Free Federal Wireless Broadband For All Americans? Fuggedaboutit!
The United States government is not going to be providing free WiFi Internet access to consumers anytime soon. That news may surprise anyone who read a startling Washington Post story on Sunday that seemed to confuse a fairly esoteric telecom policy proposal about the use of so-called “white space” wireless spectrum with some sort of free national wireless Internet access plan. The “free WiFi for all” story, which was passed around uncritically by Internet blogs and news sites, set off a furor because the notion cuts to the heart of ongoing battles over access to the Internet, the “digital divide,” and federal policy decisions that could have major implications for the telecom, cable, and technology industries. But the story was wrong, as Ars Technica pointed out. On Tuesday, outlets that repeated the bunk story began walking their reports back, in some cases apologizing for giving bad information to the public. The episode, which provoked a strong pushback from tech ...
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FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski Stepping Down After Contentious Term
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski will announce on Friday that he is stepping down, according to multiple reports. Genachowski, who became chairman in 2009, has presided over an agency that has grappled with contentious issues like U.S. broadband policy, cable and telecom industry competition, and media consolidation. In seeking to strike a centrist balance, Genachowski managed to alienate both public interest groups that have pushed for a more activist FCC on issues like media ownership and Internet openness, as well as industry giants, particularly AT&T, which had proposed buying T-Mobile before the FCC objected. Verizon Wireless is currently suing the FCC in federal court over the agency’s “network neutrality” rules.In seeking to strike a centrist balance, Genachowski managed to alienate both public interest groups that have pushed for a more activist FCC on issues like media ownership and Internet openness, as well as industry giants, particularly ...
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FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski Stepping Down After Contentious Term: Reports
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski will announce on Friday that he is stepping down, according to multiple reports. Genachowski, who became chairman in 2009, has presided over an agency that has grappled with contentious issues like U.S. broadband policy, cable and telecom industry competition, and media consolidation. In seeking to strike a centrist balance, Genachowski managed to displease both public interest groups that have pushed for a more activist FCC on issues like media ownership and Internet openness, as well as industry giants, particularly AT&T, which had proposed buying T-Mobile before the FCC objected. Genachowski’s announcement, which was expected, comes just days after another FCC commissioner, Robert McDowell, announced his plan to leave the agency. Their departures create two vacancies on the commission, which will be filled by candidates nominated by President Obama. The job of FCC chairman is particularly important, because the position ...
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Facebook ‘Friends’ Apple and Takes a Shot at Google
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg made it crystal clear Wednesday that the social networking juggernaut has a better working relationship with hardware giant Apple than it does with Web search leader Google. The 28-year-old billionaire said his company is working closely with Apple on applications for new mobile products. Google? Not so much. “Our relationship with Google isn’t one where the companies really talk,” Zuckerberg told Wall Street analysts in a startling disclosure on the conference call following the company’s earnings report. By contrast, Zuckerberg spoke highly of his counterparts at Apple. “I’m really happy with the partnership we have with them,” he said. With those comments, Zuckerberg laid down a marker in the escalating battle for Internet advantage between Facebook, Apple, and Google. The chips are now on the table; the war is on. Facebook recently launched a heavily-publicized new search product, which could pit the company against search leader Google. Facebook ...
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Did Google’s Promise to ‘Do No Evil’ Convince the FTC to Do Nothing About Its Search Bias?
Has the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) been seduced by Google’s famous promise to “do no evil?” That’s the question a lot of critics are asking in the wake of the Internet search giant’s antitrust settlement with the FTC last week. The problem, critics say, isn’t simply that Google got off lightly; it’s that the FTC allowed Google to set the terms – both in defining whether the company’s behavior was harmful and in setting the terms of its punishment. “For critics of Google,” NYU Information Law Institute Fellow Nathan Newman writes on the Huffington Post, “[the] FTC decision is not bad news because we disagree with the results, but bad news because it reflects an enforcement agency failing to even ask the right questions.” (MORE: What Google’s FTC Deal Means for the Patent Wars) One of the central questions in the FTC’s antitrust investigation was how exactly to determine whether Google’s dominance in the search engine business has caused harm – and to ...
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