Marketing Pilgrim

As expected it looks like this week may be a bit light in the news department. That’s fine. Everyone needs a break from time to time. So as I am looking around this morning I come across an op-ed piece in the New York Times that is written by Adam Raff, a co-founder of Foundem, an Internet technology company.

As the new proposals for rules and regulations start to show up regarding net neutrality moving forward it is apparent that politics and political wrangling will rule this one. A very real possible result of this could be that common sense is shelved. Why do I say this? Go ahead and read the article from Macworld discussing this very subject and see if you come to another conclusion.

According to the article the government (read: Democrats) say:

The rules are necessary to protect innovation on the Internet and preserve the openness that has allowed the Internet to blossom, said FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski.

Is there a fine line between “rallying the troops” and “astroturfing?”

Well, if there is, AT&T will be our case study for the day, after an internal email–asking employees to oppose net neutrality–has surfaced.

It appears that proponents of net neutrality–and AT&T’s detractors–have jumped on a single line of the wordy memo:

We encourage you, your family and friends to join the voices telling the FCC not to regulate the Internet. It can be done through a personal email account by going to www.openinternet.gov and clicking on the “Join the Discussion” link.

It appears the leaders of some of the world’s largest tech companies are not taking any chances that the FCC could be persuaded to ditch Net Neutrality at the last minute–they just sent the following letter to FCC.

Dear Chairman Genachowski:

We write to express our support for your announcement that the Federal Communications Commission will begin a process to adopt rules that preserve an open Internet. We believe a process that results in common sense baseline rules is critical to ensuring that the Internet remains a key engine of economic growth, innovation, and global competitiveness.

After getting the Google Voice App blocked on the iPhone and the FCC to scrutinize Google Voice, you’d think AT&T could sit back and rest assured. But not so. Yesterday, they fired another volley in their war against the Internet-based telephony service with a 13-page letter to the FCC.

It’s like they read the comment section of the Google Public Policy blog post about all this the other day. Their letter reflects some of the anti-Google sentiments there—especially the undercurrent of “Why are you stifling competition, Google?”:

Imagine this. You are in the wireless industry and you are on the verge of actually fulfilling all of the prophecies about your industry being the future of the Internet and communications in general. The smart phone is now becoming more the norm and the introduction of the iPhone has moved the growth along at an ever accelerating rate of speed. It looks like finally everything is falling into place. So could possibly slow you down now? Take one guess ….. that’s right …. the government.

Net neutrality is officially a real topic again, I guess. Heck, it’s on the front page of the Wall Street Journal this AM so it must be important, right? Sorry for the cynicism first thing on Monday but after reading a rather lengthy report on the threat to net neutrality that is being spearheaded by Google I feel like I may have actually gotten up on the wrong side of the bed after all.

Senator Byron Dorgan, D-ND, tells Reuters that he plans to introduce a bill in January to enshrine Net Neutrality into law. This will come two years after a previously attempted Net Neutrality bill, introduced by . . . huh, Sen. Byron Dorgan. What a coincidence.

In the intervening two years, however, many regulatory rulings have come down on the issue of Net Neutrality. For example, back in April, the FCC insisted that they already have the authority to enforce Net Neutrality, and later ordered Comcast to stop impeding its users’ traffic. Dorgan, however, believes this is not enough: