With the International pressure to be impartial but omnipresent, Google is fighting to find a welcoming host in the far east. That home will most likely remain in Japan, where Google will have the opportunity to re-penetrate the market.

Eastern consumers welcome Google's battle and have voiced support at the chance break away from the censorship of the Tyrannical government. In a country where the people's voice is often suppressed, a company fighting for Mid-Western ideals and complete freedom of speech is a welcome change of pace.

The Chinese are making it as difficult as possible to gain any progress and especially to maintain legal standing. With most leaders still of a strongly communist mindset, it is yet to be seen whether Google will really think this is all "worth the fight."

In their publication “Why Consumers Demand Internet Freed: Fact vs. Fiction,” the authors’ research demonstrates that:
"Without Network Neutrality, the network operator has total control. Different fees can be charged based on the type of service (voice, video or data); different fees can be charged based on the type of provider (individual, small business or big business); different fees can be charged based on the affiliation of the provider with the network operator; different fees can be charged to guarantee delivery at a particular rate of speed or quality; different fees can be charged based on political affiliation or the day of the week. In fact, without neutrality rules, the network owners can charge whatever they want to whomever they want for any reason they choose."

Comcast has the challenge of being the first major provider to step up and place limitations over their private system. The great challenge presented by an ISP interfering with subscriber traffic though, is defining who really owns data at what point.

Comcast is a public company, which means that they are under a legal obligation to make a profit and continually advance corporate strategy. At what point though, does obligation to make profit cross the consumer right to privacy and the freedom?

William Smith, the Chief Technology Officer of Bell South has noted: “…an Internet service provider such as his firm should be able, for example, to charge Yahoo Inc. for the opportunity to have its search site load faster than that of Google Inc.” Meanwhile, Edward Whitacre, AT&T CEO stated “Now what they would like to do is use my pipes free, but I ain’t going to let them do that because we have spent this capital and we have to have a return on it… The Internet can’t be free… because we… have made an investment and for a Google or Yahoo! or Vonage or anybody to expect to use these pipes [for] free is nuts!”

The expressions of these two telecom leaders makes it clear that there's not much interest in striking balance between consumer rights and Provider authority. Instead, the battle from Providers is focused on squashing consumer complaints that they don't believe have standing in the first place.

While providers like Comcast and AT&T have fought past legal battles regarding their domination of markets, the companies have typically known more success than failure. AT&T’s divestiture in the 1990’s, the company has remained agile and lucrative as a service provider. A key reason for this continued success has been the fact that service providers did just that – provide access services. They did not tamper. They did not inhibit. They did not meddle in how end-users operated over the lines that they supplied. It would be wise of Bewkes and Roberts to take note of what history has shown should be done (or explicitly should not be done) when delivering serviices.

Unfortunately, the success of these little market leeches isn’t being applauded by traditional cable providers. Even AT&T has been carefully watching the TV market, though they haven’t taken steps towards collusion; which is what the new partnership between Time Warner and Comcast is starting to look like. How are they reaching banding together to re-attract users? By launching a new product called “TV-Anywhere.”

TV-anywhere has a strong market attraction because it’s founded on a simple premise. If you’re already pay for traditional cable services in your home, you will have access to those same subscription services through a web portal. All of the sudden, cable companies have a big advantage over internet-only services because they own both the infrastructure that pipes television to your traditional set and they have an online presence that can easily outweigh Hulu or Netflix.

While there is much that could be said on the pending full-market launch of TV-anywhere, we will leave it to other reporting services to cover those details. Let us be concerned with what the digital policy world might be seeing if Comcast and Time Warner use their already established service-delivering prowess to squash out internet-only providers. Particular attention will be on whether Comcast and Time Warner attempt to unequally promote their service over another. The tools are readily available to cable companies, should they choose to inhibit quality of service from a competitive product that they deem intrusive. Would such a thing be unheard of? The market has already seen evidence that Comcast and Verizon both infringe on the rights of users to download certain files. We have also seen forced bandwidth limitations when the carrier deems it “in the best interests of all users on a shared system.”

While providers like Comcast and AT&T have fought past legal battles regarding their domination of markets, the companies have typically known more success than failure. Even after AT&T’s divestiture in the 1990’s, the company has remained agile and lucrative as a service provider. A key reason for this continued success has been the fact that service providers did just that – provide access services. They did not tamper. They did not inhibit. They did not meddle in how end-users operated over the lines that they supplied. It would be wise of Bewkes and Roberts to take note of what history has shown should be done (or explicitly should not be done) when delivering services.

Record companies may have found a way to boost their profits $2-7 billion without changing their business model, signing a single new artist or even suing download pirates.
The latest proposal by senators John Conyers (MI) and Patrick Leahy (VT) calls for a radio performance tax on the music industry. This means that all of the popular radio stations and syndicates that hold their popularity because of their awesome playlists will soon be the biggest targets in the industry. The tax essentially scales based on the frequency of play, notoriety of song and artist and other factors. In the end, stations that play the best music repeatedly (I hope you’re listening Ryan Seacrest and every Top 40 station in the country) will be charged a tax for each song they play; the more popular the songs, the higher the tax.

Blanche Lincoln (D-Arkansas) and John Barrasso (R-Wyoming), Gene Green (D-Texas) and Michael Conaway (R-Texas) are among the few in Congress actively opposing this tax. When you consider that they represent populations in long-stretching, non-financially booming, rural regions. These are the stations that only exist because of the “free play for free promotion” model. If a tax is forced on these stations, it won’t be long before they’re forced to shut down – and communities will lose the benefit of a business that worked just fine for over 80 years.
Struggling to keep up with the digital age of music, the recording industry is trying to figure out where the big players are and how they can get money from them. While the performance tax is most heatedly being battled on public airwaves, online music providers are also watching closely. Some online companies have only visual ad revenue at pennies per ad – barely enough to cover operating costs. If they encounter a tax equal to airwave broadcasters, it will surely drive many to bankruptcy.

Finally, this issue is a political hot button and clearly an international policy issue because 3 of the four major record labels are foreign-owned operations. It’s interesting that U.S. congressional leaders are actively supporting a tax that will favorably affect the flow of capital out of domestic circulation and towards the bottom line of some “non-U.S. –Tax-paying” companies. While international partners do pay various taxes for operating inside of United States territory, it is difficult for American tax payers and industry analysts alike to support a tax that doesn’t have a clearly evident benefit to American society.

http://www.wclv.com/page.php?pageID=763

http://www.noperformancetax.org/Radio%20at%20Risk

http://www.noperformancetax.org/

http://www.tipsity.com/taxes/2010/radio-performance-tax-affect-radio-stations-2010-support-bill

We want what our neighbor’s have. We want that cool toy we saw the guy down the street playing with. We want the coolest, newest thing… and we want it now.

I previous mentioned that Google is making a move to become an Internet Service Provider. While this is fantastic news for anyone who loves Google or loves the potential of ridiculous bandwidth, only a select test market will get access to “Google-speed” service. We’ll call them “the Chosen Ones.”

While the Chosen Ones, all 50,000-500,000 of them enjoy their high-speed internet access, most of us will be forced to “settle” for the traditional deliveries through ATT, Qwest, Embark, Verizon, Comcast or another “big name” provider.

I wonder, though:

“Will Google’s efforts to provide serviced to a limited number of people (50k-500k), create legal issues either due to breach of monopoly laws or because people not in the test market feel left out?”
The Finnish government showed the world in October, 2009 that we now live in a society where access to digital information is a right (http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10374831-2.html). No more is it a question of whether or not you fit the demographic that will return profits for a provider. Instead, of asking “how much will it cost for me to have internet access,” the people of Finland now simply ask “how much does it cost to get faster than this?” I predict that it won’t be much longer before the people of other nations (particularly the U.S.) start quoting Finland and arguing that there should be an international policy entitling the world to digital information.

If such a policy existed, it is foreseeable that soon the legal question is not about a “right to digital information,” but a “right to quick access to digital information.” While Google makes strides to break speed barriers into residential homes, they must use caution with their actions. Giving a test market high-speeds that they’ll never be willing to give up may set precedent for the industry that becomes very costly to enforce.

href= "http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/google_becomes_an_isp_plans_to_deliver_1_gigabit_c.php"

What else can record labels do to counter decreasing profits in the modern age? It is yet to be seen what action will be taken to regain lost revenue, but there is talk to taxing Internet traffic as a means to recoup profits.

“Will this expansion effort from an application services provider step on the toes of native ISP providers like AT&T and Comcast?

The motive of this author is not to explore all repercussions that will come from Google’s expansion. Nor is it to anticipate all feedback that will be received from the decision. Instead, I ask the reader to consider what is at risk when large corporation make big, new moves – even when they’re really exciting. AT&T has just begun regaining giant market shares in the past decade, demonstrating that the divestiture decision can’t keep them down. But it took quite some time to wait around for their failed competitors to die out from the market. Unite States department of Justice official Robert Crandall has done extensive examination on whether it was wiser for a single entity to control access services, or whether completion was good. Just when it was looking like the market said “we only want one or two providers in the field,” Google has boasts in. The advantage that Google has, that many others lacked: money and ajoined interests.
Google has a definite interest in ensuring the as many people as possible can access the Internet. After all, if they’re a company that operates “in the cloud” (http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/what-is-cloud-computing-and-how-do-i-use-it-1896368.html) and people can’t reach the cloud, what good are their products? The same question applies to access speeds: “if services are optimized for high speed and people can’t take full advantage of them, where is the real value?” By providing competitive market prices for ultra-high speed access, it leaves me wondering if Google is 100% interested in “seeing what people can do.” Or rather “people seeing what Google can do.”

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/think-big-with-gig-our-experimental.html

http://news.google.com/news?rlz=1C1GGLS_enUS364US364&sourceid=chrome&q=google+isp&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hl=en&ei=xy10S67wMImDngeRo_3MCQ&sa=X&oi=news_group&ct=title&resnum=1&ved=0CA4QsQQwAA

http://www.corp.att.com/history/history3.html

http://www.justice.gov/atr/public/hearings/single_firm/docs/222440.htm

Put simply, Web 2.0 is the characteristic of a web-page, available to the mass population, which can be manipulated by members of that entire population. Forums and encyclopedias of communal knowledge are two embodiments of this design technique. The seamless ability for users to receive information from an Internet source with the ability to directly provide feedback to that source – that is Web 2.0 technology.

Presentations by the students in Ball State University’s ICS 602 – Human Communications – class expand on the concept and credibility of Web 2.0 propaganda. These reflections highlight that users of Web 2.0 aggregated data should always remain skeptical and search for verification of ideas – as any scientist would.
Answering the question “how do we know when web design has fully adopted Web 2.0,” one’s first observation of whether a site allows user authoring may provide the answer. One must be certain to note, however, that if and when all web sources move to this style; the burden to prove credibility migrates largely to the user. Whereas many expert sources today establish credibility in their own web pages, many Web 2.0 contributors speak solely from experience and opinion – not taking additional time to cite their knowledge. Any undocumented Web 2.0 assertion should be extensively verified before it is accepted as doctrine.

With many of today’s architectures, scholars may seek information from expert sources or accountable reporting agencies. If all information is generated by users “in the wild,” it will be much more difficult to trust that facts have been thoroughly tested and credibility guaranteed.

Tired of being ignored, the common people of the working class realized that they had the ability to drive the values of their society. By diverting money and spending to creativity and works that they believed were valuable (such as education), common people began controlling the priorities of their own culture.

As a modern people, we can look to the drivers of the European Renaissance to understand the control that we possess in our own lives. Regardless of how great a task might be, renaissance (or change) in society is not unachievable. Learning from those who lived during the European Renaissance, modern people can understand how they might use their influence and resources to rally like-minded people and always strive to better their own circumstances.

Scientists work diligently towards ensuring that their research is associated with like minded, already well respected, members of their own field. One notable characteristic of a scientist is acknowledged as “the types of questions that they ask and the way that they are phrased” (http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/gen01/gen01233.htm). Academic institutions have professed for many years that scientific credibility cannot be understated in one’s own career.

For these reasons, it is paramount that developing scientists document and brand any original knowledge, which they uncover. It is equally important that their predecessors be acknowledged for any thought or inspiring words that they provide to the growing scientist. Shared credibility not both encourages partnerships in the community and demonstrates the worth of all individuals. If work is plagiarized during any research endeavor, a previous scientist’s work is immediately disrespected simply because his dedication to the pursuit of knowledge is in vein.