Supreme Court and net neutrality

Interesting Marvin Amorri post (long and detailed with excellent links) on why Sotomayor should answer Al Franken's questions with more attention on what role the First Amendment plays in net neutrality regulation/legislation. I watched the hearings, and she played a very straight bat - either she doesn't have a clue or just was briefed not to say anything interesting at all.

British Telecom and dePHORMative social responsibility

Back in my RAND days, I wrote the following in a report for BT's corporate social responsibility unit:

"Private parties seem relatively insensitive to the consequences of, for example, privacy breaches and phishing. This lack of response and recognition by those closest to the risks can undermine such ‘public goods’ as the rule of law to international economic competitiveness. Private parties are not taking the actions necessary to minimise the risks at 'ground level' and do not see the risks as justifying the civil liberties consequences of legal action. This in turn can undermine trust in the online economy and thus harm competitiveness."

Recent revelations about Livingston and Galvin attitudes to PHORM, and contempt for customer privacy - back in 2007, exactly as we were writing these words, reveal just how useless CSR reports appear to be....

On the brighter side, the NoDPI campaign seems to illustrate "The vulnerabilities and risks associated with distributed data could inhibit economic growth and participation, but could equally trigger a multi-stakeholder response" i.e. consumer revulsion!

Democracy will not be televised or even blawged?

Searching for information on the APCOMMS inqwuiry, I realize [a] All-party groups cannot be found via the parliament.uk website, [2] the APCOMMS website is rarely updated, [3] there doesn't seem to be a live blog let alone an audio or video stream. Help!

Behavioural advertising: clarity from Ed Felten

I can't think of a clearer primer on behavioural advertising than Ed's testimony to Congress yesterday - see also his post mortem.

Canadian net neutrality hearings: Michael Geist coverage

Michael offers a great public service with his blogging of the CRTC hearings - as usual, great analysis and excellent summary. Its set to go on all week. Then it'll be the UK's turn with the APCOMMS inquiry.

News from home while abroad - TalkTalk follows BT away from Phorm - are they now cooked in the UK?

Canadian inquiry told DPI necessary, by DPI providers

Sandvine (yes, the Comcast FCC DPI company), and Juniper (yes, Chinese government's little helpers) have explained that net neutrality doesn't exist, that DPI is needed, and that flashmobs like those after Michael Jackson's death (how topical!) need controlling. This is in Ottawa, not Iran.

The hearing continues....on Twitter and elsewhere (probably not on your mobile)

PHORM divorced by BT

It looks like the behavioural advertising software provider is running out of partners and money in the UK. DPI remains a spooks' tool not a money-maker for ISPs.