Posted by Richard Whitt, Washington Telecom and Media Counsel

As I've pointed out in the past, the most recent figures show that of those Americans with high-speed broadband service, 99.6% receive that service from either their local phone company or their local cable company. Many have only one choice of broadband provider, and still others have none at all.

It's no secret that American consumers would benefit greatly from more competition for high-speed Internet access. Just take a look at the Japanese.

Yesterday's Washington Post reports that Japan has some of the fastest Internet connections in the world -- up to 30 times as fast as those in the United States. As the Post put it, "Americans invented the Internet, but the Japanese are running away with it." Accelerating broadband speeds in Japan, South Korea, and most of Europe are "pushing open doors to Internet innovation that are likely to remain closed for years to come in much of the United States."

The folks at the Save the Internet blog explained why, noting that "less than a decade ago, DSL service in Japan was slower and pricier than in the United States. So the Japanese government mandated open access policies that forced the telephone monopoly to share its wires at wholesale rates with new competitors. The result: a broadband explosion. Not only did DSL get faster and cheaper in Japan, but the new competition actually forced the creaky old phone monopoly to innovate."

Save the Internet Blog also reported on Arkansas Senator Mark Pryor's recent public hearing on the state of broadband in Arkansas, which was attended by FCC Commissioners Jonathan Adelstein and Michael Copps:

"While some have protested the international broadband penetration rankings," Adelstein said, alluding to some of his colleagues at the Commission, "the fact is the U.S. has dropped year-after-year. This downward trend and the lack of broadband value illustrate the sobering point that when it comes to giving our citizens affordable access to state-of the-art communications, the U.S. has fallen behind its global competitors."

Copps called the lack of a national broadband policy "tantamount to playing Russian roulette with our future."

"Each and every citizen of this great country should have access to the wonders of communications," Copps said. "I'm not talking about doing all these people some kind of feel-good, do-gooder favor by including them. I'm talking about doing America a favor. I'm talking about making certain our citizens can compete here at home and around the world with those who are already using broadband in all aspects of their lives."

We hope policymakers take a careful look at exactly what is now happening overseas, why, and then draw the right conclusions about the steps necessary to bring the benefits of real broadband competition and innovation to all Americans.

Posted by Adam Kovacevich, Manager, Global Communications and Public Affairs

“Freedom” is a word that gets used a lot in Washington, but what does it mean, exactly, for Google and its users? Tuesday night, our CEO Eric Schmidt told the Progress & Freedom Foundation’s annual Aspen Summit that freedom and openness are the core principles that helped make possible the Internet's – and Google's -- birth and growth.

The Internet was built on open standards, Eric noted, and that those platforms are really platforms of economic opportunity and free expression. Free markets and open standards have led to so much innovation, that it’s usually best for government not to rush into regulating new technology. And he cited both political empowerment (such as the YouTube presidential debates) and economic empowerment (like the $3 billion that we paid out to website owners last year through our advertising partnerships) as the fruits of Internet freedom.

In the policy arena, Eric offered three specific calls to action. First, he said we need to defend freedom of speech as more speech comes online – and give teeth to the issue by pressing governments to classify censorship as a trade barrier. Second, we need to continue working toward universal broadband access, by government collaborating with industry and making sure that networks remain content neutral. And third, he called on government to be more transparent to its citizens – citing as an example our Sitemaps partnership with the federal government and five state governments.

But freedom wasn’t the only thing on Eric’s mind Tuesday. The PFF crowd was particularly interested in Google’s positions on both the upcoming 700 MHz spectrum auction and on net neutrality (and posed a few questions skeptical of our stance). Without announcing any definitive plans to bid, and cautioning that we're still carefully evaluating our options, Eric indicated that Google “probably” would decide to participate in the auction.

Check out the complete video of Eric’s talk, and tell us what freedom on the 'Net means to you.

Posted by Pablo Chavez, Policy Counsel

I wrote a few weeks ago about the recent activity in the online advertising arena since we announced our acquisition of DoubleClick. Today, I suggest you check out an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal from Tom Lenard and Paul Rubin of the Progress & Freedom Foundation. They write that "both the antitrust and the consumer protection branches of the FTC should leave this acquisition alone. It will create benefits with no increase in market power and no harmful reduction of privacy." (Note that Google is a PFF supporter, though they are independent in their positions and we have disagreements with them about a number of issues, including net neutrality.)

A few highlights from the op-ed:

Those who complain about Google's purchase of DoubleClick make two claims. Both are flawed.

The first argument is that, since both firms have a large market share of their respective spheres, a merger would be monopolistic. The flaw is that the two companies undertake activities that don't overlap. Google places text ads mainly on its own Web sites and search-result screens. DoubleClick delivers display ads from advertisers to Web sites. It creates no ads and controls no Web sites. Even if we believe that Internet advertising is a distinct market (debatable, since it comprises only about 5% of all advertising) the combined firms will not gain any market power since they do not have any business in common.

The second argument comes from privacy advocates who have filed a brief with the FTC. They say the merger "could impact the privacy interests of 233 million Internet users in North America." The FTC's antitrust function and its consumer protection function are fundamentally different. Indeed, the more information markets have, the more competitive they are. If "privacy" advocates have their way, there would be less information and markets would not work as well.

We have a slightly different take from PFF on privacy. We recognize that user, advertiser and publisher trust is paramount to the success of our business and to the success of this acquisition, and we take seriously the concerns that some have raised about the privacy aspects of online advertising. We also think the public debate over online privacy is important, and we plan on joining the FTC's November town hall meeting looking at the issue.

As it happens, I'm in Aspen this week for PFF's annual Aspen Policy Summit, where issues like privacy, spectrum policy, child online safety, and patent reform have been hot topics of debate (Dow Jones, CNET, the Rocky Mountain News, Tech Daily Dose, Tech Liberation Front, and the 463 Blog have all been covering the conference). And tonight, our CEO Eric Schmidt will speak to the conference attendees -- keep an eye on this space later this week for more about Eric's talk.

Posted by Richard Whitt, Washington Telecom and Media Counsel

I've written a lot lately about the upcoming 700 MHz spectrum auction, but there's another spectrum-related proceeding at the FCC that also holds promise for expanding Internet access to more Americans: opening unused “white spaces” in the television spectrum bands for broadband service. These unused channels will become even more useful for broadband applications once broadcasters vacate some of this spectrum as part of the February 2009 digital television transition.

A Washington Post editorial today does an excellent job explaining the promise of this unique spectrum:

Coveted bits of the radio spectrum called "white spaces" -- unused areas of spectrum wedged between licensed TV channels -- may soon be freed up by the Federal Communications Commission. Right now no broadband devices are allowed to use these parts of the spectrum, but the FCC is considering whether to let companies sell FCC-certified wireless devices that would be used without an exclusive broadcast license in these slivers of bandwidth. Such white-space devices (WSDs) would be low-power and so would emit signals over very small geographic areas. White space within the TV band is unlicensed, like WiFi, but is physically better suited than WiFi for broadband transmission.

Google and other companies (including Dell, EarthLink, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, Microsoft, and Philips) have formed the "White Spaces Coalition," to persuade the FCC to establish appropriate interference standards that would allow entrepreneurs to develop fixed and mobile devices that utilize these airwaves. Earlier this year, the coalition submitted two prototype devices (from Microsoft and Philips) to the FCC's engineers to demonstrate the feasibility of this approach.

The FCC's engineering analysis, released two weeks ago, confirms what we have stated all along: it is technologically feasible to provide Internet access through this segment of spectrum without interfering with either digital television signals or wireless microphones. While one of the prototypes unfortunately was damaged, the other prototype fully demonstrated the promise of using these "white spaces" for Internet access. The coalition filed comments at the FCC yesterday responding to these test results.

FCC Chairman Kevin Martin has expressed a keen interest in keeping this matter moving forward, and the coalition will be working with FCC staff to address any remaining technical issues. As the Washington Post notes today, the promise that this spectrum holds for bringing the Internet to more Americans is too great to ignore:

Certainly the FCC shouldn't approve WSDs that will obliterate TV. But just because these prototypes fell short doesn't mean the technology can never work. The limited success of these devices and another designed at the University of Kansas certainly gives hope that someday a non-interfering product could exist. After all, low-power wireless microphone operators often already use white spaces for similar short-distance broadcasts without a license -- although they're supposed to get licenses -- and they coexist peacefully with TV stations...Given the good that could come out of using this unoccupied bandwidth, the FCC should continue to encourage WSD research and development.

Posted by Rishi Jaitly, Policy Analyst - Google India

Two days ago, India's Ministry of Tourism commemorated Independence Day by announcing the creation of a brand channel on YouTube. The channel, which promotes its "Incredible India" campaign, features a range of video content promoting India's past, present, and future promise. The government is one of the first to use our global platform in this way.

Today (August 15 in New Delhi), the 60th anniversary of India's independence, is a perfect opportunity to salute India's government for its commitment to the Internet, to expanding connectivity to all Indians (no matter how rural or impoverished), and to ensuring that the Internet remains a platform for innovation, expression, and communication for all Indians.

The Tourism Ministry isn't the only ministry displaying forward thinking about the Internet. Earlier this year, the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology -- after extensive consultations with industry and the public -- announced a set of proposed amendments to the Information Technology Act of 2000. While these amendments would certainly move India's technology laws in the right direction, we want to highlight some reservations we have, and some suggestions for improvement we have made. In particular, the proposed draft of one section of the Act -- Section 79, dealing with intermediary liability -- requires a second look. Though it's well-intentioned in nature and many of its objectives are welcome, two clauses could inhibit the growth of the Internet in India by creating an unfriendly and burdensome environment for neutral platforms like search engines, blog hosts, auction sites, message boards, and video sharing services.

Section 79(2)(a)(iii), for one, could potentially strip immunity from any intermediary that exercises any control over content on its network. This would call into question the ability of an intermediary to undertake responsible self-regulatory measures, such as deleting posts, comments, or videos that violate posted terms of service. Indeed, it would call into question even graphical reformatting for access on mobile devices. By removing the liability protections upon any act of editorial control -- including socially responsible self-policing and take-downs -- the proposed Section runs counter to the Government's stated objectives.

Meanwhile, the proposed section 79(3) requires removal of offensive content after merely "receiving actual knowledge of such material." It puts an unrealistically heavy burden on the intermediary to decide correctly, by itself and without the benefit of an authoritative judicial determination, whether the material in question is offensive or not.

Finally, due process safeguards should be added, even when notices about content are sent by the Central Government itself. As currently drafted, Section 79 does not require a hearing by the affected parties or any judicial involvement in these cases. Given the high volume of notices Internet platforms will continue to confront in a world of ever-growing content generated by users, the legislation should ensure that notifications are credible and legitimate before they trigger removals.

Meanwhile, the the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting is currently considering a Broadcasting Services Regulation Bill. We applaud the I&B Ministry's willingness to engage in structured and open dialogue with the broader Internet community on the proposed bill. Here again, we want to highlight our concerns about the legislation. As drafted, the Bill could be read to apply television-specific regulations to the Internet, which is an entirely different medium built on different technology with different capabilities and therefore requiring an entirely different regulatory approach. The grafting of television-era regulations onto the Internet would result in an artificially and needlessly crippled Internet sector in India.

The better course would be to exclude Internet and mobile platforms from the scope of the bill altogether, allowing them to be continue to be regulated by the existing Information Technology Act of 2000. Stringent content control and other ill-fitting regulations of the type proposed in the bill will stifle technological development and discourage domestic innovation, especially in sectors like Internet and mobile video. Thanks to the power of Internet technology to enable individual filtering and blocking decisions, we've urged the Indian government to pursue a course of restrained action, confident in the knowledge that that effective tools are available to flag and block inappropriate and unwanted content according to the particular standards of each Indian family and individual.

Internet technologies have democratized the production of culture, opinion, news, and educational information, giving individual users unprecedented power to create, publish, and distribute content. This could be an especially dramatic advantage for emerging economies such as India, which, as it enables ever greater numbers of Indians in every city and village to get online, will benefit from the Internet's ability to afford ordinary Indians the same power to speak and be heard as any individual anywhere in the world. For our part, Google seeks to remain a neutral platform on which users have the freedom to create, to express, and to communicate. To that end, we think it is imperative that the laws and regulations governing the Internet be written carefully and with an appreciation for the unprecedented challenges posed by this new world of democratized, user-generated content.

We're delighted that the government of India is taking the time to struggle with these difficult legal and regulatory issues as it seeks to strengthen the Internet in India -- and that it is taking advantage of Internet services like YouTube to present breathtaking videos of truly Incredible India to the world at large (Seriously, you should check them out.)

Happy 60th Birthday India!