What If the FCC Had Always Regulated the Internet?
by PubliusOver at Slate, the always interesting Jack Schafer imagines a world where government always regulated the Internet:
In January 1993, idle regulators at the FCC belatedly discover the burgeoning world of online services. Led by CompuServe, MCI Mail, AOL, GEnie, Delphi, and Prodigy, these services have been embraced by the computer-owning public. Users “log on” to communicate via “e-mail” and “chat rooms,” make online purchases and reservations, and tap information databases. Their services are “walled gardens” that don’t allow the users of one service to visit or use another. The FCC declares that because these private networks use the publically regulated telephone system, they fall under the purview of the Communications Act of 1934. The commission announces forthcoming plans to regulate the services in the “public interest, convenience, and necessity.”
The FCC ignores the standalone Internet because nobody but academics, scientists, and some government bodies go there. So do the online services, which don’t offer Internet access.
Regulating the Internet would make as much sense as regulating inter-office mail at Michigan State University,” says the FCC chairman. “The online services are the future of cyberspace.”
The online companies protest and vow to sue the FCC, but the heavily Democratic Congress moots the suits by passing new legislation giving the commission oversight of the online world.
The FCC immediately determines that the lack of interoperability among the online systems harms consumers and orders that each company submit a technical framework by January 1994 under which all online companies will unify to one shared technology in the near future. The precedent for this are the technical standards that the FCC has been setting for decades for AM and FM, and for television. The online services threaten legal action again, and again Congress passes new legislation authorizing the FCC to do as it wishes. The online companies hustle to submit a technical framework. Microsoft wants in on the game, so it persuades the FCC to extend the framework deadline to July 1995.
Meanwhile in Switzerland, Tim Berners-Lee has invented the first Internet browser—”WorldWideWeb,” he calls it. The Internet continues to creep along on campuses as a marginalized academic/scientific network used mostly for e-mail. A college student at the University of Illinois named Marc Andreessen helps write a more sophisticated graphical browser, which is released to little fanfare in 1993. When Andreessen leaves his graduate school program, he can’t get a job in his field of computer sciences and takes a position as a night manager at a Taco Bell. He spends his spare time repairing broken Macintoshes.
Read the whole thing here. The chief problem with government regulation is that it is impossible for the government–or anyone–to possess all the information necessary to make the appropriate decision.
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51 Comments
If the FCC had always regulated the internet, the US Postal Service would be the carrier of choice, and stamps would be two bucks a piece. Gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "You've Got Mail"………….
the only 'appropriate' decision the Government wants to make is to control content…
The Progressive plans are threatened- they have been delayed and might even be derailed- by the free exchange of ideas and information. Every attempt to deceive the populace has been 'outed' by the 'net. Add talk radio and the 24/7 cable news cycle and you have an environment decidedly NOT favorable to budding Orwellians.
This decision by the FCC- illegal and extra constitutional- is just the first in a series of steps. It must be reversed, and all other attempts to control must be resisted at all costs. Our very freedoms are at stake…
"The chief problem with government regulation is that it " morphs into every growing agencies; agencies that do not answer to We The People.
The FCC didn't even need a crises to begin the take over the internet.
It's obvious that this is the Socialist Obama Administration trying to shut down free communication such as this blog, which might allow America to see that we are being systematically taken over by ruthless, obsessed Marxist Dictators!
That made my day!!!
What's sad is it's probably the "best case" scenario of what "could've" happened had the internet not gone Private. In truth it would've been a LOT worse had the Gubment taken "control" early.
Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Zucker et al – would be just some corporate drones still.
They will use the Wiki-leaks crap to clamp down on the internet. We will all pay the price, but mostly conservatives. After all, if you believe in the TEA Party principles of less government, less spending more self reliance and free market, you are a domestic terrorist. What better way to control "those people" than to shut them off on the internet.
This day will come.
You can have my mouse when you pry it from my cold, dead hands. Until then, Mr. Smith and Mr. Wesson and I think you should go to hell.
The liberal media's attack strategy against conservatives and conservative values has been exposed. In fact, since the historic mid-term elections they have escalated their savage assaults in hopes of demonizing, discrediting and ultimately destroying conservative efforts to restore our nation!
This is a battle that we cannot afford to lose … Like Paul Revere who road through town alerting the public that the British were coming, today it is the Statist who are coming, and who are here.
Obama has gone from admiration and eloquence to failure and irrelevance in only two years.
''A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus." Martin Luther King, Jr.
With all the yammering from the "diverse, open-minded, tolerant" left about the dangers of Fox News, Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh, there is little doubt where this will lead.
Take away the internet, there is no Tea Party. Take away the Tea Party, Pelosi still owns the House, Reid still has big majority in the Senate, and a bunch of states still have progressive governors.
Almost as bad as FCC regulation is the heavy-handed way the FCC barged into it. The courts and Congress more or less told the FCC do not go there. But following the midterm repudiation, Obama's FCC decided it was imperative to override limitations on their authority and barge in anyway. Go figure.
I had to do a double-take a couple of times while reading Mr. Schafer's piece, as in "is this really Slate?" No need to worry, of course – just read the comments. The socialists who wrote them are as predictable as children who stick their fingers in their ears and sing-song, "La-la, la-la-la! I can't hear you!"
No doubt about that.
Of the many things that should be evenly bi-partisan, this is it. Amazing the lack of concern and outright complacency by most Americans that the FCC is after control of the internet. And a broad spectrum actually believe this to be okay.
If anyone wants a better understanding of why our government has usurped its powers from the people, watch and learn while this freedom-grab takes place. Americans had best pay real attention to this as it could possibly lead to a loss of our freedom of speech…..for good…..
I HATE the smell of communism in the morning……
Well, on the bright side, no one would have ever heard of Tila Tequila or Paris Hilton.
Meanwhile in Switzerland, Tim Berners-Lee has invented the first Internet browser—”WorldWideWeb,” he calls it.
Hmmmm. I thought Al Gore invented the internet. Silly me.
Well, if the FCC gets it way through regulation, we can kiss the Internet as we know it a fond farewell. There is not one federally controlled agency that has not screwed up any and every program it has regulated or legislated.
There's one thing they'll NEVER be able to regulate…
The Tea Party Movement
That's like asking if airplanes would have been invented if the FAA and the EPA were around back then.
Ditto with cars.
Government getting involved in areas in which it does not belong always results in chaos and destruction.
Government is almost always the problem. It blocks freedom – in fact, it despises freedom.
Obama considers our Constitution getting in his way, as do most of his Caesars and friends.
In the alternate bizzaro universe that the lefties crave, that would be stamped on the title bar of every web page.
I hope not, but that's an intent of FCC regulation IMO. Control the communication medium, control communications among the grassroots.
Some powerful members of the Democrat majority labeled the TP as violent, racist radicals didn't they? Consider what measures they may have taken had they controlled levers on a key communication medium used by the TP.
Yes, I can hear Obama, Moochelle, Holder, Valerie Jarrett, Weiner, Mayor "mosque loving" Bloomberg, Schumer, J. Napolitano, Pelosi, Reid, Gillibrand, Murray, and all of the other Govt. Radical Socialists (deliberate redundancy) sitting around a table and plotting about how they can keep We The People down:
- Block their Internet and modes of talking about what we're doing to them with our Government takeover!
- Bankrupt the US Treasury
- their ability to work by extending unemployment
- force them on to Govt dependent entitlement programs for life & adopt 40 Million Illegal Aliens
and do not let the Republicans expose Obama's violations of The Constitution! by blogging!
- don let them expose the socialist agenda, Muslim agenda, or Globalist's agenda,amd our use of Rule for Radicals etc
Bulletin for the Obama Administration: Too late!
If the FCC regulated the Internet from its inception, we would still be using tin cans and string to speak with other people. In short semaphore and smoke signals would still be in vogue.
Hmm, maybe the new congress can regulate the FCC. Problem fixed!
If theFCC regulated the internet, I'd sill be using my Commador 64.
"The chief problem with government regulation is that it is impossible for the government–or anyone–to possess all the information necessary to make the appropriate decision."
That's never stopped the government before.
Agreed, a guiding concept of the founders was that government was a necessary evil to be constrained. So the Constitution was designed as an intentional impediment to inevitable ambitions for more power. Men like Obama view the Constitution as nothing more than an annoying obstacle, so it is predictable they constantly strive to circumvent it.
Only an arrogant narcissist like Obama would view himself as wiser than the combined genius of Jefferson, Adams, Franklin, Washington and many others. The intersection of all those minds in that place at that time had to be some kind of miracle — which Obama now aims to unravel.
Centrally planned command-and-control always fails.
The FCC is an agency – like the FDA, SBA, and BATF (And yes, countless others) – that would not exist at all, ever, in a truly free society.
I had the same reaction! Slate??!! I could only get through a few comments, however. Too depressing that so many people are so blind.
well said and reasoned…
The FCC immediately determines that the lack of interoperability among the online systems harms consumers and orders that each company submit a technical framework by January 1994 under which all online companies will unify to one shared technology in the near future.
These people are complete and total friggin morons. The internet works on the basis of a shared technology. With out, no one would be able to reach the internet. It's called TCP/IP. Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol.
That's why people using Window systems, MACs, Sun Systems, IBM main frames, etc., can all use the same internet. Because they already use the same shared technology.
The postal service has been trying to get a piece of this action for years. They started with saying if email went through their government servers, they'd put the equivalent of an official postal stamp on it, which is legal evidence in a law suit.
Then they started floating trial balloons about a 2 cent tax on each email.
They'll be back. Government never leaves We The People alone.
Close, but not quite close enough for the cigar.
Government wants to control. Period.
They can try all they want. They won't get control. They may seize a huge chunk, bu the internet changes so fast, government doesn't stand a chance of keeping up.
It's time to kiss these kind of agencies good-bye. There should be NO unelected bureaucrats making these kind of decisions without oversight by the Congress and the courts.
I like the old saying, the second amendment is the constitution's reset button.
Abolish the FCC!
Actually Al Gore does deserve a little credit, not nearly as much as he claims, but some credit. He helped craft and pass the legislation that moved the internet from the military to the public sector.
Al Gore is a dick. But even a dick does deserve credit when they get something right.
And don't forget all the paper work that comes with it.
There go the forests. That will put the greenies in a tizzy.
The only thing the FCC wants is to stop conservatives.
Or the last check and balance. ;-D
Even my 80-year-old mother says it's time for a revolution. But she's thought that since Chrysler was loaned a (mere) billion back in the '80's. They did pay it back. Remeber good old Iacocca?
I like the post office, but it should have gotten the message when FedEx and others jumped on the wagon for the package and large overnight mail some years back.
My mother is no 2nd Amendment fan (I blame her European upbringing), but even she says we should at the very least grab our pitchforks and torches! LOL!
I would love to see Arizona take the recommended action in #3:
http://dailycaller.com/2010/12/27/the-top-10-viol...
Broadband would have never happened and we would all still be using 28.8 modems. After all… at some point you have enough connection speed…
"The FCC ignores the standalone Internet because nobody but academics, scientists, and some government bodies go there."
In other words, the government won't regulate an industry if the government is using it. As soon as individuals get involved, an industry becomes a target. Once private business gets involved, it's only a matter of time.
This day is here. While Obama dithered on dealing with Assange, the UN has sprung into action – http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/17/un-inter...
This is typical of Obama. He does nothing in the face of a national security threat. He lets someone else take the blame or the reigns, depending on the situation. In this case, the UN will take the reigns and Obama will bow to their decision. Somewhere in all this, it will be said that it is "for the good of the children." It's already happening in the UK: http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/218412/Blocki...
or as some have put it: "Even IF the agents of government were smarter than ANYBODY, they would still not be smarter than EVERYBODY."
Yep, that would be a lasting solution.
Here's a true anecdote regarding government innovation (lack thereof): In 1991 I worked in HR for a large municipality and wanted to advertise job openings on the internet. I went to our IT guru to "get permission" – he replied there were plans to set up a committee to investigate what the organization might do in this new technology. I asked and he agreed that it would be ok if I subscribed to a dial up service and started posting my ads. I bought a book on html and had our job listings posted within about 10 days. Seven years later the official committee concluded the city government would be well served to begin an online presence. Within three years the new web site was up and running – about ten years after our first job posting thru unofficial means.
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