as video, voice and multimedia communications." Triple play means generating revenues from a single customer who is using a bundle of services for phone, TV and PC--at home, at work or via wireless devices. The corporate system emerging for the United States (and elsewhere in the world) is being designed to boost how much we spend on services, so phone and cable providers can increase what they call our "ARPU" (average revenue per user). This is the "next generation" Internet system being created for us, one purposefully designed to facilitate the needs of a mass consumerist culture.

Absent net neutrality and other safeguards, the phone/cable plan seeks to impose what is called a "policy-based" broadband system that creates "rules" of service for every user and online content provider. How much one can afford to spend would determine the range and quality of digital media access. Broadband connections would be governed by ever-vigilant network software engaged in "traffic policing" to insure each user couldn't exceed the "granted resources" supervised by "admission control" technologies. Mechanisms are being put in place so our monopoly providers can "differentiate charging in real time for a wide range of applications and events." Among the services that can form the basis of new revenues, notes Alcatel, is online content related to "community, forums, Internet access, information, news, find your way (navigation), marketing push, and health monitoring."

Missing from the current legislative debate on communications is how the plans of cable and phone companies threaten civic participation, the free flow of information and meaningful competition. Nor do the House or Senate versions of the bill insure that the public will receive high-speed Internet service at a reasonable price. According to market analysts, the costs US users pay for broadband service is more than eight times higher than what subscribers pay in Japan and South Korea. (Japanese consumers pay a mere 75 cents per megabit. South Koreans are charged only 73 cents. But US users are paying $6.10 per megabit. Internet service abroad is also much faster than it is here.)

Why are US online users being held hostage to higher rates at slower speeds? Blame the business plans of the phone and cable companies. As technology pioneer Bob Frankston and PBS tech columnist Robert Cringely recently explained , the phone and cable companies see our broadband future as merely a "billable event." Frankston and Cringely urge us to be part of a movement where we--and our communities--are not just passive generators of corporate profit but proactive creators of our own digital futures. That means we would become owners of the "last mile" of fiber wire, the key link to the emerging broadband world. For about $17 a month, over ten years, the high-speed connections coming to our homes would be ours--not in perpetual hock to phone or cable monopolists. Under such a scenario, notes Cringely, we would just pay around $2 a month for super-speed Internet access.

Regardless of whether Congress passes legislation in the fall, progressives need to create a forward-looking telecom policy agenda. They should seek to insure online access for low-income Americans, provide public oversight of broadband services, foster the development of digital communities and make it clear that the public's free speech rights online are paramount. It's now time to help kill the Stevens "tube" bill and work toward a digital future where Internet access is a right--and not dependent on how much we can pay to "admission control."

 

 

 

Google's Wi-Fi Privacy Ploy

Google's Wi-Fi Privacy Ploy

By: Jeff Chester
The Nation
March 2006

 

The digital gold rush is on across America, as cities scramble to develop free or low-cost Wi-Fi zones. These public on-ramps to the Internet are designed to provide every citizen with a form of always-on, high-speed Internet access--at the playground, in the office or at home--at low or no cost.

Dozens of communities large and small, in red states and blue, are either planning or currently constructing Wi-Fi systems. Community leaders--from Philadelphia; Houston; Columbia, South Carolina; and San Francisco, to name a few--recognize that creating a citywide Wi-Fi zone is not only vital for economic development and public safety but helps insure that Americans who can't now afford digital communications on their own can also tap in to the riches and convenience of the Internet. But there is no such thing as a free digital lunch.

Consumers and public officials should have no illusions that what is being touted as a public benefit is also designed to spur the growth of a mobile marketing ecosystem, an emerging field of electronic commerce that is expected to generate huge revenues for Google, Microsoft, AT&T and many others. Soon, wherever we wander, a ubiquitous online environment will follow us with ads and information dovetailed to our interests and our geographic location.

Unless municipal leaders object, citizens and visitors will be subjected to intensive data-mining of their web searches, e-mail messages and other online activities are tracked, profiled and targeted. The inevitable consequences are an erosion of online privacy, potential new threats of surveillance by law enforcement agencies and private parties, and the growing commercialization of culture.

Mining Your Data

Consider the application submitted to the City of San Francisco in February by search giant Google and its partner, the Internet service provider Earthlink. One of six Wi-Fi bids being considered by the City of San Francisco, the Google/Earthlink plan has attracted the most attention. Under this proposal, Google would provide a free but relatively low-speed Internet service available throughout the city (Earthlink would operate a higher-speed service on the same system charging users $20 a month). The costs of operating the "free" service would be offset by Google's plans to use the network to promote its interactive advertising services.

Everyone who uses the Google network would first be directed to a portal page, where they would be offered an array of what Google terms "personalized consumer products." Through those products and other technologies, Google plans, according to its proposal, to "target advertisements to specific geographical locations and to user interests."

What this means is that Google and Earthlink plan to use online files (known as cookies) and other data-collection techniques to profile users and deliver precise, personalized advertising as they surf the Internet. (Earthlink is working with the interactive ad company DoubleClick, which collects and analyzes enormous amounts of information online to engage in individual interactive ad targeting.)

Not everyone is enthused by the Google/Earthlink model. San Francisco was advised by a trio of privacy advocates to develop policies that would respect personal privacy. In letters to the city, the ACLU of Northern California, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) urged the adoption of a "gold standard" for data privacy, insuring that its Wi-Fi system would "accommodate the individual's right to communicate anonymously and pseudonymously." The groups also suggested that the city require any Wi-Fi company to allow users to "opt in" to any data-collection scheme. [Full disclosure: I rent office space in Washington, DC, from EPIC].

Scary Syllables

These two syllables--"opt in"--strike terror in the hearts of Google, Microsoft, AOL and everyone else in the interactive marketing field. Opting in requires users to affirmatively give permission before any data can be collected. Individuals would be fully informed about how such information would be used (such as profiling, sharing with others, etc.). What companies want instead is an "opt-out" approach, in which the default is always set to collect and make full use of our personal information.

As EPIC's West Coast senior counsel Chris Hoofnagle explained, "The Google plan proposes to bargain away users' privacy for a trickle of Internet connectivity." Google will have an unprecedented ability to monitor use and build records of web activity. These records will be a honey pot for law enforcement. Individuals' privacy is worth more than a 300K download speed." (Other Wi-Fi applicants in San Francisco also favor opt-out data-collection technology. One applicant, the NextWLAN Corporation, envisions "an e-commerce monetized, fully captive, location-aware Internet portal." But also on the table is a proposal from the nonprofit Seakay that offers a free service and pledges no personal information will be collected online.

The interest San Francisco and other cities have in securing the financial support of commercial investors for their Wi-Fi grids in part reflects the success of the campaign run by the nation's largest cable and phone companies, which have opposed the idea of municipally owned and operated Internet service. Companies such as Comcast and AT&T view these low-cost local municipal competitors as a threat to what they believe is their rightful broadband monopoly businesses. Already, there have been lawsuits, lobbying and legislation against such municipal Internet services.

As a result of this pressure, cities are now seeking a more corporate-friendly approach to provide what should really be a public utility operated for everyone's benefit. Too many local governments are embracing a model for Wi-Fi, says advocate and expert Sascha Meinrath, that creates a system more favorable to "billable moments" than one designed to truly connect communities together.

Instead of creating yet another e-commerce stomping ground, San Francisco and other cities should understand that real alternatives do exist to the corporate model of municipal Wi-Fi being peddled by Google and its cohorts. It is possible to develop community networks that reflect our highest principles, including the right to personal privacy, and the cost of building such networks can be very low. There are already successful publicly supported models. St. Cloud, Florida, a city of 30,000, has built a free Wi-Fi service for its residents, seeing it as an important public service. The city has been able to build and operate the network, reduce its telecommunications costs and generate new economic opportunities.

Building a Wi-Fi network this way brings in economic development and saves the city money on telecommunications. At a time of growing media consolidation and emerging threats to the future of the Internet, America needs to create online systems that are democratically run and commerce-neutral, that protect the privacy of the citizens they serve.

 

 

Google, YouTube and You

By: Jeff Chester
(This is a reprint of the original article published in The Nation October 2006)

Under the radar of all but the most savvy Internet users, powerful commercial forces are rapidly creating a digital media system for the United States that threatens to undermine our ability to create a civil and just society. The takeover of YouTube by Google announced October 9 and the 2005 buyout by Rupert Murdoch of MySpace are not just about mega-deals for new media. They are the leading edge of a powerful interactive system that is being designed to serve the interests of some of the wealthiest corporations on the planet. (EDITOR'S NOTE: The Nation has a content relationship with both companies: YouTube hosts our online videos and Google advertisments appear on this site.)

Aware that social networking sites like MySpace and YouTube are attracting the key youth audience, and aiming to maintain their influence over future generations of consumers, marketers are aggressively seizing the initiative. Leveraging existing relationships with Yahoo!, Microsoft, the phone and cable companies, Google and the other large players, the advertising industry are developing an array of immersive online experiences--like MTV's Virtual Laguna Beach and Studio.com's Go Deep--that seamlessly blend relationships with products and brands.

Advertisers are harnessing technology that targets and follows Internet users on their journeys through cyberspace, collecting data and tracking behavior. Virtual software marketing tools will be deployed across the digital landscape so that wherever we go, whatever we do do--e-mail, instant messaging, mobile communications or searches--we will be immersed in enticing content for the lifelong sell: Witness the work of Oddcast, a New York-based immersive media company, whose "conversational character products" represent a new medium for marketing to get inside consumers' heads.

YouTube capitalizes on the growing proclivity of Internet users to be creators of information as well as consumers. And as the network television and cable audiences age, advertisers are increasingly aware that "user-created content"--be it a cute kitty video or clips from The Daily Show--are key to attracting young audiences. But as the Goo-Tube model develops, behind each video will be a powerful connection to an ad, targeted to the user's online behavior, as well as the stealth collection of personal data. As Ross Levinsohn, president of Fox Interactive, noted about his company's acquisition of MySpace, "the digital gold inside of MySpace wasn't the number of users, but the information they're providing." [Google, it should be noted, now also represents the interests of Rupert Murdoch's US empire. In August Google became Fox's principal online advertising agent for MySpace, Fox TV and Fox Interactive.]

Given this emerging marketing model, the US broadband infrastructure may well become one giant "brandwashing" machine. The most powerful communications system ever developed by humans is increasingly being put in the service of selling, commercialization and commodification. And it will lead to an inherently conservative and narcissistic political culture, in which the interests of the self and the consumption of products are the primary, most visible, media messages. And unless we begin to challenge it now, the emerging digital culture will seriously challenge our ability to effectively communicate, inform and organize.

A handful of companies now dominate much of the US new-media market. Five corporations--Comcast, Time Warner, AT&T, Verizon and Qwest--control the wires and cable lines delivering us broadband, digital TV and, soon, much wireless service. The viral "Singing Puppy" campaign from Nokia is an early warning that soon even our phone calls will become platforms for commercials. A few other major players--especially Google, News Corp., Viacom and Microsoft--have done the necessary deals to strategically grow their broadband content businesses (buying gaming sites and other programming to insure they ensnare the key youth market). Even if the pending update to the Communications Act of 1996 preserves the core principle of network neutrality, the voices of these most powerful media companies are likely to be the loudest.

More mergers in coming years will continue the consolidation of old media giants with the new. It's only a matter of time before a handful of companies will own TV, radio and newspaper properties along with key online services. This further interferes with the ability of mainstream news media to serve as an effective watchdog on government and big business.

Though the Internet was originally envisioned to serve the public interest, there is no guarantee it will continue to do so. Like radio, broadcast TV and cable, it will continue to be shaped by politics, telecommunication policies and the market. Web activists envision a medium that will always support social change and can serve as a platform to distribute diverse points of view. But if the economic relationships between the old and new media are allowed to dominate online culture, what guarantees do we have that the Internet will continue to be the "people's" medium? Events are moving quickly; media and telecommunications giants already have a powerful hold on members of Congress; regardless of which party is in power, it is unlikely our elected officials will deliver a federal policy that that puts the needs of citizens ahead of corporations.

That's why I suggest that progressives begin to get real--and get smart--about digital media. While we have a few reliable outlets--Democracy Now!, Alternet, Huffington Post and The Nation--the progressive community lacks a reliable well-connected broadband infrastructure that will deliver an array of news and cultural content to national and community audiences. I'm not talking about the wires and connections but about building a coalition of tech-savvy content providers that will deliver to PCs, TVs and cellphones a flow of alternative news and information challenging the status quo.

Imagine progressive organizations making smart deals with a variety of providers to carry this content deep in the heart of the digital distribution system. Imagine nimble, creative enterprises willing to experiment with new business models. Imagine having the courage to go beyond foundation grants and pledge drives and becoming adept at paying your own way. Imagine developing socially responsible advertising that respects personal privacy, is transparent about how data is collected and used, allows consumers to opt out of immersive experiences, fosters independent identity, builds community and supports social justice.

Foundations and the so-called Democracy Alliance have the potential to be the economic engines for such experiments and do the organizing necessary to patch together a content-challenge to the status quo.

As YouTube, Google, MySpace and immersive media marketing reshape the digital landscape, we need to be sure that public interest remains in the picture. And as tech-savvy progressive media find their place in that landscape, we must work together to build an online culture that not only pitches products but works for equity, social justice and the riches of a civil society.

 

 

 

Hijacking the Internet: How Big Cable and Phone Companies' Plans for Broadband Threaten Democracy

The nation's largest telephone and cable companies have a vision for the Internet's future. Verizon, AT&T (formerly SBC), Comcast, and Bell South want to create a privately run and branded "pay-as-you-go" Internet, making everything we do online a "billable," revenue-generating service. Our every cyberspace move will be tracked and stored so we can be better marketed to (a data collection system that might even rival the NSA's!). Those with the deepest pockets--think corporate special interest groups and major advertisers--will get preferred treatment. Their content will show up (and be processed) the fastest on our computer and television screens. Content seen as undesirable, such as peer-to-peer communications, may be relegated to a slow lane or simply shut out, say "white papers" and other documents given to the cable and phone industry.

Under the plans they are considering, all of us--from large to small content providers to individual users--will have to pay more when surfing online, streaming videos, or perhaps even sending and receiving email. Companies are mulling the imposition of new subscription plans that will limit our online experience. There will be "gold," bronze," and "silver" forms of Internet access that tightly define what they call our "level of service" (limiting how much downloading we can do, etc.)

Gone will be the more open and nondiscriminatory network of today.

To help ensure that their "vision" succeeds, the phone and cable lobbies are now engaged in a political campaign to further weaken the nation's communication policy laws. Both the Congress and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) are considering proposals that will have a far-reaching impact on the Internet's future. They want the federal government to permit them to operate Internet and other digital communications services as "private" networks--without policy safeguards or governmental oversight. Telephone and cable companies are now using the same kind of political snake oil that helped them pass the now-infamous 1996 Telecommunications Act (ten years ago on Feb 8, 1996). They have unleashed the tried-and-true rhetoric designed to lure compromised and clueless lawmakers. Our proposals, they claim, will "empower the consumer" and lead to "innovation." But these are code words used to cloak their real goal: to turn the Internet into a turbocharged digital retail machine.

The telephone industry has been somewhat more candid than cable about its plans for the Internet. Senior phone executives have publicly discussed their plans to begin imposing a new scheme for the delivery of Internet content, especially from major Internet content companies. As Ed Whitacre, CEO of AT&T, told Business Week in November, "Why should they be allowed to use my pipes? The Internet can't be free in that sense, because we and the cable companies have made an investment and for a Google or Yahoo! or Vonage or anybody to expect to use these pipes [for] free is nuts!"

The phone industry has been unleashing its political allies to help win it the freedom to begin imposing its broadband business model. At a conference held in December by the pro-cable and -Bell "think-tank" Progress and Freedom Foundation (PFF), there was support for the idea that it is okay for phone companies to begin charging some content users more and others less. "Price discrimination," noted PFF's resident media expert Adam Thierer, "drives the market-based capitalist economy." That's "good discrimination." Not surprisingly, PFF, is funded by Comcast, Verizon, AT&T and many other media companies. (PFF is also part of the conservative State Policy Network lobbying machine. SPN groups have increasingly been working to promote Big Media interests.)

Alarm Bells
To ward off the prospect of virtual toll booths on the information highway, some new media companies and public interest groups are calling for new federal policies requiring "network neutrality" on the Internet. This group includes Amazon, Google, Free Press, Media Access Project and Consumers Union, among others. Under their proposal, broadband providers would be prohibited from discriminating against all forms of digital content. For example, phone or cable companies would not be allowed to slow down competing or undesired content.

Without a proactive intervention from the public, the values and issues that we care about--civil rights, economic justice, the environment, and fair elections--will be further threatened by the push for ever-greater corporate control. Imagine how the next presidential election would unfold, if major political advertisers, with strategic payment to Comcast, had their ads from Democratic and Republican candidates presented in a more visible and user-friendly way than the ad of a less well-funded third party candidate. Consider the media landscape if an online advertisement promoting nuclear power prominently popped up on a cable broadband homepage, while a competing message from an environmental group was relegated to the margins. It is possible that all forms of civic and noncommercial online programming would be pushed to the end of a commercial digital queue.

But such "neutrality" safeguards are inadequate to address more fundamental changes that the Bells and cable monopolies are seeking in their quest to monetize the Internet. If we permit the Internet to become a medium designed primarily to serve the interests of marketing and personal consumption rather than civic-related communications, we will face the political consequences for decades to come. Unless we push back, the "brandwashing" of America will have serious consequences for both our culture and global society.

Digital Dollars
Why are the Bells and cable now aggressively advancing such plans? It's because our media system is undergoing a major transformation with the arrival of the long-awaited "convergence" of communications technologies. What the phone and cable companies see as their potential lucrative "triple play" by providing us with video, voice and data communications, will soon be flowing into our TV's, PC's and mobile devices (such as cell phones or iPods). All of these many billions of bits will be delivered over the telephone and cable lines, whose owners have successfully lobbied the Feds so they can impose a near monopoly over the delivery of residential broadband service.

Of foremost interest to both the phone and cable companies is video programming. Like cable, phone companies are getting into the TV and media content business, offering customers television channels, on-demand videos, and games. Online advertising is also increasingly relying on Internet-intensive multimedia content (such as animation and full-motion video). Television-related content requires a great deal of Internet space (bandwidth) to travel to our homes. The phone and cable companies want to make sure their video-based content receives preferential treatment. But their control over the pipeline into our home (or mobile device) gives them the leverage to determine how the broadband medium evolves overall.

Big Media Brother Meets Deep Packet Inspection
Now being pitched and sold to cable and phone companies are technologies that enable them to have greater control over Internet "traffic." These network management products enable your phone or cable company to make individual business decisions about all the digital content coming into your home (in the vernacular of the industry, they can set "policy" or business rules that define the quality of service you will receive online). Through what is called "deep packet inspection" they know what kind of content you are accessing online, from email, to websites, to peer-to-peer downloads.

These deep packet inspection technologies are partly designed to make sure that Internet traffic doesn't become so congested it "chokes off" the delivery of timely communications. Such products have already been sold to universities and large businesses that want to manage their Internet services more economically. They are also being used to limit some peer-to-peer downloading, especially for music.

But these products are also being sold as ways companies such as Comcast and Verizon can simply grab greater control over the Internet.

For example, in a series of "white papers" Internet technology giant Cisco warns its cable customers (such as Comcast) that they "risk" allowing their broadband service to become viewed as a "low-priced bulk commodity." [See "Cisco Service Control: A Guide to Sustained Broadband Profitability"(pdf) or "Deploying Premium Services Using Cisco Service Control Technology"(pdf) or "Service Control: The Next Step in Networking for Cable Operators"(pdf)] They are urged to use the Cisco "service control" products so they can create an unlimited number of "advanced billing schemes" for users, all designed to increase cable's "profitability." Among the added benefits, Cisco promises, is "service intelligence," including knowing (in real-time) "the identity and profile of the individual subscriber," "what the subscriber is doing," "where the subscriber resides," and "how the subscriber can use Network resources" (meaning what "service level" they are enrolled in). They will be able to "meter individual subscriber usage by application" as their online travels are "tracked" and "integrated with billing systems." Meanwhile they can begin "prioritizing" applications that bring them money, such as video games and gambling.

Cisco and others (such as Allot Communications) warn cable and phone companies about the need to "limit unprofitable peer-to-peer communications" or even ban them. Among the applications mentioned for such treatment including BitTorrent, Gnuetella, and Kazaa. One can tell a lot about the intended role of these packet-inspection products by their names: "SmartFlow," "NetEnforcer," "NetPure," "NetRedirector," and "IP Control System."

Ironically, some companies offering deep packet inspection technology claim that today's more unfettered use of the Internet is creating "a tragedy of the commons." That the public use of the Internet and "greedy" use of P2P could lead to its "overuse and eventual depletion or destruction," claims a paper from the Sandvine Corporation ["Network Neutrality: A Broadband Wild West?" (pdf)]. Companies will use the excuse that such invasive technology is required to prohibit "bandwidth hogs" from using too much of the Internet to download illegal movies. Or that it's needed to protect us from new forms of "viruses" and "worms." But these are smokescreens for a power grab of major proportions.

Will Google, Amazon.com and the others fight the plans of the Bells and cable? Ultimately, they are likely to cut a deal. After all, as Cisco notes, content companies and network providers will need to "cooperate with each other to leverage their value proposition." They will be drawn by the ability of cable and phone companies to track "content usage…by subscriber," and where their online services can be "protected from piracy, metered, and appropriately valued."

Digital Destiny
It was former FCC Chairman Michael Powell who permitted phone and cable giants to have greater control over broadband (with the support of then commissioner and now Chairman Kevin Martin). Powell and his GOP majority eliminated long-standing regulatory safeguards requiring phone companies to operate as non-discriminatory networks (technically known as "common carriers"). He refused to require that cable companies, when providing Internet access, also operate in a similar nondiscriminatory manner. As Stanford Professor Larry Lessig has long noted, it was government regulation of the phone lines that helped make the Internet a vibrant and diverse medium.

But now, the phone companies are lobbying Washington to kill off what's left of common carriage. They wish to operate their Internet services as "private" networks. Phone and cable companies claim that the government shouldn't play a role in broadband regulation--that it's an issue just involving a business decision by consumers. If consumers want to pay more to have content, such as a first-run movie or the evening news, delivered to their screens faster than what their neighbors can get, that's between them and their local cable and phone company, they argue

The Bell and cable companies also have a more sweeping political agenda. Both industries oppose communities having the right to create their own local Internet services (such as the offering of wireless or wi-fi networks). The phone companies (and undoubtedly cable) also want to eliminate the last vestige of local control over the electronic media--the ability of city or county government to impose some terms of service in the form of a "franchise" (such as funding and channels for public access television). The Bells also want to further reduce the ability of the FCC to oversee communications policy generally, permitting it to only "regulate" if they receive a formal complaint (primarily from corporations). They hope that both the FCC and the Congress--through a new Communications Act--will back their proposals (helped undoubtedly by big campaign contributions and revolving-door employment).

The entire structure of the electronic media in the U.S. will ultimately depend on whether we let the Bells and cable determine the country's "digital destiny." In the absence of intense opposition, it's likely most policymakers will treat this issue primarily as a "business" matter. But there's much more at stake. So before there are any policy decisions, we must first have a national debate about how the Internet is to serve the public. Among the issues are ensuring that phone and cable companies operate their Internet services in the public interest--as stewards of a vital medium for free expression. That will require fighting for common carrier safeguards. Everyone must also be given low-cost access. Privacy protections are urgently required, to prevent perpetual data eavesdropping (something made more pressing by both the Bush Administration's domestic spying programming and its request from Google, AOL and others for online information about the public's web search requests). Finally, we must guarantee that a whole host of content be exempt from any commercial fee or "pay-per-use" regime, such as political speech, civic communications, and non-commercial content. In other words, we must ensure the growth of a dynamic digital information commons.

An independent commission of public interest technology experts, funded by foundations, should also publicly examine how the phone and cable industries are making decisions about Internet architecture, to help make sure their networks operate fairly and offer all users sufficient capacity at affordable rates.

Unless they agree to a change of public policy, there should be a move for divestment from Verizon, AT&T, Comcast, Bell South by responsible investment and pension funds. At the very least there should be stockholder resolutions challenging the political position taken by these companies, which have built their fortunes on vast public subsidies--whether they began as monopolies (such as the Baby Bells) or thrived because of access to streets and telephone polls (cable).

It will take the same kind of intensive opposition organized against the FCC's media ownership decision in 2003 if we are to even attempt to thwart what Verizon and others have in store for the Internet. Without such a public outcry, it is likely that many of the Democrats who rallied against further consolidation will be "tamed" by the well-funded lobbying campaigns of the powerful phone and cable industries.

Unless there is action, we will have a wonderful new medium for advertising and entertainment from Big Media companies--but a poor one for democratic discourse, alternative expression, and political dissent.

 

 

House Panel Shoots Down Net Neutrality

House Panel Shoots Down Net Neutrality

By: Jeff Chester
The Nation
April 2006

 

The GOP House leadership rejected calls Wednesday to preserve the Internet's open and democratic nature in the United States. Phone and cable industry lobbyists breathed a sigh of relief as the House Energy and Commerce Committee defeated, 34 to 22, an amendment to a broadband communications bill (known as the Barton-Rush Act) that would require "network neutrality." Under the proposal, developed by Massacusetts Democrat Ed Markey and others, phone and cable companies would have been prohibited from transforming the Internet into a private, pay-as-you-post toll road.

Over the past week, there has been a remarkable outpouring of public and corporate support for network neutrality. SavetheInternet.com, organized by Free Press and representing dozens of nonprofit groups and leading Internet experts, helped generate 250,000 signatures in less than a week for an online petition calling on Congress to protect the Internet and pass the Markey bill.

This new group, a collection of unusual bedfellows that runs the political gamut from Common Cause, the Gun Owners of America and the Parents TV Council to Craigslist founder Craig Newmark, also spurred many bloggers to take a strong stand (ranging from the liberal Daily Kos to the libertarian Instapundit).

Meanwhile, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo!, Amazon, eBay and IAC, which make up the Network Neutrality Coalition, unveiled their "Don't Mess With the Net" campaign, running ads in Roll Call and The Hill targeting lawmakers. MoveOn.org's new Save the Internet campaign also generated many letters and e-mails to members of Congress.

It is puzzling, though, why Microsoft, Google, Yahoo! and allies have not unleashed a serious--and very public--nationwide campaign in support of network neutrality. So far, these giants have worked cautiously, largely inside the Beltway, reflecting perhaps their corporate ambivalence about calling on Congress to pass Internet-related safeguards. Unlike the phone and cable efforts, there has been no saturation-TV or print-advertising campaign, something these deep-pocketed digital giants could eaily afford.

This growing pressure on the Democrats to stand up for an open Internet helped convince House minority leader Nancy Pelosi to formally support the call for network neutrality. Consequently, only five House Commerce Committee Democrats voted with the GOP majority to kill the digital nondiscrimination plan, including Edolphus Townes (New York), Albert Wynn (Maryland), Charles Gonzalez (Texas), Bobby Rush (Illinois) and Gene Green (Texas). Only one Republican committee member, Heather Wilson of New Mexico, voted in support of the network neutrality amendment.

Giants including AT&T (SBC), Verizon, Comcast and Time Warner have staked their business plans for the Internet based on being able to control and "monetize" the flow of digital communications coming into PCs, digital TVs and mobile services. The Federal Communications Commission--at the behest of the phone and cable lobby--recently overturned longstanding safeguards requiring the Internet to operate in a nondiscriminatory manner. The two industries are spending tens of millions of dollars to fight off any Congressional safeguard for the Internet that would restore the nondiscrimination principle.

Commerce Committee chair Joe Barton and House Speaker Dennis Hastert have been the chief cheerleaders for the cable and phone lobby. On Wednesday, Barton derided the call for network neutrality, claiming that it's "still not clearly defined. It's kind of like pornography: You know it when you see it." Barton and Hastert are expected, as early as next week, to successfully pass the bill in the House without a network neutrality provision. A showdown is now looming in the Senate Commerce Committee, which is about to take up its own broadband Internet legislation. A bipartisan network neutrality amendment, similar to what was just defeated in the House committee, will be offered by Senators Olympia Snowe and Byron Dorgan. Public-interest advocates and corporate allies plan to mobilize an even larger outcry of support for this proposal.

With midterm elections looming, GOP leaders will come under increasing pressure to make a choice. Will they continue to back their few phone and cable industry supporters and keep the open Internet safeguards off the table? Or will they recognize that a genuine digital-age protest movement is emerging that could further harm their party's chances in November? The next few weeks will reveal whether the "smart mobs" can win over a tiny handful of communications monopolists.

 

 

 

Key House Panel Votes to Kill Community TV

Key House Panel Votes to Kill Community TV

By: Jeff Chester
The Nation
April 2006

Congress is about to strike a blow that would eliminate the last remaining policy insuring local oversight of communications companies. A GOP-led effort on behalf of the telephone lobby (principally Verizon and AT&T), also backed by many Democrats, is about to toss in the dustbin the longstanding policy enabling cities or counties to negotiate a "franchise" agreement with companies that provide cable TV service. The House Energy and Commerce Committee voted Wednesday 42-12, to strip away the rights of communities to have any say in how phone and cable networks serve them in the digital era.

As Verizon and AT&T roll out their broadband Internet and video services, they wish to remove any obstacle to securing lucrative revenues from signing up customers from the wealthiest parts of the country. The phone giants complain that current law requires them to negotiate with each town (as cable TV currently does) to develop a unique deal that benefits the community, and that giving local officials the authority to have an oversight role is slowing down their business plans.

With the backing of House Speaker Dennis Hastert, and in exchange for some likely Tom DeLay-style quid pro quo that will give the GOP lots of "Baby Bell" campaign cash, legislation is being rushed through Congress. Local oversight is to be replaced by a "national franchise" that will permit the most powerful communications giants in the Internet era--large cable and phone companies--to operate without regard for local concerns. Under the bill (co-sponsored by House Commerce Committee chair Joe Barton, a Republican from Texas, and Bobby Rush, a Democrat from Illinois) phone companies could engage in a form of economic redlining, serving only the most affluent parts of town; the current local franchise system prevents such discrimination. Communities would not be able to enact any consumer safeguards, such as privacy protection; the bill would permit our very corrupt Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to set such protection rules.

While the proposed legislation does require phone and cable companies to pay annual fees to cities and also to provide public, educational and governmental (PEG) access channels for local use, it freezes in time PEG capacity--setting aside only a handful of public channels while placing off-limits the enormous potential of broadband cable systems to serve the public interest. Under the proposed national franchise plan, cable companies would be able to opt out of their current agreements, leaving local officials and residents powerless at the precise time when digital communications services are playing an ever-growing role in our daily lives.

Broken Promises

Little has been written in the mainstream press about what the potential loss of cable franchising will mean. More than thirty years ago in The Nation, Ralph Lee Smith wrote the visionary "The Wired Nation." Even back then, activists recognized cable TV's ability to serve as a "community communications" system (they even used the word "broadband" back then). Cable was supposed to be an alternative to mainstream commercial television. There would be many local channels, addressing the needs of education, civic participation, free speech and the arts. Cable systems and programming channels would be owned and operated by people of color, potentially ameliorating what was--and still is--a communications industry dominated by white males and largely programmed to their interests. The cable lobby adopted much of this rhetoric as companies vied to secure lucrative deals with cities. We will be your "community medium," they declared, promising to deliver PEG and an endless array of local services. But once these giants, whose successors today include companies such as Time Warner and Comcast, won the franchise, they used their political power--at City Hall and in Washington, DC--to break most of their promises. The cable lobby assembled a powerful political machine, including key Democratic leaders, and was able to win national legislation in 1984 that largely freed them to operate as national programming services.

But a generation of video activists and visionaries, along with pioneering public-interest FCC commissioner Nicholas Johnson, had already helped usher in the concept of public-access television. Public-access advocates fought back then--as they are doing now--to preserve some form of cable's original community vision. Today, more than 20,000 hours of new local programming are produced each week by the approximately 3,000 PEG channels in the United States, relying on a largely volunteer corps of 1.2 million access producers. PEG is the only place where city councils, school boards and programs on a dizzying array of subjects, many of them serious and creative, routinely appear on television. Despite federal rules favoring cable companies, local governments have retained their ability to negotiate franchise renewal deals that have helped expanded PEG capacity to reflect updates in technology, such as streaming video and other broadband distribution.

Franchises have required special networks to be built, connecting public buildings with advanced communications services and assisting education and public safety. All of this has been possible because local authorities had the power of renewing the cable franchise deal every ten years or so (as well as approving transfers of ownership as media giants were bought and sold).

A Digital Gold Mine

But now that phone lines can deliver video and data along with voice, Verizon and AT&T envision a digital gold mine, principally by selling wealthy customers TV and movies on demand. It says a lot about their "vision" for our media future that the high-powered fiber-optic lines they are rolling out purportedly to give the public high-speed Internet service (which is what they say to lawmakers) is really about selling us reruns.

The phone lobby has deployed a gaggle of lobbyists and industry-backed groups as part of its campaign to eliminate local authority. They have used a two-pronged approach, pressuring both state and federal lawmakers. Helping to spearhead the phone lobby's efforts has been Freedom Works, run by former GOP House majority leader Dick Armey. His group has worked with phone lobbyists to pass state laws pre-empting local franchising in such states as Texas, Kansas and Virginia. Telecom industry-backed front groups working for either the phone or cable industry have sprouted up as fast as crabgrass as special interest money is doled out to almost all comers. (See a recent Common Cause report.)

But what the telephone lobby really wants is for Congress to pass a bill this session that would end forever the local franchising concept. The Barton-Rush bill (that's Bobby Rush, the former "activist" and Democrat who represents Chicago) passed the House Telecommunications and Internet Subcommittee by an overwhelming 27-to-4 majority. Rush provided bi-partisan cover for the GOP-written bill. According to the Chicago Sun-Times, a community center organized by Rep. Rush and his wife, has received a $1 million grant from the SBC/AT&T foundation. Only eleven Democrats and one Republican on the Commerce Committee voted against the bill: Ed Markey, John Dingell, Henry Waxman, Anna Eshoo, Diana DeGette, Lois Capps, Mike Doyle, Tom Allen, Jan Schakowsky, Hilda Solis, Tammy Baldwin and Heather Wilson (R). Fifteen Democrats supported community TV kill-off, including Jay Inslee, Charles A. Gonzalez, and Edolphus Towns. The full House could pass the new legislation as early as next week.

Democrats Cave

Lobbying over the future of cable and telephone policy has already been a financial blessing to Congressional lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. Members of the House and Senate Commerce Committees have received more than $3 million since 2003 from phone and cable companies, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. And that's just the tip of the financial largesse we can expect from grateful AT&T and Verizon. (The GOP and lots of Democrats won't have to worry about their phone, cable or Internet bills for a very long time.)

In the next few weeks, the Senate will take up broadband legislation as well. Democratic Senators John Kerry and Jay Rockefeller have already signaled their support for the plan. Whatever final bill emerges from Congress will ultimately reflect the continuing efforts by the communications industry to free itself from any real oversight and requirements for public service. (There is a provision in the bill that would permit cities to develop their own Wi-Fi networks--removing obstacles the phone and cable industries have placed in their way via another successful political campaign they have organized. But while it gives this tiny opening to communities, ultimately the legislation will close off the country's principal broadband communications system for the public interest. On Wednesday, the House Commerce Committee also voted down an amendment, sponsored by Ed Markey, to protect the openness of the US Internet, 34-22. There will also be an epic battle in the Senate to secure open Internet safeguards in the bill, the so-called "network neutrality" issue.)

It's time for progressives to take a stand against the broadband banditry of Congress and the cable-telecom cartel. Any Internet-era telecommunications legislation should insure local control, provide low-income Americans with residential Internet service, protect online privacy, and keep the Internet open and free from the control of big cable and phone companies. Such legislation should also help develop a noncommercial digital commons designed to promote civil society (as opposed to the madcap commercialism that will run rampant on the broadband networks). In that way, we can honor the vision--and the political work--of activists in decades past who strove for a democratically run "community communications" system.

 

 

 

Life After Net Neutrality: Replaced by a Chimp?

By: Jeff Chester

(This is a reprint of the original article published in The Nation September 2006)

Despite growing opposition, Alaska Republican Senator Ted Stevens appears determined to pass his telecom giveaway bill this year. If Stevens and his pals in the telecom and cable industries prevail, expect the free flow of online content to be replaced by corporate infotainment like Anheuser-Busch's lowbrow broadband Bud TV.

Stevens is using his considerable political clout to get at least sixty senators to agree to bring the flawed measure to the floor. Stevens has acknowledged that his rewrite of the 1934 Communications Act now faces an uphill battle, primarily due to the controversy generated by public-interest groups over network neutrality, the guiding principle of the Internet, which guarantees all users have equal access to content and services.

Over the summer, Savetheinternet.com, Common Cause, USPIRG and many others worked to firm up support for network neutrality rules. As a result, six senators have come out in favor of Internet freedom--Vermont Independent Jim Jeffords and five Democrats (New Mexico's Jeff Bingaman, Minnesota's Mark Dayton, Iowa's Tom Harkin, Massachusetts's Edward Kennedy and New York's Chuck Schumer). There is also growing corporate and academic support for network neutrality--from Yahoo!, Google and Microsoft to the mainstream American Electronics Association.

The intense battle over the Internet's openness, Stevens acknowledged, "may well lead to total defeat [of the telecommunications bill] this year after nineteen months of work." But Stevens, long accustomed to wielding immense power due to his seniority (he's president pro tem of the Senate, as well as chair of the Commerce Committee and a key appropriations subcommittee), doesn't plan to give up easily. It remains highly likely that some kind of backroom deal will be struck during the lame-duck session after the November elections. Stevens and his pro-big media Senate allies might also attach key parts of his bill in "must-pass legislation" such as in budget or national security laws.

The Stevens bill not only proposes to scuttle network neutrality rules but also undermines key policies designed to insure community influence over how broadband networks serve the public interest--including the ability of American soldiers stationed overseas to phone home. In a section titled "War on Terror," instead of legislation that insures maximum freedom of expression, the telecom rewrite thinks first about protecting corporate cash flow. Lawmakers could have ordered the FCC to insure that members of the military have unlimited free calls, but the Stevens bill actually prohibits the FCC from regulating any rates to do so. It simply requires the federal government to promote a "reduction of such costs" by cutting taxes or fees on phone service.

Stevens's talking points are actually being scripted--and paid for--by phone industry lobbyists. On Monday the Senator's Commerce Committee released a "bipartisan poll," which purported to show the public cared little for network neutrality. All the public really wants the Senate to do, the survey results suggested, was to support the Stevens bill as it's currently written. But neither the poll nor the press release issued by Stevens revealed, as the Wall Street Journal did today, that Verizon had paid for the study. The role of Verizon is not surprising, given that the poll was developed by the Glover Park Group lobbying shop (along with Public Opinion Strategies). Glover Park--which is run by such high-level Democratic Party advisers as Howard Wolfson, Joe Lockhart and Carter Eskew--has been helping Verizon in its efforts to scuttle broadband policy safeguards since 2005.

The GOP--including the White House--is still pushing hard to kill network neutrality. For example, at a hearing last week before Stevens's committee on his renomination for another term, FCC chair Kevin Martin came out in defense of the big cable and phone companies. The FCC chair said he thought it was fine for Verizon and others to begin charging extra fees to those content providers that want to be placed on faster Internet lanes. Martin, who was largely given an "easy ride" by senators from both parties in a recent hearing, said that without the ability to charge more, phone and cable companies wouldn't be able to offer the public new "products" such as broadband video. (The fact that Democrats aren't trying to oppose Martin's renomination--given his support for further ownership consolidation and opposition to net neutrality--illustrates the Democrats' weakness on public-interest and telecom issues.)

Such steadfast support from Stevens, Martin and others for their plans to transform the Internet sent an affirmative message to both the phone and cable lobbies. Two days after a recent Commerce Committee hearing, a BellSouth executive told a technology gathering that his industry's planned "innovative" pricing schemes for broadband would give those that could afford it preferential Internet treatment.

The broadband content most likely to benefit from the new "pay us the most to get the best service" Internet will be online programming from our biggest advertisers and media conglomerates. Take, for example, the recent announcement about the new online entertainment channel network called Bud.TV, in which Anheuser-Busch plans to use high-speed and interactive video to attract a new generation of steady beer drinkers. One Bud.TV show already in production--which will likely be able to enjoy the fruits of non-network-neutrality US Internet--is called "Replaced by a Chimp." According to an Anheuser-Busch executive, for each show they will "grab a profession, such as a waiter, or a bartender or a trial attorney and replace those people with a chimp, and film the reaction of the consumers who happen to be in the same environment as the chimp...at the end of the show, the consumer will vote on whether the chimp should stay and continue on the job."

Such dumbing-down of broadband is more likely in the absence of network neutrality rules. Expect media conglomerates and advertisers to flood our broadband networks with chimps selling beer and ketchup-colored clowns pushing fast food. Such deep-pocketed interests will be able to pay Verizon, AT&T, Comcast and Time Warner to deliver their content with better video, faster processing and overall greater visibility, crowding out the unique programming that the Internet has been able to deliver to niche audiences. Given the "triple play" plans of the cable and phone industry, such digital favoritism will find its way not just via our personal computers but on digital television and cellphones as well.

It will take intense, continued pressure on both parties to effectively kill the Stevens bill this session. If such opposition is successful, a major new organizing effort must begin in January 2007 to develop a new media law that actually promotes the public interest in the digital media era.

Consumers should view the new announcement about Bud.TV as a kind of "early warning" alert. Without safeguards to insure the Internet evolves as an open, democratic network, our media system will continue to drive public culture down-market--as the late media scholar Neal Postman wrote, "amusing ourselves to death."

But regardless of what happens, perhaps we should recommend to the folks at Bud beer their first guest for "Replaced by a Chimp." I nominate the senior Senator from Alaska.

 

 

 

Save the Internet

By: Jeff Chester
(This is a reprint of the original article published in AlterNet April 2006)

Imagine, wanting to donate money to a charity and not being able to open the nonprofit's web page because of the charity's inability to afford the dominant internet provider's fees required to make the page efficient? Imagine the millions of life-saving dollars these charities will lose if lobbyists get their way? What if your child is sick, and you can't gain access to a support group's page because the support group can't afford the fees? Or even scarier, imagine not gaining speedy access to a politician's views because the specific provider is against his or her ideology?

--Who's the Boss? star Alyssa Milano

Will the internet in the United States become, in the words of AT&T (SBC) CEO, their company's private "pipes"? Or will it remain, as the Supreme Court cited in 1997, "the most participatory form of mass speech yet developed"? These two very different perspectives reflect what's at stake in the growing fight now in Congress over the internet's future.

A growing movement of online users, public advocates, internet "visionaries," bloggers, and online corporations are fighting to have Congress enact what are called "network neutrality" safeguards. Such rules would preserve the internet's essential democratic structure: All content would be required to flow into our PCs and digital devices in a fair and nondiscriminatory manner. Network neutrality would help ensure that internet serves the interests of diversity of speech. As the new Savetheinternet coalition put it, network neutrality is the equivalent of the internet's First Amendment.

But an unfettered open road is directly at odds with the broadband business plans of AT&T (formerly SBC), Comcast, Time Warner and Verizon. The cable and telephone industry see enormous revenues as operators of a private internet toll-road. How has the internet -- so diverse and unwieldly -- fallen into their hands? The answer is (of course) the Bush administration. Heavily lobbied by the cable and phone giants, the Bush Federal Communications Commission has been eliminating the rules that required the internet to operate in a nondiscriminatory manner.

Under the "old" policy governing what's called the "dial-up" internet, the public was guaranteed that their internet service provider (ISP) had to treat all online content in an unbiased manner. ISPs couldn't, for example, speed up the email or websites they liked, or decide to slow down content it didn't like (such as from a peace group). The former rules also permitted the public to choose from literally thousands of ISPs to connect them to the internet. Such federal safeguards have, sadly, now bitten the digital dust.

It's all about broadband

Verizon, Comcast and the others had former FCC chair Michael Powell and current chair Kevin Martin strip away these rules because they were an obstacle to their plans to dominate the high-speed internet, or broadband, market. If a purely open and nondiscriminatory internet remained, then anyone could distribute a movie or video program -- a serious threat to the cable industry's monopoly over TV distribution.

No one needs a "Ma Bell" anymore to bring us telephone service. Practically anyone can now use the internet to provide phone service (known as voice over internet protocol, or VoIP). In other words, if the internet remained a real First Amendment friendly pipeline, both the cable and phone industry would see their profits and power evaporate -- fast.

But it wasn't only to prevent competitors that spurred our new broadband bandits to action. With the federal nondiscrimination policy now toast, the phone and cable companies could embark in earnest with plans to -- in their words -- "monetize" digital distribution. Through their sole control over America's residential broadband pipes (they have more than 90 percent of the market), they planned to set up a multitiered and pay-as-you-go private internet highway.

There would be a new fast lane, giving the content owned by the phone, cable and other media giants, the fastest preferential treatment. Video and multimedia programming owned by AT&T and Comcast, for example, would be received lightning speed on PCs, digital TVs and mobile devices. Those that couldn't afford to pay would be relegated to what the phone and cable lobbyists derisively called the "public" internet.

This so-called public lane would be the equivalent of a digital dirt road, easily marginalized by the majority of the public that has come to enjoy ever-faster and more efficient connections. A slew of Silicon Valley tech companies, including Cisco, have built broadband delivery equipment that allows a phone or cable company to make business decisions about every packet of data that travels over its lines.

Imagine a private air traffic controller working for Airline X. Its planes would be given priority takeoff and landings -- while competitors and others slowly circle overhead. Only those who could afford to make a payoff (such as huge fees or a cut of their business) would be afforded similar treatment. The Bells and cable hoped that with this control over the data lines, their broadband content competitors would crash and burn.

The cable and telephone broadband scam, however, is now meeting intense opposition. First, there is a growing opposition movement against the privatization of the internet. Led by Free Press, there is a new "savetheinternet.org" coalition, representing a diverse group of activists, users and experts from across the political spectrum, including Gun Owners of America, the United Church of Christ and Craigslist's Craig Newmark.

Earlier in the week, this group and MoveOn.org helped flood the halls of Congress with emails and online petitions calling on the Congress to enact safeguards for "network neutrality." The power of the cable/telco alliance to determine the future of the U.S. internet has also alarmed many of the country's most powerful online companies -- such as Google, Yahoo and Microsoft. They have launched their own new coalition, called "Don't Mess with the Net.com."

The GOP -- led by Speaker Dennis Hastert and House Energy and Commerce Chair Joe Barton (Texas) -- is firmly in the grip of the broadband monopoly lobby. Yesterday, Barton's committee rejected a network neutrality provision, 34-22 (sponsored by Rep. Ed Markey, among others). Helping the Republicans defeat the internet freedom measure were five Democrats, including Edolphus Townes (N.Y.), Albert Wynn (Md.), Charles A. Gonzalez (Texas), Bobby Rush (Ill.) and Gene Green (Texas). (It was the endorsement of Rep. Rush, a former activist, that permitted the Republicans to call their broadband bill a bipartisan effort).

But the growing outcry to protect the internet led to House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi's formally endorsing the network neutrality call. There is now growing optimism among "save the internet" supporters that the Senate, which will soon take up a broadband communications bill, will endorse a neutrality rule. A bipartisan plan to do just that has already been prepared by Sens. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, and Byron Dorgan, D-N.D.

Federal rules to ensure that the internet remains a democratic medium of expression is essential if the United States is to ever become a more just and civil society. In the emerging era, the nature of what will be a ubiquitious broadband communications system will greatly define us as a culture. It must be one where the voices of those calling for justice, health care, environmental protection and peace can resonate as loudly as the commercial messages brought to us by Time Warner and AT&T. Network neutrality, or internet freedom, is a necessary and critical step to make sure such voices are part of the mainstream -- not exiled to the digital dirt road.

 

 

The End of the Internet?

By: Jeff Chester

(This is a reprint of the original article published in The Nation February 2006)

The nation's largest telephone and cable companies are crafting an alarming set of strategies that would transform the free, open and nondiscriminatory Internet of today to a privately run and branded service that would charge a fee for virtually everything we do online.

Verizon, Comcast, Bell South and other communications giants are developing strategies that would track and store information on our every move in cyberspace in a vast data-collection and marketing system, the scope of which could rival the National Security Agency. According to white papers now being circulated in the cable, telephone and telecommunications industries, those with the deepest pockets--corporations, special-interest groups and major advertisers--would get preferred treatment. Content from these providers would have first priority on our computer and television screens, while information seen as undesirable, such as peer-to-peer communications, could be relegated to a slow lane or simply shut out.

Under the plans they are considering, all of us--from content providers to individual users--would pay more to surf online, stream videos or even send e-mail. Industry planners are mulling new subscription plans that would further limit the online experience, establishing "platinum," "gold" and "silver" levels of Internet access that would set limits on the number of downloads, media streams or even e-mail messages that could be sent or received.

To make this pay-to-play vision a reality, phone and cable lobbyists are now engaged in a political campaign to further weaken the nation's communications policy laws. They want the federal government to permit them to operate Internet and other digital communications services as private networks, free of policy safeguards or governmental oversight. Indeed, both the Congress and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) are considering proposals that will have far-reaching impact on the Internet's future. Ten years after passage of the ill-advised Telecommunications Act of 1996, telephone and cable companies are using the same political snake oil to convince compromised or clueless lawmakers to subvert the Internet into a turbo-charged digital retail machine.

The telephone industry has been somewhat more candid than the cable industry about its strategy for the Internet's future. Senior phone executives have publicly discussed plans to begin imposing a new scheme for the delivery of Internet content, especially from major Internet content companies. As Ed Whitacre, chairman and CEO of AT&T, told Business Week in November, "Why should they be allowed to use my pipes? The Internet can't be free in that sense, because we and the cable companies have made an investment, and for a Google or Yahoo! or Vonage or anybody to expect to use these pipes [for] free is nuts!"

The phone industry has marshaled its political allies to help win the freedom to impose this new broadband business model. At a recent conference held by the Progress and Freedom Foundation, a think tank funded by Comcast, Verizon, AT&T and other media companies, there was much discussion of a plan for phone companies to impose fees on a sliding scale, charging content providers different levels of service. "Price discrimination," noted PFF's resident media expert Adam Thierer, "drives the market-based capitalist economy."

Net Neutrality

To ward off the prospect of virtual toll booths on the information highway, some new media companies and public-interest groups are calling for new federal policies requiring "network neutrality" on the Internet. Common Cause, Amazon, Google, Free Press, Media Access Project and Consumers Union, among others, have proposed that broadband providers would be prohibited from discriminating against all forms of digital content. For example, phone or cable companies would not be allowed to slow down competing or undesirable content.

Without proactive intervention, the values and issues that we care about--civil rights, economic justice, the environment and fair elections--will be further threatened by this push for corporate control. Imagine how the next presidential election would unfold if major political advertisers could make strategic payments to Comcast so that ads from Democratic and Republican candidates were more visible and user-friendly than ads of third-party candidates with less funds. Consider what would happen if an online advertisement promoting nuclear power prominently popped up on a cable broadband page, while a competing message from an environmental group was relegated to the margins. It is possible that all forms of civic and noncommercial online programming would be pushed to the end of a commercial digital queue.

But such "neutrality" safeguards are inadequate to address more fundamental changes the Bells and cable monopolies are seeking in their quest to monetize the Internet. If we permit the Internet to become a medium designed primarily to serve the interests of marketing and personal consumption, rather than global civic-related communications, we will face the political consequences for decades to come. Unless we push back, the "brandwashing" of America will permeate not only our information infrastructure but global society and culture as well.

Why are the Bells and cable companies aggressively advancing such plans? With the arrival of the long-awaited "convergence" of communications, our media system is undergoing a major transformation. Telephone and cable giants envision a potential lucrative "triple play," as they impose near-monopoly control over the residential broadband services that send video, voice and data communications flowing into our televisions, home computers, cell phones and iPods. All of these many billions of bits will be delivered over the telephone and cable lines.

Video programming is of foremost interest to both the phone and cable companies. The telephone industry, like its cable rival, is now in the TV and media business, offering customers television channels, on-demand videos and games