Republican FCC Commissioners Ajit Pai and Mike O’Rielly spoke about their opposition to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rules on net neutrality. The FCC voted 3-2 the previous day to regulate the Internet as a public utility.

On February 13 an administrative law judge (ALJ) at the California Public Utility Commission (CPUC) issued a proposed decision regarding the Comcast/Time Warner Cable (TWC) merger. The proposed decision recommends that the CPUC approve the merger with conditions.

It’s laudable that the ALJ acknowledges at least some of the competitive merits of the proposed deal. But the set of conditions that the proposed decision would impose on the combined company in order to complete the merger represents a remarkable set of unauthorized regulations that are both inappropriate for the deal and at odds with California’s legislated approach to regulation of the Internet.

According to the proposed decision, every condition it imposes is aimed at mitigating a presumed harm arising from the merger:

The Applicants must meet the conditions adopted herein in order to provide reasonable assurance that the proposed transaction will be in the public interest in accordance with Pub. Util. Code § 854(a) and (c).… We only adopt conditions which mitigate an effect of the merger in order to satisfy the public interest requirements of § 854.

By any reasonable interpretation, this would mean that the CPUC can adopt only those conditions that address specific public interest concerns arising from the deal itself. But most of the conditions in the proposed decision fail this basic test and seem designed to address broader social policy issues that have nothing to do with the alleged competitive effects of the deal.

Instead, without undertaking an analysis of the merger’s competitive effects, the proposed decision effectively accepts that the merger serves the public interest, while also simply accepting the assertions of the merger’s opponents that it doesn’t. In the name of squaring that circle, the proposed decision seeks to permit the merger to proceed, but then seeks to force the post-merger company to conform to the merger’s critics’ rather arbitrary view of their preferred market structure for the provision of cable broadband services in California.

For something — say, a merger — to be in the public interest, it need not further every conceivable public interest goal. This is a perversion of the standard, and it turns “public interest” into an unconstrained license to impose a regulatory wish-list on particular actors, outside of the scope of usual regulatory processes.

While a few people may have no problem with the proposed decision’s expansive vision of Internet access regulation, California governor Jerry Brown and the overwhelming majority of the California state legislature cannot be counted among the supporters of this approach.

In 2012 the state legislature passed by an overwhelming margin — and Governor Brown signed — SB 1161 (codified as Section 710 of the California Public Utilities Code), which expressly prohibits the CPUC from regulating broadband:

The commission shall not exercise regulatory jurisdiction or control over Voice over Internet Protocol and Internet Protocol enabled services except as required or expressly delegated by federal law or expressly directed to do so by statute or as set forth in [certain enumerated exceptions].”

The message is clear: The CPUC should not try to bypass clear state law and all institutional safeguards by misusing the merger clearance process.

While bipartisan majorities in the state house, supported by a Democratic governor, have stopped the CPUC from imposing new regulations on Internet and VoIP services through SB 1161, the proposed decision seeks to impose regulations through merger conditions that go far beyond anything permitted by this state law.

For instance, the proposed decision seeks to impose arbitrary retail price controls on broadband access:

Comcast shall offer to all customers of the merged companies, for a period of five years following the effective date of the parent company merger, the opportunity to purchase stand-alone broadband Internet service at a price not to exceed the price charged by Time Warner for providing that service to its customers, and at speeds, prices, and terms, at least comparable to that offered by Time Warner prior to the merger’s closing.

And the proposed decision seeks to mandate market structure in other insidious ways, as well, mandating specific broadband speeds, requiring a break-neck geographic expansion of Comcast’s service area, and dictating installation and service times, among other things — all without regard to the actual plausibility (or cost) of implementing such requirements.

But the problem is even more acute. Not only does the proposed decision seek to regulate Internet access issues irrelevant to the merger, it also proposes to impose conditions that would actually undermine competition.

The proposed decision would impose the following conditions on Comcast’s business VoIP and business Internet services:

Comcast shall offer Time Warner’s Business Calling Plan with Stand Alone Internet Access to interested CLECs throughout the combined service territories of the merging companies for a period of five years from the effective date of the parent company merger at existing prices, terms and conditions.

Comcast shall offer Time Warner’s Carrier Ethernet Last Mile Access product to interested CLECs throughout the combined service territories of the merging companies for a period of five years from the effective date of the parent company at the same prices, terms and conditions as offered by Time Warner prior to the merger.

But the proposed decision fails to recognize that Comcast is an also-ran in the business service market. Last year it served a small fraction of the business customers served by AT&T and Verizon, who have long dominated the business services market:

According to a Sept. 2011 ComScore survey, AT&T and Verizon had the largest market shares of all business services ISPs. AT&T held 20% of market share and Verizon held 12%. Comcast ranked 6^th, with 5% of market share.

The proposed conditions would hamstring the upstart challenger Comcast by removing both product and pricing flexibility for five years – an eternity in rapidly evolving technology markets. That’s a sure-fire way to minimize competition, not promote it.

The proposed decision reiterates several times its concern that the combined Comcast/Time Warner Cable will serve more than 80% of California households, and “reduce[] the possibilities for content providers to reach the California broadband market.” The alleged concern is that the combined company could exercise anticompetitive market power — imposing artificially high fees for carrying content or degrading service of unaffiliated content and services.

The problem is Comcast and TWC don’t compete anywhere in California today, and they face competition from other providers everywhere they operate. As the decision matter-of-factly states:

Comcast and Time Warner do not compete with one another… [and] Comcast and Time Warner compete with other providers of Internet access services in their respective service territories.

As a result, the merger will actually have no effect on the number of competitive choices in the state; the increase in the statewide market share as a result of the deal is irrelevant. And so these purported competition concerns can’t be the basis for any conditions, let alone the sweeping ones set out in the proposed decision.

The stated concern about content providers finding it difficult to reach Californians is a red herring: the post-merger Comcast geographic footprint will be exactly the same as the combined, pre-merger Comcast/TWC/Charter footprint. Content providers will be able to access just as many Californians (and with greater speeds) as before the merger.

True, content providers that just want to reach some number of random Californians may have to reach more of them through Comcast than they would have before the merger. But what content provider just wants to reach some number of Californians in the first place? Moreover, this fundamentally misstates the way the Internet works: it is users who reach the content they prefer; not the other way around. And, once again, for literally every consumer in the state, the number of available options for doing so won’t change one iota following the merger.

Nothing shows more clearly how the proposed decision has strayed from responding to merger concerns to addressing broader social policy issues than the conditions aimed at expanding low-price broadband offerings for underserved households. Among other things, the proposed conditions dramatically increase the size and scope of Comcast’s Internet Essentials program, converting this laudable effort from a targeted program (that uses a host of tools to connect families where a child is eligible for the National School Lunch Program to the Internet) into one that must serve all low-income adults.

Putting aside the damage this would do to the core Internet Essentials’ mission of connecting school age children by diverting resources from the program’s central purpose, it is manifestly outside the scope of the CPUC’s review. Nothing in the deal affects the number of adults (or children, for that matter) in California without broadband.

It’s possible, of course, that Comcast might implement something like an expanded Internet Essentials program without any prodding; after all, companies implement (and expand) such programs all the time. But why on earth should regulators be able to define such an obligation arbitrarily, and to impose it on whatever ISP happens to be asking for a license transfer? That arbitrariness creates precisely the sort of business uncertainty that SB 1161 was meant to prevent.

The same thing applies to the proposed decision’s requirement regarding school and library broadband connectivity:

Comcast shall connect and/or upgrade Internet infrastructure for K-12 schools and public libraries in unserved and underserved areas in Comcast’s combined California service territory so that it is providing high speed Internet to at least the same proportion of K-12 schools and public libraries in such unserved and underserved areas as it provides to the households in its service territory.

No doubt improving school and library infrastructure is a noble goal — and there’s even a large federal subsidy program (E-Rate) devoted to it. But insisting that Comcast do so — and do so to an extent unsupported by the underlying federal subsidy program already connecting such institutions, and in contravention of existing provider contracts with schools — as a condition of the merger is simple extortion.

The CPUC is treating the proposed merger like a free-for-all, imposing in the name of the “public interest” a set of conditions that it would never be permitted to impose absent the gun-to-the-head of merger approval. Moreover, it seeks to remake California’s broadband access landscape in a fashion that would likely never materialize in the natural course of competition: If the merger doesn’t go through, none of the conditions in the proposed decision and alleged to be necessary to protect the public interest will exist.

Far from trying to ensure that Comcast’s merger with TWC doesn’t erode competitive forces to the detriment of the public, the proposed decision is trying to micromanage the market, simply asserting that the public interest demands imposition of it’s subjective and arbitrary laundry list of preferred items. This isn’t sensible regulation, it isn’t compliant with state law, and it doesn’t serve the people of California.

Filed under: antitrust, law and economics, mergers & acquisitions, regulation, technology, telecommunications Tagged: Broadband, broadband Internet service, California, California governor Jerry Brown, California Public Utility Commission, Comcast, CPUC, merger, public interest, SB 1161, Time Warner Cable

Attorneys talked about the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) 3-2 vote in favor of rule changes that reclassify high-speed broadband as a public utility, The change was intended to prevent Internet service providers from giving some customers preferential treatment or establishing “fast lanes.”

Henry Manne was a great man, and a great father. He was, for me as for many others, one of the most important intellectual influences in my life. I will miss him dearly.

Following is his official obituary. RIP, dad.

Henry Girard Manne died on January 17, 2015 at the age of 86. A towering figure in legal education, Manne was one of the founders of the Law and Economics movement, the 20th century’s most important and influential legal academic discipline.

Manne is survived by his wife, Bobbie Manne; his children, Emily and Geoffrey Manne; two grandchildren, Annabelle and Lily Manne; and two nephews, Neal and Burton Manne. He was preceded in death by his parents, Geoffrey and Eva Manne, and his brother, Richard Manne.

Henry Manne was born on May 10, 1928, in New Orleans. The son of merchant parents, he was raised in Memphis, Tennessee. He attended Central High School in Memphis, and graduated with a BA in economics from Vanderbilt University in 1950. Manne received a JD from the University of Chicago in 1952, and a doctorate in law (SJD) from Yale University in 1966. He also held honorary degrees from Seattle University, Universidad Francesco Marroquin in Guatemala and George Mason University.

Following law school Manne served in the Air Force JAG Corps, stationed at Chanute Air Force Base in Illinois and McGuire Air Force Base in New Jersey. He practiced law briefly in Chicago before beginning his teaching career at St. Louis University in 1956. In subsequent years he also taught at the University of Wisconsin, George Washington University, the University of Rochester, Stanford University, the University of Miami, Emory University, George Mason University, the University of Chicago, and Northwestern University.

Throughout his career Henry Manne ’s writings originated, developed or anticipated an extraordinary range of ideas and themes that have animated the past forty years of law and economics scholarship. For his work, Manne was named a Life Member of the American Law and Economics Association and, along with Nobel Laureate Ronald Coase, and federal appeals court judges Richard Posner and Guido Calabresi, one of the four Founders of Law and Economics.

In the 1950s and 60s Manne pioneered the application of economic principles to the study of corporations and corporate law, authoring seminal articles that transformed the field. His article, “Mergers and the Market for Corporate Control,” published in 1965, is credited with opening the field of corporate law to economic analysis and with anticipating what has come to be known as the Efficient Market Hypothesis (for which economist Eugene Fama was awarded the Nobel Prize in 2013). Manne’s 1966 book, Insider Trading and the Stock Market was the first scholarly work to challenge the logic of insider trading laws, and remains the most influential book on the subject today.

In 1968 Manne moved to the University of Rochester with the aim of starting a new law school. Manne anticipated many of the current criticisms that have been aimed at legal education in recent years, and proposed a law school that would provide rigorous training in the economic analysis of law as well as specialized training in specific areas of law that would prepare graduates for practice immediately out of law school. Manne’s proposal for a new law school, however, drew the ire of incumbent law schools in upstate New York, which lobbied against accreditation of the new program.

While at Rochester, in 1971, Manne created the “Economics Institute for Law Professors,” in which, for the first time, law professors were offered intensive instruction in microeconomics with the aim of incorporating economics into legal analysis and theory. The Economics Institute was later moved to the University of Miami when Manne founded the Law &Economics Center there in 1974. While at Miami, Manne also began the John M. Olin Fellows Program in Law and Economics, which provided generous scholarships for professional economists to earn a law degree. That program (and its subsequent iterations) has gone on to produce dozens of professors of law and economics, as well as leading lawyers and influential government officials.

The creation of the Law & Economics Center (which subsequently moved to Emory University and then to George Mason Law School, where it continues today), was one of the foundational events in the Law and Economics Movement. Of particular importance to the development of US jurisprudence, its offerings were expanded to include economics courses for federal judges. At its peak a third of the federal bench and four members of the Supreme Court had attended at least one of its programs, and every major law school in the country today counts at least one law and economics scholar among its faculty. Nearly every legal field has been influenced by its scholarship and teaching.

When Manne became Dean of George Mason Law School in Arlington, Virginia, in 1986, he finally had the opportunity to implement the ideas he had originally developed at Rochester. Manne’s move to George Mason united him with economist James Buchanan, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1986 for his path-breaking work in the field of Public Choice economics, and turned George Mason University into a global leader in law and economics. His tenure as dean of George Mason, where he served as dean until 1997 and George Mason University Foundation Professor until 1999, transformed legal education by integrating a rigorous economic curriculum into the law school, and he remade George Mason Law School into one of the most important law schools in the country. The school’s Henry G. Manne Moot Court Competition for Law & Economics and the Henry G. Manne Program in Law and Economics Studies are named for him.

Manne was celebrated for his independence of mind and respect for sound reasoning and intellectual rigor, instead of academic pedigree. Soon after he left Rochester to start the Law and Economics Center, he received a call from Yale faculty member Ralph Winter (who later became a celebrated judge on the United States Court of Appeals) offering Manne a faculty position. As he recounted in an interview several years later, Manne told Winter, “Ralph, you’re two weeks and five years too late.” When Winter asked Manne what he meant, Manne responded, “Well, two weeks ago, I agreed that I would start this new center on law and economics.” When Winter asked, “And five years?” Manne responded, “And you’re five years too late for me to give a damn.”

The academic establishment’s slow and skeptical response to the ideas of law and economics eventually persuaded Manne that reform of legal education was unlikely to come from within the established order and that it would be necessary to challenge the established order from without. Upon assuming the helm at George Mason, Dean Manne immediately drew to the school faculty members laboring at less-celebrated law schools whom Manne had identified through his economics training seminars for law professors, including several alumni of his Olin Fellows programs. Today the law school is recognized as one of the world’s leading centers of law and economics.

Throughout his career, Manne was an outspoken champion of free markets and liberty. His intellectual heroes and intellectual peers were classical liberal economists like Friedrich Hayek, Ludwig Mises, Armen Alchian and Harold Demsetz, and these scholars deeply influenced his thinking. As economist Donald Boudreax said of Dean Manne, “I think what Henry saw in Alchian – and what Henry’s own admirers saw in Henry – was the reality that each unfailingly understood that competition in human affairs is an intrepid force…”

In his teaching, his academic writing, his frequent op-eds and essays, and his work with organizations like the Cato Institute, the Liberty Fund, the Institute for Humane Studies, and the Mont Pelerin Society, among others, Manne advocated tirelessly for a clearer understanding of the power of markets and competition and the importance of limited government and economically sensible regulation.

After leaving George Mason in 1999, Manne remained an active scholar and commenter on public affairs as a frequent contributor to the Wall Street Journal. He continued to provide novel insights on corporate law, securities law, and the reform of legal education. Following his retirement Manne became a Distinguished Visiting Professor at Ave Maria Law School in Naples, Florida. The Liberty Fund, of Indianapolis, Indiana, recently published The Collected Works of Henry G. Manne in three volumes.

For some, perhaps more than for all of his intellectual accomplishments Manne will be remembered as a generous bon vivant who reveled in the company of family and friends. He was an avid golfer (who never scheduled a conference far from a top-notch golf course), a curious traveler, a student of culture, a passionate eater (especially of ice cream and Peruvian rotisserie chicken from El Pollo Rico restaurant in Arlington, Virginia), and a gregarious debater (who rarely suffered fools gladly). As economist Peter Klein aptly remarked: “He was a charming companion and correspondent — clever, witty, erudite, and a great social and cultural critic, especially of the strange world of academia, where he plied his trade for five decades but always as a slight outsider.”

Scholar, intellectual leader, champion of individual liberty and free markets, and builder of a great law school—Manne’s influence on law and legal education in the Twentieth Century may be unrivaled. Today, the institutions he built and the intellectual movement he led continue to thrive and to draw sustenance from his intellect and imagination.

There will be a memorial service at George Mason University School of Law in Arlington, Virginia on Friday, February 13, at 4:00 pm. In lieu of flowers the family requests that donations be made in his honor to the Law & Economics Center at George Mason University School of Law, 3301 Fairfax Drive, Arlington, VA 22201 or online at http://www.masonlec.org.

Summary

“Commissioner Brill and a few academics have described the FTC’s data security settlements as developing a “common law” of data security. It is not readily apparent, however, that the over 50 independent complaints and settlement agreements between the FTC and particular companies amounts to what is traditionally understood as the common law. Moreover, because the FTC’s enforcement and adjudication process differs so substantially from traditional civil adjudication, even if the FTC’s data security settlements have certain common law characteristics, it is likely that the content of the FTC’s data security law differs substantially from what would emerge from – and what would be desirable in – in a traditional common law process.

As it happens, however, we do have an actual common law of data security — that is, data security cases adjudicated in civil courts — with which to compare the FTC’s process and settlements.

Those who defend the notion of an FTC data security common law identify the shortcomings of common law in civil courts—alleging, in essence, a sort of “market failure”—and they suggest that the FTC’s common law approach can and should correct this market failure, in part because the FTC does have a common law process. These claims are often largely descriptive, but, as suggested, there must be a normative preference inherent in the “common law” conclusion – or else, who cares?

This paper attempts to analyze this alleged administrative “common law” with reference to the actual common law baseline of data security developing in federal courtrooms. We consider the dynamics in both processes, and assess to what extent they comport with the attributes of common law, and whether they likely further the desirable aspects of a common law process.”

 

Summary

In the context of ongoing negotiations of the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) and deliberations over trade promotion authority (TPA), some organizations have been advocating for the inclusion of U.S.style fair use exceptions and limitations to copyright. This brief looks at the evidence for and against mandating the adoption of a U.S.-style fair use exception and, in particular, at the implications of requiring countries to adopt such an exception in free trade agreements. It begins with a brief exploration of the relationship between copyright, creativity and economic development. It then considers the economics of copyright and fair use, applying these to a networked global marketplace. The brief concludes with an assessment of current debates around fair use exceptions in free trade agreements and TPA.

Summary

“To the American ear, there is perhaps no uglier word than “discrimination.” The mere mention brings to mind Bull Connor, turning police dogs and fire hoses onto Martin Luther King, Jr.’s non violent demonstrators against Jim Crow in Birmingham, back in the 1962. Or perhaps subtler manifestations of racism.We all want America to be that nation King spoke of, where everyone “will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” Yet this is precisely what “Big Data” offers: by studying correlations in larger data sets, “data scientists” can craft algorithms that distinguish better between superficial attributes like race, sex, and sexual orientation and deeper attributes like reliability, honesty, credit-worthiness and other aspects of the “content of our character.””

Yet this is precisely what “Big Data” offers: by studying correlations in larger data sets, “data scientists” can craft algorithms that distinguish better between superficial attributes like race, sex, and sexual orientation and deeper attributes like reliability, honesty, credit worthiness and other aspects of the “content of our character.” In short, Big Data may mean less of  the Bull Connor kind of discrimination and more of the kind that would have seemed natural to Jane Austen’s readers (Merriam Webster’s second definition). This is precisely what credit scoring did: replacing the old system where bankers made!lending decision! based on the banker’s personal judgment — and biases — with one that discriminated between good and bad credit risks, regardless of superficial attributes or the simple social proximity between banker and borrower…”

It’s easy to look at the net neutrality debate and assume that everyone is acting in their self-interest and against consumer welfare. Thus, many on the left denounce all opposition to Title II as essentially “Comcast-funded,” aimed at undermining the Open Internet to further nefarious, hidden agendas. No matter how often opponents make the economic argument that Title II would reduce incentives to invest in the network, many will not listen because they have convinced themselves that it is simply special-interest pleading.

But whatever you think of ISPs’ incentives to oppose Title II, the incentive for the tech companies (like Cisco, Qualcomm, Nokia and IBM) that design and build key elements of network infrastructure and the devices that connect to it (i.e., essential input providers) is to build out networks and increase adoption (i.e., to expand output). These companies’ fundamental incentive with respect to regulation of the Internet is the adoption of rules that favor investment. They operate in highly competitive markets, they don’t offer competing content and they don’t stand as alleged “gatekeepers” seeking monopoly returns from, or control over, what crosses over the Interwebs.

Thus, it is no small thing that 60 tech companies — including some of the world’s largest, based both in the US and abroad — that are heavily invested in the buildout of networks and devices, as well as more than 100 manufacturing firms that are increasingly building the products and devices that make up the “Internet of Things,” have written letters strongly opposing the reclassification of broadband under Title II.

There is probably no more objective evidence that Title II reclassification will harm broadband deployment than the opposition of these informed market participants.

These companies have the most to lose from reduced buildout, and no reasonable nefarious plots can be constructed to impugn their opposition to reclassification as consumer-harming self-interest in disguise. Their self-interest is on their sleeves: More broadband deployment and adoption — which is exactly what the Open Internet proceedings are supposed to accomplish.

If the FCC chooses the reclassification route, it will most assuredly end up in litigation. And when it does, the opposition of these companies to Title II should be Exhibit A in the effort to debunk the FCC’s purported basis for its rules: the “virtuous circle” theory that says that strong net neutrality rules are necessary to drive broadband investment and deployment.

Access to all the wonderful content the Internet has brought us is not possible without the billions of dollars that have been invested in building the networks and devices themselves. Let’s not kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.

Filed under: antitrust, law and economics, markets, monopolization, net neutrality, technology, telecommunications, vertical restraints, wireless Tagged: antitrust, net neutrality, open internet, tech companies, Title II

Summary

“We are professors and scholars of law, business, economics, and public policy with expertise in communications, competition, innovation, industrial organization and related fields. We write to express our concerns regarding the Federal Communications Commission’s (“FCC”) apparent plans to prohibit paid prioritization and to reclassify broadband under Title II of the Communications Act. In its competition advocacy, the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) promotes consumer welfare by analyzing policies and offering alternatives to state and federal governmental agencies. Currently, the FCC is considering a new Open Internet Order that would have considerable negative effects on consumers…”