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Antitrust Advocate Who Coined the Phrase 'Net Neutrality' Joins Biden's White House (sfgate.com) 70

Posted by EditorDavid from the Wu-the-day dept.
Tim Wu coined the phrase "net neutrality". He's the author of The Curse of Bigness: Antitrust in the New Gilded Age , and Bloomberg calls him an "outspoken advocate for aggressive antitrust enforcement against U.S. technology giants."

They add that now the Columbia University media law professor "is joining the White House an adviser, signaling that the Biden administration is preparing to square off against the industry's biggest companies." Wu will join the National Economic Council as a special assistant on technology and competition policy, the White House said Friday. Wu's appointment elevates to a senior position in the administration a leading antitrust expert, favored by progressives, who has assailed the power of dominant tech companies like Alphabet Inc.'s Google and Facebook Inc. Both companies were sued by U.S. antitrust enforcers last year for allegedly abusing their monopoly power...

After the Federal Trade Commission and state attorneys general sued Facebook in December, Wu wrote a column in the New York Times comparing Facebook's strategy of buying competitors to Standard Oil's tactics in the 19th century. "What the federal government and states are doing is reasserting a fundamental rule for all American business: You cannot simply buy your way out of competition," Wu wrote. "Facebook, led by its chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, has taken that strategy to a smirking and egregious extreme, acquiring multiple companies to stifle the competitive threat they pose."

Wu joins the Biden administration as tech giants are grappling with a reckoning in Washington that could transform the industry. The Facebook lawsuit could lead to the breakup of the company, while the Justice Department's complaint against Google targets the heart of its business — Internet search. Antitrust enforcers have also opened investigations of Apple Inc. and Amazon... Wu argued in his book, The Curse of Bigness: Antitrust in the New Gilded Age, that rising concentration across the economy has led to concentrated wealth and power as well as radicalized politics that threatens American democracy.
A White House press briefing Friday included this response to a question about Biden's plans for big tech companies: The President has been clear — on the campaign, and, probably, more recently — that he stands up to the abuse of power, and that includes the abuse of power from big technology companies and their executives. And Tim will help advance the President's agenda, which includes addressing the economic and social challenges posed by the growing power of tech platforms; promoting competition and addressing monopoly and market power issues; expanding access to broadband for low-income and rural communities across the country...

We don't have new policy to announce here... Just that the President believes, as he's talked about before, that it's important to promote competition and address monopoly and market power issues.
Interestingly, last August Wu also wrote an op-ed in the New York Times titled "A TikTok Ban is Overdue," arguing that China's "extensive blocking, censorship and surveillance violate just about every principle of internet openness and decency. China keeps a closed and censorial internet economy at home while its products enjoy full access to open markets abroad..." The asymmetry is unfair and ought no longer be tolerated. The privilege of full internet access — the open internet — should be extended only to companies from countries that respect that openness themselves...

[China] bans not only most foreign competitors to its tech businesses but also foreign sources of news, religious instruction and other information, while using the internet to promote state propaganda and engage in foreign electoral interference... Few foreign companies are allowed to reach Chinese citizens with ideas or services, but the world is fully open to China's online companies...

The idealists who thought the internet would automatically create democracy in China were wrong. Some think that it is a tragic mistake for the United States to violate the principles of internet openness that were pioneered in this country. But there is also such a thing as being a sucker. If China refuses to follow the rules of the open internet, why continue to give it access to internet markets around the world...?

We need to wake up to the game we are playing when it comes to the future of the global internet. The idealists of the 1990s and early '00s believed that building a universal network, a kind of digital cosmopolitanism, would lead to world peace and harmony. No one buys that fantasy any longer. But if we want decency and openness to survive on the internet — surely a more attainable goal — the nations that hold such values need to begin fighting to protect them.
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Antitrust Advocate Who Coined the Phrase 'Net Neutrality' Joins Biden's White House More

Antitrust Advocate Who Coined the Phrase 'Net Neutrality' Joins Biden's White House

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  • A Biden team member that I can agree with.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by DarkOx ( 621550 )

      He so right about China but so wrong about NN.

      First as many others have pointed out NN's going away for four years did not hurt consumers. Second NN is probably the biggest giveaway to big tech there is.

      Imagine a world where your ISP could slow lane some large actors like Google, Facebook, Cloudflare, AWS. Why either Google and friends would have to pay up and more equally spread the wealth so to speak -or- we might get a more open internet with less crap. Pages would have to choose to either have fewer ad

      • Imagine a world where your ISP could slow lane some large actors like Google, Facebook, Cloudflare, AWS. Why either Google and friends would have to pay up and more equally spread the wealth so to speak

        While you're doing that, imagine a world where your ISP could slow lane some site you liked, instead of assuming that "slow lanes" would be just for people you don't give a damn about. Then you'd be the one paying more to get your favorite site to run reasonably well....

      • I trust they are smart enough to go after those with the deepest pockets.

        But you're not smart enough to realize they'll go after you too. Why limit themselves to deep pockets when they're also the only game in town? Literally, for many US towns. Internet access is more crucial today for work than it ever was just Ajit-Pai-Years ago, you think they won't go after the likes of you when they know you've got no one else to go to?

        what it really does in practice is allow monopolies to grow.

        The government has many levers to pull to control monopolies, if they cared. Using NN as a battleground to combat monopolies is fucking stupid.
        ---
        As an

        • But you're not smart enough to realize they'll go after you too. Why limit themselves to deep pockets when they're also the only game in town? Literally, for many US towns. Internet access is more crucial today for work than it ever was just Ajit-Pai-Years ago, you think they won't go after the likes of you when they know you've got no one else to go to?

          No, they will not. That is what the free market is all about. They are NOT the only game in town.

          • Time to start living in reality. I LITERALLY told you about the situation in many US towns where it's only ONE provider. That is not a free market. Don't pretend something exists just because you believe it does.

            Idiot.
      • Lol, that is nowhere near what would happen. You put an extreme amount of trust into companies that have proven, time and time again, that they can't be trusted and need to be regulated. You can say all you want that "no net neutrality has not changed things for the consumers" but that's just it, internet service is broken and exploited. We need to improve, and the only way for that is for the government to step in.

        • Lol, that is nowhere near what would happen. You put an extreme amount of trust into companies that have proven, time and time again, that they can't be trusted and need to be regulated. You can say all you want that "no net neutrality has not changed things for the consumers" but that's just it, internet service is broken and exploited. We need to improve, and the only way for that is for the government to step in.

          Internet service is exploited? What does that even mean?

      • I have no real problems with my ISP picking winners a losers. I trust they are smart enough to go after those with the deepest pockets.

        That would be fine if you had options between different ISPs. Where I live, I have a choice between two ISPs. If they both decide to censor a website, then I have no other option.

  • "You don't change the party, the party changes you". My guess is he will be come a corp stooge like every other person that joins politics cause the money is good and only way to keep the gravy train going is to go along.

  • The asymmetry is unfair and ought no longer be tolerated. The privilege of full internet access — the open internet — should be extended only to companies from countries that respect that openness themselves...

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

    Actualy, I am not entirely correct, this is not "deny, attack, and reverse victim and offender". It is the Twitter-Facebook "Truth Checkers" Pot calling the "Great Firewall of China" Kettle black.

    My favourite quote from B5 was “Understanding is a three edged sword: your side, their side, and the truth.” Applies here too.

  • If Net Neutrality was as much of a no-brainer as proponents made it out to be, then it would be like trying to vote in âoeoxygen neutralityâ or âoeworld peaceâ or âoeend hungerâ.

    Who wouldnâ(TM)t want all that? Well, leave it to human beings to screw that all up with politics.

    First, the name has to stop being used as the battering ram for complex legislation. Imagine some random stranger knocking on your door. Cautious because of a string of reports in the neighborhood of

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Cyberax ( 705495 )

      Yet Net Neutrality proponents are doing just that: trying to gain the approval of the American public by ramming the term down their throats instead of giving them reasonable explanations about the specific legislation in question.

      The majority of Americans support Net Neutrality: https://thehill.com/policy/tec... [thehill.com]

      Net neutrality, on the other hand, shouldnâ(TM)t be nearly as controversial, yet it has a harder time getting accepted by the American public. Crazy, right?

      No. Corporate stooges like you simply imagine that they are speaking for Teh Troo Americoonz. You do not. You speak for a tiny segment of rabid squirrels.

    • The fact that you refer to universal health care as "free health care" clearly indicates you have no fucking clue what you're talking about, and should probably sit back and let the adults talk. Perhaps you'll learn something.

  • extensive blocking, censorship and surveillance violate just about every principle of internet openness and decency

    Exactly how do you measure "decency"?

  • The idealists of the 1990s and early '00s believed that building a universal network, a kind of digital cosmopolitanism, would lead to world peace and harmony. No one buys that fantasy any longer.

    Call me naive, but I still believe it. President Eisenhower believed in it, though he tried to do it without the internet: https://www.peopletopeople.com... [peopletopeople.com] . My hope is that, with time, people will come to understand each other, and that understanding will lead to toleration and, eventually, respect.

  • https://yro.slashdot.org/story... [slashdot.org]

    Or wasn't the NYT story true enough?

  • Don't get your hopes up (Score:3)

    by groobly ( 6155920 ) on Sunday March 07, 2021 @11:36AM (#61133082)

    Democrats currently want to censor the internet at the ISP level, and soon once they learn it exists, at the backbone level. Don't get your hopes up that 'net neutrality' is coming back. What you are going to see is 'net equity.' And that is going to be nothing more than censorship and favoritism.

    • > Democrats currently want to censor the internet at the ISP level *Citation needed (and no, OANN/Newsmax does not count) You seem to not understand the cornerstones of net neutrality.

  • Well, sure ... (Score:3)

    by cascadingstylesheet ( 140919 ) on Sunday March 07, 2021 @12:16PM (#61133180) Journal

    ... nothing says "net neutrality" like today's Democrat party.

    Now excuse me while I summon some tech CEOs for more hearings on why they shouldn't pass any bits through at all from those that disagree with me.

    (You have to admit, completely blocking the bits isn't the same as slowing them down!)

  • Guys, I've a potential vs. youtube, google, and apple just this week alone, so looking only for enterprising students of only the bottom 50 of law schools as rated by usnewsandworldreports, will be slating meetings for out mid May. Send info digits to "Chihuahua Legal Doggies" Tankx.

  • I looked at Stanford, MIT, Wikipedia... for "Internet Access Provider (IAP)" "Internet Service Provider (ISP)" both existed as separate concepts in the 1990s.

    Now everyone is confused unless they see physical objects. Business/Capitalism loves to confuse all humanity and erase what scientists and engineers made clear initially. A service can't be physical; IOW, a service ain't a physical product, and products cannot be teleported; Hence, infrastructure...

    ARPA/DARPA Internet physical Infrastructure.
    TimBL/WWW

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