Comcast Wants to Be the Net’s Judge, Jury and Executioner
April 15th, 2008 by tkarrComcast has just rolled out plans to draft a “bill of rights and responsibilities” for ISPs and Internet users. But the cable giant has forgotten one thing: to invite Internet users, policymakers and advocates to the table.
The move comes as the cable giant is scrambling to preempt a Federal Communications Commission ruling against its blocking of legal file-sharing programs.
In response to a complaint filed last fall by Free Press and members of the SavetheInternet.com Coalition, the FCC has launched an official inquiry into the matter, and has hinted that action against Comcast is imminent.
An FCC hearing schedule for Thursday at Stanford University will focus on whether ISPs can shape, filter and even block content that travels over their networks. (The public — more than 1.5 million of whom have spoken out against such violations — has a rare opportunity to testify before the commission during the hearing.)
Comcast Wants to Play by Its Rules Only
In advance of Stanford, Comcast announced that it has partnered with Web traffic company Pando to put together a group of industry experts to play legislators and draft their own “bill.”
Not surprisingly the list of prospective authors leaves out consumer advocacy groups like Free Press, Consumers Union, Public Knowledge, and EFF — or anyone who might question Comcast’s desire to be the ultimate content cop.
“Comcast has declared itself an arbiter of consumers’ rights,” says Marvin Ammori, Free Press General Counsel. “But Comcast’s past behavior tells us everything we really need to know.”
The cable giant’s blocking of peer-to-peer applications continues to this day with no indication from the company of when or if they plan to stop. The move to convene their own panel is Comcast’s effort to demonstrate that the private sector can solve all of the Internet’s problems.
Paper Tiger
It all boils down to a simple question: Can we trust Comcast to protect our online freedoms without enforceable, independent consumer safeguards?
Their track record clearly indicates that a Comcast-drafted bill of rights would be worth no more than the paper it’s printed on.
After all, Comcast routinely finishes at or near the bottom of customer service surveys. This is the same company that still refuses to admit that it was secretly blocking its users’ file-sharing applications, even after several independent investigations found the opposite to be true.
It’s the same company that then tried to block public debate on the issue by hiring seat-fillers to deny people entry to an FCC hearing in Boston.
A Real Bill
“Comcast has thumbed its nose at the existing consumer bill of rights,” Ammori says. “Now facing unprecedented public, government and media scrutiny, Comcast is desperately trying to change the subject.”
The need for Net Neutrality remains urgent. The FCC should do its job to uphold a real and enforceable bill of rights for consumers and not to trust the industry to police itself.
The road to a more open Internet leads through Stanford, and not through Comcast’s latest ploy to skirt the rules.
April 16th, 2008 at 11:16 am
THIS CONTRACT IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE WITHOUT NOTICE, DEPENDING ON THE STATUS OF NET NEUTRALITY
When contract language is written for clients like Comcast, especially in this particular move, it acts to minimize the likelihood of enforced net neutrality. A standard comment from the inner circle could be, “If we don’t do something now, they’re going to do it for us - which version are you willing to live with?”. Such decisions have spawned millions for the public relations industry to develop messages designed to undermine both competition or regulation in its absence.
If bandwidth were available in the retail market as a commodity subject to effective competition, it wouldn’t make much difference what contract language Comcast used, because its discriminatory practices would have driven Comcast out of business long ago.
For example, imagine if bandwidth could be bought and sold like computer hardware on the internet, in a national market with lots of sellers, plenty of options and independent reviews and other sources to inform real choices and avoid scams and other problems. Play games with customers like Comcast does and a computer hardware company would be out of business in short order.
Comcast filed in its April 9th comment before the FCC in Docket 07-52, a press release by Pando Networks which collaborates with among others, Verizon, to “improve” P2P use on broadband networks. Comcast states that the press release “provides further proof that policymakers have been right to rely on marketplace forces, rather than government regulation, to govern the evolution of Internet services.”
Wrong. Deregulated monopolies have the same incentive to reduce cost at least as much as companies subject to competition and more when it results in degradation of service quality. The difference is they don’t pass on the savings to customers, keeping it for themselves instead. And in this case, the economic damage incurred from undermining competition among producers and consumers of content, along with internet commerce like computer hardware, is several magnitudes above whatever monopoly profits are gained.
Pando Networks is a clear sign, like the content firm of hulu.com against net neutrality, that the healthy division between a near pure monopoly or duopoly of broadband bandwidth and the vibrant, competitive content which flows over these networks is breaking down. Maintaining sharp separations between these two with net neutrality has no negative impact whatsover on the incentives and technical ability of network providers to “improve” P2P flows and reduce cost in their networks, and in fact encourages it.
April 17th, 2008 at 5:14 am
[…] Under a federal inquiry, Comcast proposes a “bill of rights” for Internet users, but apparently Internet users and advocates aren’t invited to the table. […]
April 17th, 2008 at 11:44 am
[…] read more | digg story […]
April 17th, 2008 at 4:44 pm
[…] Comcast has just rolled out plans to draft a “bill of rights and responsibilities” for ISPs and Internet users. But the cable giant has forgotten one thing: to invite Internet users, policymakers and advocates to the table. So is that what being comcastic means? Tags: comcast, user rights […]
April 22nd, 2008 at 12:59 pm
[…] Net Neutrality proponent Save the Internet has reported that at the request of virtually no one, Comcast has announced their plan to create a “P2P Bill of Rights” that would apply to service providers and users alike. […]
April 26th, 2008 at 2:09 am
This is the most ridiculous thing i have ever heard. I mean the point of being able to pay for the internet is your choice and you should be able to do what you want with the service you paid for. The whole idea behind the internet is for people to communicate with others, be able to share things with them, and i would say be able to download. Because if i can download stuff i will buy it. So all in all this is Basically they are just trying to control another part of our lives… Basicaly another thing added to my list of “What the government is doing wrong, how they are trying to control us, and why there is still taxation without representation but yet no one seems to care.”