Obama's Statement on Net Neutrality Vote

There are people on the left (who say Obama "caved") and the right (who says the new rules go too far), which I typically take as a good sign. The new rules don't apply to wireless providers, just the traditional cable and telecom companies. The new rules would prevent your cable company, for example, from blocking websites such as Hulu.

Statement by the President on Today’s FCC Vote on Net Neutrality

Today’s decision will help preserve the free and open nature of the Internet while encouraging innovation, protecting consumer choice, and defending free speech. Throughout this process, parties on all sides of this issue – from consumer groups to technology companies to broadband providers – came together to make their voices heard. This decision is an important component of our overall strategy to advance American innovation, economic growth, and job creation.

As a candidate for President, I pledged to preserve the freedom and openness that have allowed the Internet to become a transformative and powerful platform for speech and expression. That’s a pledge I’ll continue to keep as President. As technology and the market continue to evolve at a rapid pace, my Administration will remain vigilant and see to it that innovation is allowed to flourish, that consumers are protected from abuse, and that the democratic spirit of the Internet remains intact.

I congratulate the FCC, its Chairman, Julius Genachowski, and Congressman Henry Waxman for their work achieving this important goal today.

Genachowski:

Net neutrality explained:

FCC Gears Up for Net Neutrality Fight

Net neutrality, a principle that Obama campaigned on, would mean telecom, cable and wireless companies couldn't slow down or block content or sites. Julius Genachowski, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, will be giving a speech on net neutrality today at the Brookings Institute.

Read Google's net neutrality advocacy page here. It's good for consumers, lousy for telecoms, which are expected to put up a fight. Republicans side with telecoms:

The U.S. government plans to propose broad new rules Monday that would force Internet providers to treat all Web traffic equally, seeking to give consumers greater freedom to use their computers or cellphones to enjoy videos, music and other legal services that hog bandwidth.

The move would make good on a campaign promise to Silicon Valley supporters like Google Inc. from President Barack Obama, but will trigger a battle with phone and cable companies like AT&T Inc. and Comcast Corp., which don't want the government telling them how to run their networks. WSJ

Obama's Chief Technology Officer: Vint Cerf?

Obama has created a chief technology position. Brilliant. Vint Cerf, father of the Internet (he created internet protocol) and vice president of Google, endorsed Obama in October via youtube. Cerf says Obama supports net neutrality.

CNN: Carol Browner, President Bill Clinton's Environmental Protection Agency administrator, and Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm also are possible contenders for the energy secretary post.

Another big opening -- chief technology officer -- is a newly created position. The transition team says this post will be charged with ensuring that the government has the right "infrastructure, policies and services for the 21st century."

Obama's presidential campaign developed a reputation for harnessing technology and the Internet to mobilize its grass-roots movement. Democratic strategist Lisa Caputo says this position will help Obama use the Internet to keep that movement going strong.

One name generating buzz for this position is Vinton Cerf, the vice president of Google.

Read more about what the CTO would do:

The full plan can be seen below. It contains several new proposals, including the appointment of technology czar called a Chief Technology Officer.

The CTO’s mandate would be quite different from the Cybersecurity czar appointed under the Bush Administration. Bush’s czar helped defend against cyberattacks. Obama’s CTO, by contrast, would ensure government officials hold open meetings, broadcast live webcasts of those meetings, and use blogging software, wikis and open comments to communicate policies with Americans, according to the plan.

Obama's serious about broadband for all. For geeky types:

II. BROADBAND ACCESS

Second, Obama makes new stances on several other areas of technology of interest to Silicon Valley’s tech community. He calls more aggressive government support of broadband access. Specifically, he calls for subsidies for phone carriers to be given to only those carriers offering both regular phone service and Internet broadband to rural areas. To date, carriers offering merely phone service have been able to claim subsidies from the so-called Universal Service Fund, giving them little incentive to roll out out broadband. This is also new, in that he hasn’t proposed this before.

III. OPEN WIRELESS SPECTRUM

Obama’s plan also calls for reviewing the decision by the Federal Communications Commission to open the wireless spectrum for competition. Specifically, Obama feels the FCC may not have gone far enough with its recent ruling. He is strongly considering advocating that spectrum on the 700 MHz band be opened so that third parties can lease it on a wholesale basis. This will ensure winners of a pending auction for the spectrum — expected to be large phone carriers like Verizon — don’t just sit on the spectrum and not use it. They may do that to avoid other entrants from competing with them. Obama’s campaign also appears ready to support the right of service providers to interconnect with a licensee’s wireless network. Google is expected to bid on the wireless spectrum.

IV. NETWORK NEUTRALITY

Obama also is supporting network neutrality, a policy that would ensure Google wouldn’t be forced to pay an Internet service provider extra to ensure the speedy transfer of its data over the Internet. Stanford legal expert, Larry Lessig, called me up this afternoon (apparently under recommendation from the campaign) saying Obama has the most nicely balanced policy among the democrats. Obama’s plan, he says, imposes minimal regulatory burden. So: Unlike John Edwards who, proposes to “enforce net neutrality ensuring no degradation or blocking of access to websites,” Obama would not ban differential service. He would simply require that the terms offered one website or company are no better or worse than those offered anyone else. This is a kind of “most favored nations” network neutrality, much simpler to enforce than one that looks to technical factors to determine whether the regulation is obeyed. Venture people should be very interested in this, Lessig says, because “if network neutrality regulation is going to be passed (as it will if a Dem is president) this imposes a very minimal (and relatively easy to monitor) burden on network owner.” read more.

The shortlist of potential CTOs, according to Business Week:

BW: Among the candidates who would be considered for the job, say Washington insiders, are Vint Cerf, Google's (GOOG) "chief internet evangelist," who is often cited as one of the fathers of the Internet; Microsoft (MSFT) chief executive officer Steve Ballmer; Amazon (AMZN) CEO Jeffrey Bezos; and Ed Felten, a prominent professor of computer science and public affairs at Princeton University. An Obama campaign spokesman did not return phone calls seeking comment about potential CTO candidates.

Vint Cerf Endorses Obama

Vint Cert, co-inventor of the Internet, talks about net neutrality and Obama.