The last afternoon of Freedom2Connect opened with a political panel featuring Ray Gifford, who heads the Progress & Freedom Foundation, a conservative tech think tank, and Gigi Sohn, who runs Public Knowledge, a liberal advocacy group covering the same subjects.
They were interviewed by David Isenberg, who apologized because, due to health reasons, scheduled interview Jeff Jarvis could not be with us.
Ray Gifford, president, PFF
Isenberg (I)– I was looking forward to a conversation between Jeff Jarvis and Ray. Jeff had a health problem.
First describe PFF.
Gifford (G) – we’re conservative-libertarian
I – You care about having a healthy robust network. Why?
G – Our board chairman, Jay Peters, who was at Hewlett-Packard in the late 80s, thought connected computing was the harbinger of an economic, political and social revolution. That’s bearing fruit. Those waves of creative destruction are happening before our eyes and will continue to happen.,
I – Does PFF put as much weight on the creative side as the destructive side? How do you see creative destruction?
G – We can’t quite make out what is going on. I think most of what is happening is creation. The destruction is the old communications monopolies, old cable monopolies. Traditional means of delivering media are gone. It’s good for consumers and for creators.
It presents fundamental problems of what is the business model. In the time of the Internet Bubble, one thing no one figured out was how to monetize and pay for this stuff. That is a fundamental question of network economics I am fascinated by.
I – You have several old monopolies as members.
G – And we love them dearly.
I – But I see Google has joined, and Apple is a member. There must be robust intramural discussion.
G – There is. We find ourselves opposite many of our supporters on some issues. Google and Microsoft aren’t happy with us on net neutrality. On cable franchising our cable people aren’t happy. That’s the problem with being corporate-funded.
My position on network neutrality. The answer is maybe.
I – That seems to be the consensus
G – What I mean by maybe is if you don’t yet know what the business
model is. Price differentiation happens. That’s how you recover your
fixed costs. Two sided markets often develop. That’s the broadcasting
and Google model. We don’t yet know what the model is for more
widespread investment in broadband.
On the other side we have a concern about monopoly leveraging. That’s not to say we support monopoly rents.
The answer may be if we have a competition standard that says, are
you abusing your market power to harm consumer welfare, as anti-trust
does, then you will be sanctioned and regulated. If you’re engaging in
pro-competitive price differentiation, that would be OK and you can do
it.
I – The economics go by me. What I don’t hear you saying…I hear you
talking about economics and efficiency, but I don’t hear you saying
what I see in a network, social good, civil rights, robust dialog,
empowerment, the ability of everyone having a voice. I hear you talking
more in terms of the business model and the markets.
G – There are two arguments for network neutrality, and you made the
Larry Lessig one. My answer is a deep distrust of the ability of
regulatory institutions, especially the FCC, to do anything right.
We’re very hesitant to let the FCC take on a new regulatory power
because we can see throughout its history that it tends to behave
lawlessly, it tends to not constrain monopoly power, it tends to serve
the constituencies that plead before it, and it tends not to meet the
ideal of a progressive era regulator – they don’t act in the public
interest, but in private poltiical interests.
What we first want to try is the idea that markets will get us more
and better democratic institutions than regulators will. When
regulators step in they may give you a network, but to get their arms
around it they have to kill it technologically. What we had to do to
make rate-setting coherent.
We need to see how we can get more competition and use markets to
bring these values, because in markets we tend to see more of the
democratic values we hold dear.
If you want to avoid a net neutrality reform, let’s have spectrum
reform. Then our net neutrality problems start to evanesce. With three
you feel better, with 4-5-6 you get in pretty good shape.
I was chairman of a regulatory commission in Colorado. I saw we
couldn’t make the decisions of the 96 Telecommunications Act. Then I
encountered the FCC, the most lawless agency I ever encountered. The DC
Circuit confirms my intuition. We need to be cautious before putting
faith in the Congress or FCC to do right.
I – I learned at ATT that 80% of the profits come from 20% of the
customers. I see the telephone companies regulated badly, they want to
do that 20% of capx and then stop. And there’s crazy things like the
Universal Service mechanism. Still there has to be a way to serve the
other 80%, but I don’t see it happening in the pure capitalist model.
G – In some sense it’s an empirical question. It seems to me that
competition does not come to all places at the same time. I’m not sure
the demand for multi channel video service is that much less in poor
neighborhoods than rich ones. There are satellite dishes in poor
neighborhoods, paying $60-80/month.
For competition to work its magic it doesn’t have to be ubiquitous.
AT&T took over TCI and started upgrading for broadband around
Denver in early 2000. They did it from the head end. There were gaps
where there was only one broadband provider. Some had cable only, some
had phone only. Those with just DSL had the same price as those with
competition.
Gigi Sohn, Public Jnowledge president
Sohn (S) – We agree on some areas. First government’s role ought to
be limited. heavy handed government regulation often favors incumbents.
Except I’m not sure they agree with copyright and technology mandates.
I’m surprised they haven’t opposed the broadcast flag and plugging the
analog hole. That’s the heaviest level of government involvement in
keeping an oligopoly strong in the marketplace.
The second point where we agree is the communications laws are out
of date. The silo system makes no sense. I admire your digital age
communicatoins project, I’d love to do the same thing with copyright.
Where we part ways is where the standard should be. After the Trinko
case (Verizon vs. Trinko) gutted antitrust law, so that a monopolist
can do anything as long as it’s in its own interest, so antitrust law
has been gutted by the Supreme Court. While we are for the light touch,
we don’t think government should always stay out.
We think there should be a non-discrimination standard and someone to enforce it.
The third thing we agree on is the Internet has been a terrific
driver of economic growth, education, speech and a host of other things
– creativity. The Internet is not the be-all, but it’s still pretty
damn fantastic. It’s an incredibly empowering mechanism. The difference
we have is how do we assure it stays that way? We are in favor of a
codified principle of non-discrimination – no one has a better name for
it than net neutrality – and we’d like to see people able to file
complaints and have them assessed with penalties.
G – On the unfair competition standard, I think there’s more common
law antitrust history to that under the FTC Act. We’re just ignoring
Trinko and saying the FTC law applies, the unfair compeittion standard
that is technologically neutral, after the fact regulation.
If I’m blocking VOIP you can get an injunction then get a time limit on the case. We have to do cases in Colorado in 270 days.
S – One complaint process that looks quite well, works so well that
Verizon filed a complaint against Rainbow Media Holdings, because
Rainbow programming it wasn’t making available to FIOS on
non-discriminatory terms. The 1992 Cable Act requires that
vertically-oriented cable operators make their programming available to
competitors. How ironic that Verizon sought access to Rainbow’s
programming. That’s exactly what we’re looking for. If someone is being
discriminated against, file a complaint.
There are models for this complalint process and they work pretty
darn well. But I haven’t heard anyone talk about a 10 year rulemaking
for net neutrality.
G – I’m the second worst person at PFF to defend the broadcast flag.
As a personal matter I heard Mike Godwin speak and learned it has no
statutory basis as a legal matter. No orthodoxy – we’re very
protestant.
S – We won the case that the FCC has no authority telling mfgs how
to build its devices. Now Hollywood and the recording industry are in
Congress asking to codify the broadcast flag, essentialy reinstate it.
This is a cynical thing.
In November 2003 the FCC decided to implement the broadcast flg. We
filed to sue, but they had a certification process where the
manufacturers had to get their technologies approved. Despite our
lawsuit being pending, they had this process and approved 13
technologies. We won our case and several of the consumer electronics
manufacturers who’d gotten certification switched to being
pro-broadcast flag, because they’d started manufacturing, an implied
recognition that their competitors’ devices were more consumer
friendly.
Our filings were taken from Philips, which switched positions.
I — Do you think it’s good policy for government to dictate how
machines are designed and in the process limit the lawful uses to which
consumers can use them?
G – All law defines how things are architected. Any legal rules will
determine how things are or are not designed. Your liability rule for
ISPs -–if you change that rule you have different networks.
S – That’s different from the government saying build things this
way to read this series of bits and you shall come to us for permission.
I was on a panel with Slingbox and he said nothing scares a venture
capitalits more than seeing on the first page of prospectus must
receive government permission.
G – We have said that the state can outlaw burglary tools.
Brad Templeton – That’s not a libertarian position.
G – So what else would you propose for digital media to be
broadcast? The real problem is TV, but we won’t go down that path. If I
am a content provider, and I have a legitimate concern that my content
is going to be pirated, and will lose its value, then what would you
propose I do? You can sue anyone, as the RIAA did. The best defense of
the broadcast flag is it’s the least-cost way to allow digital content
to be widely viewed and protected.
S – The broadcast flag and DMCA are legally indefensible. If you’re
going to use DRM put it out there so consumers can express themselves,
as they did with the Sony Rootkit. DRM by itself is no more evil than
anything else. Bu tif you have mandates consumers can’t express
themselves. We’re willing to let people protect their ocntent, and if
it’s too draconian people will go to illegal sources.
If you haven’t read the paper by Tim Lee of the Cato Institute about
why the anti-circumvention provisions are bad policy, he says they’re
like outlawing fence jumping. There may be perfectly legitimate reasons
to jump the fence.
S – (Making a pitch for donations and membership) We have memberships, cool t-shirts.
Me (as Gifford was leaving the stage) — Good thing you didn’t ask about spectrum policy
G — Privatize it.
Me — You would have gotten lynched
G — I know
How can one be a conservative libertarian? It saddens me that most who call themselves libertarians are exactly such. Even Wikipedia’s definition points towards such bias . . . I’ve had to go from being a libertarian to a humanist.
How can one be a conservative libertarian? It saddens me that most who call themselves libertarians are exactly such. Even Wikipedia’s definition points towards such bias . . . I’ve had to go from being a libertarian to a humanist.
The main issue for me here is that the Internet has thrived because of, not in spite of, the lack of governmental intervention. Once government gets involved, it advocates on behalf of its own interests, which almost never benefits the consumer. I much prefer the consumer to have the choice of which sites have top priority, rather than our government. That’s something I’d like to stay away from, so I cannot support the legislation of “net neutrality” provisions.
The main issue for me here is that the Internet has thrived because of, not in spite of, the lack of governmental intervention. Once government gets involved, it advocates on behalf of its own interests, which almost never benefits the consumer. I much prefer the consumer to have the choice of which sites have top priority, rather than our government. That’s something I’d like to stay away from, so I cannot support the legislation of “net neutrality” provisions.
Not to mention, tpwk, that once Congress starts legislating, I’m not sure they’ll know when to stop!
Not to mention, tpwk, that once Congress starts legislating, I’m not sure they’ll know when to stop!
“We need to see how we can get more competition…” His answer to this is markets, and I tend to agree with him. A free, open market will continue to promote innovation and progress, and I’m afraid that we have ample evidence that Congressional regulation will do the opposite.
“We need to see how we can get more competition…” His answer to this is markets, and I tend to agree with him. A free, open market will continue to promote innovation and progress, and I’m afraid that we have ample evidence that Congressional regulation will do the opposite.
I like the general approach and feel of this post. It hints at something very important to the future of the internet, and that is competition. The solution to any perceived net neutrality probelms will easily be solved through the growth in competition including those from muni wi-fi networks and the advanced growth of satelite options. As such, I think it is ultimately best to avoid government regulation.
I like the general approach and feel of this post. It hints at something very important to the future of the internet, and that is competition. The solution to any perceived net neutrality probelms will easily be solved through the growth in competition including those from muni wi-fi networks and the advanced growth of satelite options. As such, I think it is ultimately best to avoid government regulation.
I think there is confusion here. You guys say you are opposed to net neutrality because you are in favor of competition, but that is exactly what neutrality is about. Net neutrality is basically antitrust revisited. The idea is that a few companies shouldn’t have absolute control over who may connect to their networks, as they can use that as a tool to stifle competition. History has shown that a mixture of regulation and laissez fair is needed to create an environment that is most beneficial to the consumer.
I think there is confusion here. You guys say you are opposed to net neutrality because you are in favor of competition, but that is exactly what neutrality is about. Net neutrality is basically antitrust revisited. The idea is that a few companies shouldn’t have absolute control over who may connect to their networks, as they can use that as a tool to stifle competition. History has shown that a mixture of regulation and laissez fair is needed to create an environment that is most beneficial to the consumer.