McCain Adviser/Former eBay CEO Meg Whitman Silent On Campaign’s Opposition To Net Neutrality
McCain Adviser/Former eBay CEO Meg Whitman Silent On Campaign’s Opposition To Net Neutrality
It’s been widely reported that Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) is a self-admitted “illiterate” when it comes to computers. But some have suggested that he could still put forward sound technology policy because he surrounds himself with tech-savvy advisers, such as former Hewlett-Packard chairman and CEO Carly Fiorina and former eBay president and CEO Meg Whitman.
But it’s unclear how much he is listening to them. Yesterday, McCain finally released his technology platform. (Until this time, “technology” was not even listed in the Issues section of his campaign website.) His plan supposedly focuses on innovation, but in reality, it often repeats McCain’s previous non-innovative positions, such as his opposition to net neutrality:
When Regulation Is Warranted, John McCain Acts. John McCain does not believe in prescriptive regulation like “net-neutrality,” but rather he believes that an open marketplace with a variety of consumer choices is the best deterrent against unfair practices.
This position is misguided and opposed by major Internet innovators. As Free Press explains, net neutrality preserves a “free and open Internet” by preventing “from blocking, speeding up or slowing down Web content based on its source, ownership or destination.”
On April 5, 2006, technology industry leaders wrote to Congress and asked it to preserve net neutrality. Although these companies would be more than able to pay any fees the telecoms might charge, they recognized that it would hamper future entrepreneurship on the Internet. One of the signers to the letter? Meg Whitman, who was then heading eBay. From the letter:
Until FCC decisions made last summer, consumers’ ability to choose the content and services they want via their broadband connections was assured by regulatory safeguards. … This “innovation without permission” has fueled phenomenal economic growth, productivity gains, and global leadership for our nation’s high tech companies.
To preserve this environment, we urge the Committee to include language that directly addresses broadband network operators’ ability to manipulate what consumers will see and do online.
Whitman has stayed silent about McCain’s opposition to net neutrality, and apparently, McCain is refusing to listen to Whitman as well. In 2006, McCain sided with the telecom industry and voted against legislation sponsored by Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) that would have prevented broadband providers from creating a pay-for-play system. McCain sided with the telecom industry and voted against this bill.
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32 Responses to “McCain Adviser/Former eBay CEO Meg Whitman Silent On Campaign’s Opposition To Net Neutrality”
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Don't worry, the McCain Campaign will soon release a statement 'clarifying' the candidate's position which will sound suspiciously like a repudiation.
August 15th, 2008 at 4:35 pmMcCain sided with the telecom industry...
That's because he is fascist scum!
August 15th, 2008 at 4:42 pmWhen Regulation Is Warranted, John McCain Acts. John McCain does not believe in prescriptive regulation like “net-neutrality,” but rather he believes that an open marketplace with a variety of consumer choices is the best deterrent against unfair practices.
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Geez -- can it get any more Orwellian than that? Now, a free, open, and neutral internet is "prescriptive regulation". I suppose then that blocks and controls by the ISPs constitute an "open marketplace". Up is down. War is peace. Black is white. Nice attempt at spin, but completely transparent.
August 15th, 2008 at 4:48 pm...his opposition to net neutrality:
- - McCain probably thinks it's a trick economics question about gross income.
August 15th, 2008 at 4:53 pmI read an interesting article this morning concerning the skewing of national polls because the pollsters generally call land lines phones and disregard cell phones thereby eliminating most of the younger voters. Considering the several pertinent factors of the younger generation of techno-literates, if not plain geeks, vis-a-vis cell phones, I-phones, texting, E-mail and the necessary Internet interface any proposal to limit their access to their toys and boys (or girls as the case may be) would be political suicide for the party and/or individual that is against net neutrality.
I have been wondering why the polls show such a difference with my gut feelings on the matter and this explains a lot. The younger generation will have a significant influence on the outcome of this election, as well they should. After all, they will be paying for the bushco screwing long after my contemporaries and I are gone. Unfortunately, they may even pass some of it on to their "younger generation."
August 15th, 2008 at 4:54 pmIn case you are wondering, "younger voters" means anyone under 50.
August 15th, 2008 at 4:56 pmAugust 15th, 2008 at 5:01 pm
Lobbyists & Big Business continue to write Johnny's talking points.
August 15th, 2008 at 5:05 pmNot sure how my comment didn't make it through the series of tubes, but here's a reprise:
Beware the telecoms as they try to move the wide open internet into managed content. Like cable TV, we could face a list of available channels. Want more? Pay per view.
Don't believe me? Consider the Beaumont pilot. People get a certain volume of downloads. Do more, pay more.
Meg must know EBay is on the list of approved shopping channels. Otherwise her stock and yet to vest options could be at risk.
August 15th, 2008 at 5:09 pmDoes anyone think it might be smart to explain to young voters that McSame is so old that he doesn't even understand how to use a computer or cell phone? Hey may only know how to operate a telephone keypad. Those came out in 60's. It appears that is as far as he has learned anything.
anyone think that may make the young adults pick someone that isn't a fossil?
I mean really, is it anyone's opinion that the old guy is going to get any of the "youts" vote if they know he doesn't know anything about their world or their work at all? Nail him. This can end it for him an an entire age group and where are the brains at the party level for the demo's?
just unreal.
August 15th, 2008 at 5:17 pmHey may only know how to operate a telephone keypad.
I would stop at a dial phone as McCain's technology limit.
August 15th, 2008 at 5:30 pmThe Repugs are afraid of the internet, as it has sprung up to be a much more sophisticated device for communication of ideas then they can comprehend and it is more of a Progressive tool. SO we will see a lot of movement towards controlling it, in several ways, not just by financial discrimination.
August 15th, 2008 at 5:34 pmMeg and Carly are perfect models of RePugniScum Fascist Corporate America.
Get Rich!
Be RePugniScum!
Rob and Phuck the People!!
August 15th, 2008 at 5:43 pmTHis is the quintessential hypocrisy of the Republicans. Net Neutrality is all about maintaining a free market: anyone can get in, anyone can buy, sell, create, or show; no impediments o the guy with the better mousetrap finding his markert, or the consumer finding the best product at the best price. It's the best of all capitalist worlds: ask independentt musicians; ask specialty retailes.
But that's not what the Republicans are all about, no sir: they're about big corporations coming in and wrecking it, taking that open market away--because they can.
The telcos do it simply because they want more money, and the easiest way is to charrge more for what they already provide. But the laissez faire poodles believes that belief in the 'free market' means absolutely no interference with the Big Guys--even though it's the little guys, and tthe little guys becoming big guys--that move the economy.
I believe in the free market--but I also believe that a market has to be worked at to be kept free. That puts meat odds with the Republicans, and that's why they call me (and Barack Obama) a Marxist.
It's a load of crap. They get all starry-eyed about capitalism, but they'll take a wrecking ball to it for the sake of their corporate masters every time.
August 15th, 2008 at 5:47 pmoldtree Says: "...McSame is so old that he doesn’t even understand how to use a computer or cell phone?"
McAncient's Momma told him to answer only if the ring was two longs and a short. I know because it was my Momma calling. Our number was three shorts.
(For those of you that don't understand the complexities of handcranked phones on a party line I will be happy to demonstrate. We still have two handcranked phones connected between our house and shop. They came from Walker, Missouri, and were still in use in 1954.)
Th)
August 15th, 2008 at 5:57 pmIt's pretty amazing, that in the 1992 Election, the Presidential Candidates did NOT EVEN HAVE Websites.
And I think pbg's comments are Right on the Money.
August 15th, 2008 at 6:07 pmI'm in my mid-twenties, living in Vermont (which is a pretty good place for a progressive minded person), and I run across many MANY people who will be casting their first votes in a Presidential election this year.
In some ways this seems almost a poetic depiction of tired, old, corrupt and out-of-touch politics and politicians getting deposed by the next generation. I just hope that this can be sustained for the long term...
August 15th, 2008 at 6:23 pmI sense there is already some control to the advantage of the goppers.... numerous times while searching for an Obama story on Google, all the McCain crap pops up getting in the way..
the preamble easiest to read is in ALL CAPS displayed by Google- a very misleading version and takes away the significance the founding fathers intended.
The words in the true version of the Preamble provide for the common defense has no capital letters.
August 15th, 2008 at 6:38 pmFolks please go easy - there's a difference between age and intelligence. It seems McCain has the former but is lacking in the latter. I'm a senior - had my own computers since the early 80's and worked with them extensively during my working career. Today I have several websites and sell on online auction houses. So...its not age that's holding McCain back. ;-) ...oh...and I'm also a life-long democrat....GO OBama!
August 15th, 2008 at 6:39 pmJohn McCain’s understanding of the economy.
John McCain says eBay is the answer for poverty and recession. During his so-called Forgotten Places tour, John McCain offered the people of the economically devastated regions in Martin County, Kentucky and Youngstown, Ohio a path out of financial desperation: eBay. Today, for example, McCain said, 1.3 million people in the world make a living off eBay, most of those are in the United State of America. If that sounds like something McCain’s national campaign co-chair and former eBay CEO Meg Whitman might say, it’s because she did. In March, she told Lesley Stahl on 60 Minutes, We have about - around the world, about 1.3 million people make most, if not all, of their living selling on eBay. I try to make a little bit of extra money selling on Ebay. Let me tell you when people are having a difficult time filling up their gas tank. Paying their mortgage and putting food on the table they are not buying on eBay. Also we eBay sellers do not have health insurance. Please ask Meg Whitman why she left Ebay when the bottom fell out?
August 15th, 2008 at 7:37 pmWhen Regulation Is Warranted, John McCain Acts. John McCain does not believe in prescriptive regulation like “net-neutrality,” but rather he believes that an open marketplace with a variety of consumer choices is the best deterrent against unfair practices.
I love how McCain refers to "consumer choices" as if it's a good thing for consumers. Kind of like how California is a "right to work" state meaning you can be fired for virtually any reason.
http://progressiveworldreview.com
August 15th, 2008 at 10:28 pmYeah, like the market would have protected our financial and medical privacy. The market is absolutely the best defender of privacy.
August 15th, 2008 at 11:25 pmPatricia013 Says:
I couldn't agree more with your post Patricia. I am 57 and started with a 386 in the 80's. We saw the future and it was computers.
Why do Americans think that we should go backwards while the rest of the world provides free untethered internet(most civilized nations) and encourage it's use.
These people would take us back to the telegraph so they could control every thing that we do.
They are afraid to walk forward on two perfectly good legs.....that what a conservative is according to FDR.
August 16th, 2008 at 11:22 am"When Regulation Is Warranted, John McCain Acts. John McCain does not believe in prescriptive regulation like “net-neutrality,” but rather he believes that an open marketplace with a variety of consumer choices is the best deterrent against unfair practices.
August 17th, 2008 at 1:30 amConsumer choices???? So WHY is Comcast my ONLY HS Cable choice? Are they really looking out for my best interest and why am I getting a max 3.3MB when Japan has competitive carriers offering 63????(and age has nothing to do with technology, I started programing in d on an 8088 when 10M was a HUGE hard drive . . . and I'm only sixty)
This is another example that the "old world jounalism of Murrow, Cronkite and Rather is dead and buried. In the case of the Time Magazine reporter Ms Tumulty, she seems to think the finding out the who, what, where, when and how have been replaced with a steno pad, which she records what ABC said in rebuttle to the complaint of Congressman Kucinich. There is a great disconnect with what happened and the points made by ABC. She asks little of no questions to ABC. She takes what is handed to her and repeats it vebatim and then calls that reporting. I call is stenography. Lida Sohbet sohbet sesli chat Gelinlik Modelleri
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February 2nd, 2009 at 4:23 amI want suits in Colorado, New Jersey, and any other state where illegal suppression campaigns are being conducted. And some real looks at the polling methodology would also be eye opening.
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