According to Aliya Sternstein at NextGov there's a proposal in the draft federal broadband plan to create a .gov video archive called video.gov. It'll be similar to the government's data.gov initiative. Wonder when they'll create a documents.gov? Oh yeah, they already have that! It's called the FDLP and it's been around for almost 200 years!!

A proposal in the draft of the government's imminent broadband plan would create a YouTube-like online archive called Video.gov to preserve agencies' Web content and possibly information provided by the media, an official with the Federal Communications Commission said on Monday.

The planned national digital archives for the 21st century would expand upon the government's Data.gov Web site, a warehouse of downloadable federal statistics, and be maintained by the National Archives and Records Administration, the Library of Congress and other agencies, said Eugene Huang, FCC's director of government performance and civic engagement for the national broadband plan.

[Thanks for the tweet Michael Riedyk at DotGov]

"The Federal Communications Commission released its National Broadband Plan Consumer Survey, Broadband Adoption and Use in America, which found that affordability and lack of digital skills are the main reasons why 93 million Americans -- one-third of the country -- are not connected to high-speed Internet at home." (from the February 23, 2010 press release 93 MILLION AMERICANS DISCONNECTED FROM BROADBAND OPPORTUNITIES):

• Broadband Adoption and Use in America, OBI Working Paper Series no. 1, By John B. Horrigan, Federal Communications Commission, 2010. (52 pages. PDF)

  The FCC conducted a survey of 5,005 Americans in October and November 2009 in an effort to understand the state of broadband adoption and use, as well as barriers facing those who do not have broadband at home....

  The main dividing lines for access are along socioeconomic dimensions such as income and education....

  There are three primary reasons why the 35 percent of non-adopting americans do not have broadband: cost, lack of digital literacy and broadband is not sufficiently relevant for them to purchase it...

See also: FCC Survey Shows Need to Teach Broadband Basics, By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, New York Times (February 23, 2010).

Nowadays you will find that there is hardly a day that goes by in which google is not in the media spotlight. Topics having to do with Google are limitless.

In today's New York times, Op-Ed Contributor Adam Raff, a co-founder of Foundem, an Internet technology firm, is asking people to demand that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) work toward "search neutrality." The premise of his argument is that in order to ensure equal access to the infrastructure of the Internet, FCC needs to impose regulations not only on Internet service providers but also on search engine companies. Raff points out:

Today, search engines like Google, Yahoo and Microsoft’s new Bing have become the Internet’s gatekeepers, and the crucial role they play in directing users to Web sites means they are now as essential a component of its infrastructure as the physical network itself.

I think Raff is making an important argument here: search engines are a key part of the Internet's infrastructure. When we consider search engines as infrastructure it puts the Internet into a public utility dimension like electricity, telephone etc. If that's the case, then the public has a right to input into how search engines should work. I don't think there is any neutral search engine (sponsored links anyone?!) but it's worthwhile to think about search engine as public infrastructure.

Currently Google controls over 70% of the search market and over 95% of Google's revenue comes from ad revenue. So it's clear that search results are not all about relevancy but are related to how Google can generate more profit through the placement of ads. If search engines were part of the public Internet infrastructure, then what would it look like? Can we find a model somewhere? How about libraries as a model?

Yochai Benkler (long-time commons defender and writer of "Wealth of Networks") and the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard have produced for the FCC a report on broadband around the world. The report (PDF) is now open for public comment (FCC directions for public comment are here). Comments look to be due by November 16, 2009.

In an interview on the Berkman site, Benkler stated:

I think there are two pieces of news that will be most salient for people as they look at this report. The first is a response to the question: 'how are we [the U.S.] doing?', and the answer is that we're overall middle-of-the-pack, no better. The second responds to the question: 'What policies and practices worked for countries that have done well?', and the answer to that is: there is good evidence to support the proposition that a family of policies called 'open access,' that encourage competition, played an important role.

Here's the FCC's public notice:

On July 14, the Commission announced in a press release that Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society would conduct an expert review of existing literature and studies about broadband deployment and usage throughout the world to inform the Commission’s development of a National Broadband Plan.

A draft of the study has now been completed. The Commission is seeking public comment on the study, and has posted the draft for public review at the following Internet address:

http://www.fcc.gov/stage/pdf/Berkman_Center_Broadband_Study_13Oct09.pdf.

Specifically, the Commission seeks comment on the following:

1. Does the study accomplish its intended purposes?
2. Does the study provide a complete and objective survey of the subject matter?
3. How accurately and comprehensively does the study summarize the broadband experiences of other countries?
4. How much weight should the Commission give to this study as it develops a National Broadband Plan?
5. Are additional studies needed along the lines of the Berkman study?
6. Please provide any other comments on the Berkman study that you deem relevant.

Comments look to be due by November 16, 2009.

[Thanks BoingBoing!]

The Federal Communications Commission has a new blog: blog.openinternet.gov. The blog is intended to have "expert commentary from FCC staff on how best to preserve the Internet’s openness and questions that arise during this debate." And, in the first post on the site, FCC chairman Julius Genachowski says, "Our staff hopes to use this forum not only to share ideas but also to receive them. We encourage all visitors to weigh in with their own thoughts and engage in an open dialogue."

Want a flavor of the blog? Try this bit about network neutrality from a post by the Jon Peha, the FCC's Chief Technologist:

Back in the 1980s, I spent much of my time thinking about an obscure topic – how to manage the flow of packets around the Internet, particularly if anyone were ever crazy enough to try telephone-like or TV-like services over what was obviously just a computer network. Like most grad students, I thought my dissertation topic was important to everyone. Sometimes after parties, my girlfriend at that time would remind me that a handful of engineers might care about such things, but normal humans, including lawyers like her, never would. But two decades later, it was mostly lawyers who were grappling with critical decisions on this topic, while most engineers paid little attention.

The blog will also offer timely information on the FCC’s latest activities to preserve an open Internet.

We've been tracking net neutrality for a while but it seems to have gone below the radar. That is, until today when Julius Genachowski, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), gave a speech at the Brookings Institution in Washington D.C. and presented a series of open-access principles, emphasizing, among other things, net neutrality. And groups like Save the Internet cheered!

Genachowski added 2 principles to the FCC's original 4 principles of network freedom mapped out by Michael Powell in 2005 (see other 4 below):

• The fifth principle is one of non-discrimination -- stating that broadband providers cannot discriminate against particular Internet content or applications.
• The sixth principle is a transparency principle -- stating that providers of broadband Internet access must be transparent about their network management practices.

(the other 4 principles are: (1) consumers are entitled to access the lawful Internet content of their choice; (2) consumers are entitled to run applications and services of their choice, subject to the needs of law enforcement; (3) consumers are entitled to connect their choice of legal devices that do not harm the network; and (4) consumers are entitled to competition among network providers, application and service providers, and content providers. See TechlawJournal for background)

On a side note, the speech was posted to the FCC's beta site called OpenInternet.gov built to "facilitate input and participation in the commission proceedings as this discussion evolves."

[Thanks to Steve Benen at the Washington Monthly!]

The Federal Communications Commission has a new blog, blogband ("The official blog of the national broadband plan"), that is part of the FCC's broadband.gov web site.

Blogband is part of the FCC’s commitment to an open and participatory process. Blogband will keep people up-to-date about the work the FCC is doing and the progress we’re making. But we want it to be a two-way conversation. The feedback, ideas, and discussions generated on this blog will be critical in developing the best possible National Broadband Plan.

As this blog demonstrates, the Internet is changing and expanding the way Americans communicate, providing them with unparalleled access to information.

Make a note: 2009 and the FCC says that their one and only blog demonstrates how the Internet is changing the way we communicate. Okay. I don't want to be petty, and I'm glad they have this blog, but did they really think that "Blog Band" was a good name? And, does the FCC logo, when you look at it out of the corner of your eye, look like a frog? Maybe I've been reading too much Pynchon and am just feeling snarky today. Sorry.

Congratulations to the FCC for entering the twentieth (oops, I mean 21st!) century!

• FCC (finally) joins blogosphere, By Leslie Cauley, USA Today (August 18, 2009)

p.s. They have a Twitter feed as well! fccdotgov.

p.p.s. Supreme Court! Are you listening!?

On April 17, 2008, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) held a public en banc hearing on broadband network management practices. Hosted by Stanford Law School’s Center for Internet and Society, the event was attended by five FCC Commissioners who heard from legal scholars, high-tech entrepreneurs, Web start-ups and an auditorium full of interested community members about whether and how the FCC should provide more oversight of phone and cable companies in order to ensure "net neutrality."

Stanford Law School Archivist Sarah Wilson has compiled a document with testimony, statements, press releases and news coverage related to the hearing. Her work, The FCC Hearing at Stanford, is available as part of the Robert Crown Law Library Legal Research Paper Series.

-Kate Wilko

Here is a welcome proposal that would make broadcasters more accountable by making them put online their "public-inspection" files, which are now usually in paper and available for inspection by the public during limited hours at the studio. The last time this was proposed by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the broadcasting industry opposed the measure as too burdensome.

• Martin to Stations: Put Public Records Online, By John Eggerton Broadcasting & Cable, 4/16/2007.

FCC Chairman Kevin Martin wants broadcasters to put their public files online, including public-affairs-programming logs, requests for political-ad time and the prices charged, according to FCC sources.

Some in the TV industry say the move could provide more ammunition for activist groups looking to challenge TV licenses and could add up to more expense and time for stations to convert drawers of papers to a searchable Web database.

According to the Associated Press (September 14, 2006), "the Federal Communications Commission ordered its staff to destroy all copies of a draft study that suggested greater concentration of media ownership would hurt local TV news coverage, a former lawyer at the agency says."

This is despicable. The FCC under Michael Powell and now Kevin Martin has been trying to change the rules for media ownership for several years so that large media corporations could have monopolistic control over local TV/newspaper/radio markets. But, oops!, their own study, paid for at taxpayer expense, found that localism is beneficial to the public and that media concentration has detrimental effects on public access to news and information. Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif. is on the case and has said she will call for an investigation if answers are not forthcoming.

Read on at Fair and Crooks and liars. The document is attached as well. See this FGI post for more on suppressed FCC documents.