I'm usually a fan of FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, but an article Thursday on TheHill.com merited a face-palm type of reaction. The article was about the dangers of driving while texting. I believe it is currently illegal in California to text while driving (though I must admit to frequently disregarding the law in this regard). California is generally ahead of the curve on this kind of legislation, and we need only to look out the window on the 10 Freeway to see having the legislation on the books and in people's minds is not enough to enforce this rule.
First of all, not everyone has a Bluetooth stereo in their car or a speakerphone function on their mobile. Though this segment is limited, some people simply have no means to use a mobile device in a hands-free capacity. More importantly, though, does anyone reading this actually know what hands-free means? Does that mean I can dial a number and let the car take over, dial and then navigate multiple menus to put on speakerphone, or can I not dial the number at all, but rather have to use some kind of voice command to call a friend. I certainly don't know, and have relatively little interest in finding out. Having learned to drive while using a cellular phone, it is a luxury I am simply not willing to give up. Back to the chairman, the article mentioned some ways to forcibly prevent people from driving and texting. He proposed some ideas, the most frivolous of which was, “There may also be opportunities to use RFID-sensor technology in keychains that would disable selected functions on a driver's device activated by the start up of their car.”
This reminds me of two things: 1) the forced speed caps in cars that Ford has proposed multiple times over the year, and 2) the breathalyzers put in cars of those who have been convicted of a DUI that must be blown in to start the car. The Ford idea has been scrapped again and again because people simply hate the idea. The only people who that really appeals to are overzealous parents who want to ensure their teen-driver's safety. The breathalyzer is somewhat more justified, but for most is simply an annoyance rather than a preventative tool. Especially as phones are becoming more advanced (and open-source, a la Android and WebOS), something like this is simply going to annoy people, rather than make them safer drivers.
A passionate comment about the article came from the operator of ZoomSafer. Obviously this person is coming at the issue with a slight bias, but they are strong advocates for stricter enforcement of these laws. Even they admit that “States such as California that currently prohibit handset use are having difficulty breaking people of their distracted driving habits, as recent photos of First Lady Maria Shriver using her cell phone while driving show.” I have written about this before, but forcing people to be limited with new technology will never be welcome and will always be overcome by someone.
How many times does the average college student search the internet every day using their preferred search engine (Google, Yahoo!, or even ...shudder...Bing)? 25? 50? What about text messages? The same number? What if these commodities were priced in the same manner? Depending on your “plan”, you would receive a certain number of searches for free (or none if you don't want to cough up an extra fee) and pay for each search beyond that number. Sound terrible? That is only one of the unlikely, but possible restrictions internet service providers could come up with the increase profits should net neutrality regulations fail.
On Thursday, the FCC unanimously voted to “formalize net neutrality guidelines”, but profit minded cable companies were not far behind, having already recruited some Senate leaders to their cause of maximizing their profit margins. Senator John McCain immediately introduced the “Internet Freedom Act.” This is the same John McCain who admitted to having little to no knowledge of how to operate a computer. Apparently he is passionate about freedom and the internet. However, it appears his vision of a free internet is one where companies are free to discriminate among traffic and users based on what kind of internet service plan they have. One of McCain and his supporters' arguments holds that net neutrality regulation will stifle innovation and competition.
Maybe I should take a minute to explain net neutrality to the 'non-Engadget Reader types' out there. When the phrase “net neutrality regulation” is used, it refers to the idea of the government passing legislation that forbids internet service providers (ISP's) from discriminating who gets to see what content on the internet. They do not change anything, they simply are a pre-emptive protection against future changes which would limit individual freedom to use the internet. McCain's bill, the Internet Freedom Act, attempts to take away the ability of the FCC to ensure those protections. As PC World Magazine puts it,
"According to the text of the McCain bill, the FCC "shall not propose, promulgate, or issue any regulations regarding the Internet or IP-enabled services." Isn't that what the FCC does? Isn't that sort of like introducing a bill to prohibit the Treasury from printing money, or a bill to prohibit the IRS from collecting taxes?"
In this context, it seems as though McCain ISP's want the FCC to not do its job simply so that future profit sources will not dry up before they have been tapped. While their arguments make anyone mildly tech savvy quiver, there are examples of internet regulation around the world where we can look for answers.
A casual glance at China, a country where internet regulations exist in full force, reveals a stark difference from McCain's position. Sure, there is new media innovation in China. Unfortunately, a large portion of that goes to simply avoiding the regulations put in place by internet regulators (in the case of China, regulations put in place by the Government). Innovation is essentially wasted on artificial problems that we simply do not have in the United States because of our free or “neutral” internet. This is the opposite of what opponents of net neutrality argue. Instead of creating new internet services because there is no limit on what can be done, web talent would likely spend time trying to simply return themselves and other to the state of the internet we have now.
Innovative new services, such as Twitter and Google's communication suite (Wave, Voice, etc) would simply not have developed in an environment where internet users are not able to use their data connection in any way they see fit. Skype and Facebook are officially blocked in China (though both have many users through proxy services), and Twitter's freedom ebbs and flows depending on the feeling of the government. These services would have had no incentive to be created if there was the chance of arbitrarily blocking them from public use.
The United States has always been a country that has prided itself on the freedoms it grants its citizens. To enact legislation that takes away the ability of the United States to ensure freedom is contrary to the idea which has enabled innovation to grow in this country and directly creates jobs and creativity, as opposed to blocking it.
EDIT: October 27 2009:
The Daily Show yesterday also poked fun at the idea of John McCain introducing technology legislation (and it's inherent 'non-free' ideas). Net Neutrality section starts right after the first commercial break.
I recently read an article on BBC News dealing with our overweight society. And no, it was not an article detailing ways to get skinny or eat more health conscious. It was this article. Here is the first sentence, and try not to laugh:
"They want so-called "fat-ism" to be made illegal on the same grounds as race, age and religious discrimination. "
Now, I am not a supporter of discrimination in any way, but fat-ism? Really? Of course we should not pre-judge people who are overweight, excuse me, kilogramically challenged, but is legislation necessary to support this? At best, maybe.
The article goes even further into the absurd though. It also wants to create "a law [that] bans "fat-ism" in housing and employment and stops doctors pressing patients to slim down." Stops doctors pressing patients to slim down? Is that not related to their job? If a person has a medical condition which causes them to become fat, their doctor will surely know about it and recomend the healthiest option for them. But if they have no such condition? Are they still not allowed to be pressured to lose weight? This makes about as much sense as telling dentists not to pressure people to brush their teeth.
If you want to actually be healthy and follow the best diet plan for you, you consult a doctor or nutritionist. If you want to feel better about yourself, maybe a therapist is more what you need.
Next time you're in a supermarket, remember it may well be a hate crime to yell "Move out of the way fatty! Well person coming down the aisle!"
During the most recent presidential campaign, one of the important, yet often overlooked statements by the eventual winner of the campaign involved technology. Barack Obama made a number of off hand comments about the necessity of his Blackberry, and how, if elected to the position of president, he would continue to use the device. This was simply added to the list of things Mr Obama had been compiling that would lead to ‘change’ and ‘hope’. The population loved it for another reason as well: they could now directly relate to the man who would likely become president. Some in the more tech savvy community though, did not look at this blown out of proportion marketing move as a good thing. What did this say about our previous president and most of the other congressmen? That they didn’t use/were not aware of what a Blackberry was? Another rumor that surfaced during the campaign was that John McCain did not know how to use a computer. This also was blown out of proportion, but it was believable enough that people entertained the idea. The fact of the matter is that most politicians do not have a firm grasp of 21st century technology. The mere fact that it was considered a ‘big deal’ that Obama wanted to use a Blackberry was pathetic. These devices have been around for years now, and one would be hard pressed to find the head of a large corporation who does not have some form of mobile communication that extends beyond speech. Unfortunately, these same people who marveled at a Blackberry in 2008 are the same people who write laws and set government policy regarding technology. The people in charge of the government of this country need to update their understanding of technology in order to better their ability to create policy relating to it.
An example of a need to understand technology has been dominating the tech news lately. The controversy revolves around the Apple iPhone, the exclusive service provider for the iPhone, AT&T, and internet giant Google. Due to their size and nature, these are three companies that generally run around unchecked. If Apple wants to engage in disturbingly similar actions to what they themselves complained Microsoft was doing years ago, who is going to say boo? AT&T is in the general lump of large cell phone service providers who have the American public by the throat in terms of prices and the ability to change services. And Google is Google. The internet behemoth in charge of the two largest search engines in the world (Google and YouTube) still manages to maintain the image of the “little startup that could” while raking in billions in yearly profits. These three companies generally do whatever they want, and when their interests align, the synergy pushes out innovation in the form of the Apple iPhone or the Amazon Kindle. The problem arises when the interests of these companies run contrary to one another.
Google has been beta testing a revolutionary new “phone” service called Google Voice.
This service allows users to make calls from their computer, cell phone, or internet enabled device to any telephone number in the world. All domestic calls are free, and international calls cost pennies on the dollar compared to what traditional phone services cost. To ensure ease of use on all platforms, Google developed an application for the iPhone App store that streamlined the process of using this new communication tool. Unfortunately, all new applications for the iPhone must be approved by Apple. After multiple weeks of limbo, the Google Voice app was rejected from the App Store. Apple generally restricts apps from entering the store due to instability or for security reasons. For their rejection of the Google Voice app, however, they relied on an ambiguous clause in the app store license agreement relating to duplicating proprietary Apple functions on the device. Anyone who knows the least bit about the Google Voice service knows that it is not a duplication of an Apple function, but an improvement on it. Using Apple’s logic, many other apps currently available should be removed. And that’s only assuming that you buy the argument that Google Voice duplicates the phone functionality of the iPhone.
What would seem like the more obvious reason is that AT&T politely asked/forced Apple to reject the app to remove any chance of competition and lost revenue. In a much called for but still unexpected move, the surprisingly competent Julius Genachowski led FCC opened an inquiry into this debacle, asking for statements from all involved parties (Google, Apple, and AT&T). AT&T was the first to respond to their demands, stating that they had no hand in the rejection of Google Voice or any other app, and that the whole process was left to Apple. Google stated its case, but restricted the response to the FCC to mostly jargon and technobabel. Apple followed with a similarly murky and uninformative response. The FCC is continuing to investigate whether potentially any anti-competitive behavior occurred. They have to work within the bounds of technology antitrust law, which like most types of 21st century technology law, is problematically vague. Lawmakers themselves do not know enough about the issues or the industry to make relevant laws that serve to population.
So as not to myself paint Google as that “little startup that could”, the tables could be turned just as easily to put them on the spot for taking advantage of the out of date technology regulations in this country. Google has another project in the works called Google Books. Google Books like Google Voice and Google Mail, is part of Google’s ongoing attempt to centralize all information and communication. When the Google Books project began, Google started to index all published works by copying them into a database and allowing them to be searched and searched for. In 2005, the Author’s Guild of America and the Association of American Publishers sued Google for copyright infringement. While the multitudes of internet users surely would have benefited from access to the content of any book at any time, there is a reason copyrights exist and Google clearly disregarded the law when implementing the Google Books program. The miracle is though, that the best business decision Google could have made was the illegal copying of books. Google settled with the authors and publishers to the tune of 125$ million, pennies by Google’s standards. What Google got out of the settlement though, was more critical. Because they paid their dues, they can copy books to the Google Books archive and not worry about copyright infringement, because they have already been tried for it. The only reason a book could not end up on the Google Books archive is if the copyright holder of the book opts out of having their book on the database, a lengthy legal process that costs both time and money.
Luckily for the publishing companies (and by extension, writers and readers) because of the importance of the case, congress has decided to validate the settlement to make sure it is fair and in the best interests of all concerned parties. Unluckily, it is unlikely that the majority of congress has the slightest clue of what Google Books is or the relevance of this decision. Companies that sell books (especially e-books), such as Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and others are strongly opposed to essentially free access to their wares. If congress rejects the settlement, it brings up an interesting problem. How do you legitimately regulate Google? When Microsoft was at the height of its dominance, all the government could do was fine them and tell them to play nice. Google is in a similar situation now. A fine, even one amounting to billions of dollars, means relatively little to Google. It has both the resources and the public support that there is almost no way to say “no” to it. As a person who considers himself tech-savvy, I would have no idea how to reign in a company like Google. I look at the crowd of people on capital hill amazed that email can now be checked on a phone and wonder how they could possibly do any better.
It seems like more and more of this blog is being dedicated to Google coverage, but the technology giant seems to always be in the news. A recent article in the Onion covered Google's increasing omnipresence with this video
Though the source is The Onion, and it is an obvious exaggeration, the message is staggeringly true. A recent Google search of myself brought both my Facebook page and Twitter account within the first 20 results. (The coveted I'm Feeling Lucky result went to an embezzler from Connecticut).
This video highlights the availability of information online. Google's eventual goal is to harmonize the world's information and communication, of course all of it going through Google's servers and supporting the best advertising model in the world.
The question then becomes, do you want to be on the cutting edge? Or stuck in luddite-ville?
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Back to the chairman, the article mentioned some ways to forcibly prevent people from driving and texting. He proposed some ideas, the most frivolous of which was, “There may also be opportunities to use RFID-sensor technology in keychains that would disable selected functions on a driver's device activated by the start up of their car.” 
