TeleFrieden: febrile frothing in Washington DC election season

TeleFrieden: How the FCC’s 8th Broadband Report Became a Referendum on the Marketplace: "[Previously] FCC Commissioners of both parties gladly supported extraordinary and admittedly too generous and inefficient universal service programs.  These initiatives included “rate integration” that required carriers to average in the higher costs of providing telephone service in non-continental United States locales, e.g., Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.  No one balked at providing “free” satellite earth stations to Pacific island residents whose governments have an affiliation with the United States, e.g., The Federated States of Micronesia.  Nobody invoked Ann Rand to suggest that rural residents should suffer any cost disadvantage for the various upside opportunities from living in the hinterland.
Now a Report to Congress somehow has all sorts of underlying messages.  By truthfully answering a question posed by Congress that more work needs to be done to achieve ubiquitous and affordable broadband, the FCC apparently is foreshadowing a broad agenda to pre-empt the marketplace."'via Blog this'

Dephormation - Interesting (partial) disclosure by government on PHORM legal case

Dephormation - Home Office FoI Documentation and Correspondence: "They don't account for the missing items of correspondence, such as the 7 December 2007 email referenced in the first correspondence file  and the additional information in the second disclosure concerning contact with 121Media in 2006 and early 2007, all of which was excluded without explanation at the time of the response to the FoI. One surprising comment, I'm told in the document that disclosing information would mean a disclosure to a 'genuinely interested and concerned applicant automatically opens it up for disclosure to anyone, including those who might represent a threat to the UK'. Bearing in mind Phorm is supposedly an advertising system, its hard to see how disclosing information about the relationship between the Home Office and Phorm might pose a threat to the UK."
'via Blog this'

Nominet rocked by secret plan to let government impose co-regulation

Nominet rocked by disability discrimination ruling - Telegraph: "Publicy, Nominet said it did not want Government intervention and had not sought to involve officials, but documents obtained from the tribunal by The Telegraph show that was disingenuous. They show that senior management privately asked officials to intervene in a strategy referred to as “Plan G”. It was developed over email, with Department for Business officials using private email addresses in an effort to dodge Freedom of Information Act requests. Similar anti-transparency practices have since been exposed in other departments. The documents also show, and the employment tribunal found, that Lesley Cowley had the ostensibly independent governance review amended to remove sections she did not like"
'via Blog this'

Book Review: Internet Co-Regulation: European Law, Regulatory Governance and Legitimacy

Nora Ni Loideain 71 Cambridge Law Journal 2, July 2012 , pp 457-458 DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S000819731200061X

“Marsden's research, both evidence-based and cutting-edge, provides a broad and theoretical though clear overview of the complex legal and technical issues involved in the regulation of the Internet. In particular, this book is an invaluable source of information for those interested in regulatory reform and the ongoing challenges posed by Internet co-regulation.”

Evgeny Morozov: The Naked And The TED Khanna

Evgeny Morozov: The Naked And The TED | The New Republic: "Khanna’s contempt for democracy and human rights aside, he is simply an intellectual impostor, emitting such lethal doses of banalities, inanities, and generalizations that his books ought to carry advisory notices. He is a manufacturer of abstract, meaningless slogans. He is, indeed, the most talented bullshit artist of his generation. And this confers upon him a certain anthropological interest." 'via Blog this'

Cass Sunstein to Leave Top Regulatory Post - NYTimes.com

Cass Sunstein to Leave Top Regulatory Post - NYTimes.com: "In returning to Harvard Law School, Mr. Sunstein will direct the new Program on Behavioral Economics and Public Policy. The White House said Boris Bershteyn, the budget office’s general counsel, will serve as interim regulatory chief." 'via Blog this'