@jbtaylor on tech

Nick Bilton with the NY Times has an interesting discussion of the "stolen" iPhone on the Bits blog. Bilton interviewed Mark Rasch, a former Justice Department official. Both Bilton's questions and Rasch's answers are worth a read.

My favorite exchange:

Q: Is Gizmodo wrong for publishing images of the phone?
A: The job of a journalist is to find information that companies and people don't want published.

When I started using Twitter, You Tube and other social networks as part of my job, I disclosed my affiliations for a reason -- you need to know what's motivating my point of view so you can make your own decisions about what I am saying.

That said, when I first started in social media, I wasn't sure the bosses at Sprint would approve. My approach in getting started was to keep track of all the customers I helped and all the reporters I connected with who otherwise, I never would have encountered.

Then, if one of our bosses questioned what I was up to, I would be able to demonstrate exactly why social media was important for Sprint to participate in.

But a surprising thing happened on my way to PR 2.0., my bosses at Sprint were delighted that I had embraced some new tools to communicate with reporters, customers, the public and the occasional policy maker. Ultimately, as one of my attorney friends at work remarked, social media is just another channel for communications.

Companies need to start treating social media that way. When you go to a Sprint retail store, you know who the sales people are because they are in a Sprint-branded shirt. By the same token, when you come on Posterous, Twitter, You Tube or other social media networks, shouldn't you know who is advocated on behalf of Sprint?

Stacey Higginbotham with GigaOm has an interesting "read-between-the-lines" reaction to AT&T's characterization of their network investments in a recent news release announcing AT&T's quarterly earnings.

Though Stacey focuses on AT&T's regulatory positions on network neutrality, she could just as easily focus on AT&T's position on special access reform. Ma Bell is making the very same argument for maintaining the status quo when in comes to special access. (Basically, in AT&T's view, they should be able to keep special access at jacked up prices because they've always done so.)

My reaction to AT&T: Um, no. No you shouldn't.

The special access prices AT&T and other landline companies charge competitors are essentially a hidden tax on broadband which impacts all of us: everyone who surfs the Internet, sends an email, makes a wireless call, uses an ATM machine or even makes a credit card payment at the gas pump -- all of us are impacted by these special access charges.

Fortunately, the FCC has indicated in the National Broadband Plan that they intend to address the special access issue and they've since shared a time table for action. While we're not sure what action they will take, I'm encouraged that there's progress.

The question is, will the policy makers, consumer groups and media who understand this complicated regulatory issue continue to keep the pressure on and demand that the these broken markets be fixed?

I'm cautiously optimistic.

I'm more than appalled that anyone would spend $325,000 for a cell phone. But I do hope that the buyer of said phone recycles their old phone. (April is CTIA's Month of Green. And just last week, we observed the National Cell Phone Recycling Week, you know.)

Sprint will take your old phone and recondition it or recycle it and use the proceeds from the sale to help finance an Internet safety program for kids.

Check it out.

LAST WEEK, the D.C. federal appeals court turned back the Federal Communications Commission's recent effort to regulate the Internet. The legal provision cited by the FCC, the judges concluded, does not give the agency authority over Internet service providers (ISPs) such as Comcast and AT&T.

The decision, written by a Bill Clinton appointee and joined by two Republican-named judges, is well-reasoned. It also raises a question: Should the FCC have sway over the Internet? (Disclosure: The Washington Post Co. has interests in broadcast and cable television and businesses that depend on the Internet, all of which could be affected by FCC action or inaction.)

For the past eight years, the FCC has rightly taken a light regulatory approach to the Internet, though it believed it had authority to do more. Now that the agency has lost in court, some advocates in the technology industries are urging the agency to invoke a different section of law and subject ISPs to more aggressive regulation, until now reserved for telephone companies and other "common carriers." Such a move could allow the FCC to dictate, among other things, rates that ISPs charge consumers. This level of interference would require the FCC to engage in a legal sleight of hand that would amount to a naked power grab. It is also unnecessary: There have been very few instances where ISPs have been accused of wrongdoing -- namely, unfair manipulation of online traffic -- and those rare instances have been cleared up voluntarily once consumers pressed the companies. FCC interference could damage innovation in what has been a vibrant and rapidly evolving marketplace.

Some oversight of ISPs would serve the public interest as long as it recognizes the interests of companies to run businesses in which they have invested billions of dollars. Transparency and predictability are essential to encourage established companies and start-ups to continue to invest in technologies dependent on the Internet. ISPs, for example, should be required to disclose information about how they manage their networks to ensure that these decisions are legitimate and not meant to interfere with applications that compete with the ISPs' offerings.

Congress should step in to strike the appropriate balance. Enacting laws would take some time, but the process would allow for robust debate. In the meantime, any questionable steps by ISPs will be flagged by unhappy consumers or Internet watchdog groups. If ISPs change course and begin to threaten the openness of the online world, Congress could and probably would redouble its efforts.

I'm interested to see the Washington Post's middle ground on net neutrality. No doubt the consumer groups and the ISPs who have made this issue a cornerstone of their public policy advocacy will both disagree with the Post on this.