According to SEMPO President Chris Boggs, the organization, which is made up of thousands of marketing professionals across 50 countries, wrote the letter in response to its members’ concerns. SEMPO felt it needed to voice these concerns and explain why its members want an “open, free channel of communication.”

Are you concerned that the government will change the Internet as we know it? Let us know your thoughts.

“Overall, the reason that we felt we needed to send this letter was because we were concerned specifically that the U.S. government is investigating the search operations of Google,” said Boggs.

“It’s not just because we felt we needed to go thank our sponsor, Google,” he added.

The letter calls for a free market approach to the Internet with little or no regulation. It focuses on Google, however, in light of the anticompetitive claims that ShopCity and others have made lately.

Although Boggs does not discredit ShopCity’s claims, he pointed that all businesses are subject to the same rules for both organic search and paid search. In addition, he believes the accusations would have a greater impact if the Google naysayers outnumbered the Google advocates. However, judging from SEMPO’s members, they do not.

“I would want to see a much larger sample of companies saying that it’s unfair, versus the large sample that I’ve seen that have spoken to us and messaged to the board of SEMPO their pro-support of Google and the way they do handle business,” said Boggs.

The letter makes clear that search engines were not intended to be regulated or subject to control from governments or commercial entities, saying:

Search is not a government-run utility, established by law and thus subject to bureaucratic oversight. It is a service provided to consumers and businesses by companies, which have set up their operations using their own principles, proprietary technologies and algorithms. Each company is free to develop its own approach, fulfilling the needs of its customers as it perceives them.”

It makes the case that a free market methodology is what made the Internet what it is today. As Boggs explained, this freedom has allowed the Internet to grow and produce platforms such as social networks.

“If we hadn’t allowed the growth of Facebook and Twitter, and even some of its forbearers like MySpace, we would be nowhere close to where we are now in terms of the ability to communicate and reconnect with old friends on the Internet, for example, and also to perform business,” he said.

In order to further this free market innovation, the SEMPO letter stated that the following 4 requirements were needed:

1. Willingness of legislative and regulatory government entities worldwide to allow the evolution of the Internet in as unfettered a regulatory environment as possible

2. Willingness of publishers and information owners to explore ways of sharing their valuable information with the search engines while not jeopardizing their revenue models

3. Consumers feeling a level of trust with search engines sufficient to allow the search engines to personalize results for them, maintaining privacy settings at a level comfortable to them

4. Understanding by marketers and advertisers that the search engines’ most valuable asset is the user, and therefore the search engines will often place the consumer experience above short-term financial gain

Although SEMPO has not received a response from the FTC, Boggs said that the organization was willing to work with it to help it further understand how the search industry works.

In terms of regulation, Boggs told us that he didn’t see any coming in 2012 but that he could see it happening in 2015 or 2016. If it does happen, Boggs said he hopes that it protects the innocent from potentially harmful content online instead of preventing a free Internet.

The could-be law was written to go after those who sell such account information, but the lawmakers in question acknowledged the measure could affect those who share their Netflix passwords. From the report:

While those who share their subscriptions with a spouse or other family members under the same roof almost certainly have nothing to fear, blatant offenders — say, college students who give their logins to everyone on their dormitory floor — could get in trouble.

Apparently, my actions would be considered OK, but then again, I don’t live in the same household as my mother, so maybe not. While the focus of the bill puts Netflix on the front and center, the legal document also goes after those who share/sell Hulu Plus accounts. Essentially, the bill tries to put a safety net around all of the sites that legally stream copyrighted content. It’s also with very little surprise to find out members of the recording industry backed the bill in question, because, clearly, we the people are now under the thumb of entertainment industry and their litany of legal teams.

Say hello to the real government, the ones who now determine the way in which technology is regulated. And we the people just sit back and take it. Odd, that.

As for the bill’s backing, BusinessInsider.com confirms the recording industry’s influence:

The law was pushed through with the help of recording industry lobbyists trying to stop the bleeding that is illegal music sharing, and apparently illegal movie streaming as well.

The quoted article also points that sharing your password is not something directly discussed in the Netflix Terms of Service manifesto. Here’s the entire section on password sharing, directly from the service in question:

The member who created the Netflix account and whose Payment Method is charged is referred to here as the Account Owner. The Account Owner has access and control over the Netflix account. The Account Owner’s control is exercised through use of the Account Owner’s password and therefore to maintain exclusive control, the Account Owner should not reveal the password to anyone. In addition, if the Account Owner wishes to prohibit others from contacting Netflix Customer Support and potentially altering the Account Owner’s control, the Account Owner should not reveal the last four digits of their credit or debit card associated with their account, or their email address if they use PayPal as their payment method.

BY SHARING THE NETFLIX SERVICE PASSWORD, THE ACCOUNT OWNER AGREES TO BE RESPONSIBLE FOR ASSURING THAT HOUSEHOLD MEMBERS COMPLY WITH THE TERMS OF USE AND SUCH ACCOUNT OWNER SHALL BE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE ACTIONS OF THE HOUSEHOLD MEMBERS.

Notice there isn’t any mention of “DO NOT SHARE PASSWORDS” anywhere in the text. Granted, it’s doubtful Netflix would support bulk usage, in fact, they’d probably ban the accounts in question, but they do not explicitly spell it out. Instead, their terms simply offer this catch-all:

We reserve the right to terminate or restrict your use of our service, without notice, for any or no reason whatsoever.

Aside from that, nothing. Nevertheless, if you share your password in Tennessee, there’s a very real possibility that, while not violating the specific terms of Netflix, you still may have broken the law. In light of this story, it feels right embedding the following video:

And the struggle to regulate technology continues.

The New York Times tells of how things could look very different for the online advertisers in the future

The new head of the Bureau of Consumer Protection at the Federal Trade Commission, David C. Vladeck, says it is time for that to change. In an interview, Mr. Vladeck outlined plans that could upset the online advertising ecosystem. Privacy policies have become useless, the commission’s standards for the cases it reviews are too narrow, and some online tracking is “Orwellian,” Mr. Vladeck said.

Privacy is a serious matter for sure and it should be. Vladeck appears to be on a fast track, however, to creating sweeping change if he gets his wish.

In June, the commission settled a case with Sears that was a warning shot to companies that thought their privacy policies protected them. In just over six weeks on the job, he has asked Congress for a bigger budget and for a streamlined way to create regulations. And he said he would hire technologists to help analyze online marketers’ tracking.

“These are pretty aggressive moves for an agency of a new administration,” said Charles Kennedy, who handles privacy cases at Morrison & Foerster.

Experts are calling for caution as sweeping change could upset the Internet economy. Considering the fact that the Internet is one of the few industries that is performing well in the current economy would it be prudent to just come in after 8 years of a pro-business stance and pull the rug out from under the business? Vladeck has already said that the industry’s attempts to police itself are not good enough and is meeting with industry execs to talk about the issue.

“The frameworks that we’ve been using historically for privacy are no longer sufficient,” Mr. Vladeck said.

As seen in the Sears case where consumers were paid $10 to install software that then tracked them with their consent it is no longer good enough to tell people what they are signing up for and thus be protected under the law.

Sears had included information about tracking in its user license agreement, but that wasn’t good enough anymore, Mr. Vladeck said.

OK folks so it looks like the Internet marketing industry doesn’t have the support of Washington with the current state of affairs. Also, what once was may not be anymore. While it is early, it appears as if Vladeck is bent on making his mark. What is your take on this? Reason for concern or just some DC bluster? Let us hear you. This one could be real important.

Comments

I’m not psychic; it’s just a matter of identifying eventualities. The Web won’t (and maybe can’t) remain a Wild West forever. The concern now isn’t that Web content will be regulated, but who will regulate it. That question comes at a critical and interesting time because there seems to be little faith in any regulatory body, be it the government, the private enterprise, the people (a.k.a., the crowd), or the community organization (a.k.a., moral majority and/or megaphonic minority).

Indeed this has been the fundamental question (and at times, lament) in America since those heralded braniac revolutionaries decided speech was best left to a free market ideal. One can’t help draw parallels, as Alan Greenspan bemoans how greed trumped fiduciary—there’s a challenge, the word to follow: altruism, morality, prudence, foresight, responsibility?—common sense amid the frenzied credit-swapping enabled by deregulation the likes of which the country hasn’t seen in a century, to the current loss of faith in free markets in general. The free market of ideas is no exception, and indeed the challenge to it seems the norm.

The principle problem is people, their disproportionate adherence to the lizard part (survival-centered part) of the brain telling them to be selfish, cruel, and near-sighted. Worse, when online, the brain’s higher-evolved empathy center (orbitofrontal cortex) is switched off in the absence of tactile person-to-person contact, giving free reign to the amygdala’s tendency for nastiness. (By extension, one wonders if reducing people to numbers—names and lives on paper such as those disregarded investment bank shareholders Greenspan recently pined for—also replaces empathy with greed, now replaced by lizardly fear.)

In short, if one has a mustard-seed’s worth of faith in humans to self-regulate, one is likely overstocked. Even as hope prevails in uncertain times, there is always a Blagojevich scheming around the corner. The general failure of human conscience and the absence of effective algorithmic solutions seem to demand a regulatory mechanism outside of ourselves, even if that mechanism is composed of imperfect humans. In the end we’ll find that’s still a hard sell.

So who (what) do we trust, if not ourselves, to regulate? The FCC? The DOJ? The reimagined Web 2.0 “wisdom” of crowd-sourcing? The Parents Television Council? Terms-of-service agreements from skittish corporate providers? ISPs? The MPAA? The RIAA? The Supreme Court? The Constitution? The President? The ACLU? The EFF, Google, MoveOn, M2Z, Congress, Microsoft, the free market?

These are questions we need to ask, and soon, before conditions become such that this Internet Wild West is regulated ad hoc in a reactionary kind of way. There are so many stakeholders fully immersed in the coming media convergence any inkling of regulatory fairness borders on impossibility; even our better natures are in conflict.

We want Net Neutrality. We want free, national wireless broadband. We want kids protected from predators, from each other, and from porn. We want free speech and free access, but the current government doesn’t seem keen on giving both, that first one especially. 

The real pain comes, though, when addressing the problem of who should be in control of all this. If we can’t self-regulate (free-market-like), and it seems obvious we can’t stop being smutty, greedy, and generally violent in verbal and nonverbal ways, and we can’t trust the mob (is that still true after Web 2.0?), then do we turn to the government, corporations, or the courts?

The FCC is mulling, with mixed signals from Congress and support from the upcoming administration, pushing through free national wireless broadband on spectrum set aside for that purpose with the vague caveat that the network filters out pornography/obscene content. The desired end is a good one; more people have access regardless of socioeconomic factors and geography and no one is exposed to smut on the government’s watch.

The proposal carries with it the usual content regulation pitfall, which is to leave it up to the FCC to decide that which is too indecent for the public at large, a role the current, more puritanical FCC has filled poorly, to the point that it is in danger of losing authority over content coming across one-way communication systems (television and radio). Constitutionally, the proposal is shaky because it involves government regulation of speech/expression.

The constitutional workaround might be to contract out the operation of the free network to a company chomping at the bit to provide it, M2Z, in which case the role of the FCC is similar to the role it plays with broadcasters, indirect monitoring of speech/expression regulation when over public airwaves. But the end effect is precarious because it sets a precedent for an internet service provider to block undesirable content from end users, which is the main tenet against which Net Neutrality supporters push. If M2Z is allowed to discriminate based on content, what defense would the public have against AT&T, Verizon, or Comcast doing the same?

The Parents Television Council, the chief content gadfly directing the decency course of the current FCC chairman in regard to fleeting expletives on broadcast and efforts to regulate even cable content, has turned its attention to YouTube. In addition to video content, the PTC is concerned about material appearing in the comments below a video. The organization, which pressures the FCC, networks, and advertisers to rid the world of all smut, conducted its own study of content and commentary on YouTube:

• Viewing 20 YouTube videos per “teen idol” search term produced a total of 422 instances of explicit content within the text commentary.
•  An average of 68% of those comments included profanity and 31% of the profanity was of the most offensive nature (i.e. “fuck,” “shit,” and “bitch”). 

The PTC wants Google to do something about it, as well as bad influence in general. They should probably talk to every school, sports coach, and teen hangout proprietor in the world while they’re at it.

Meanwhile, as Facebook decides breast-feeding images are a violation of its terms of service, Kentucky is seizing gambling domains, and Missouri begins enforcing cyber-bullying laws aimed at curbing online harassment like that which led to the infamous conviction of Lori Drew. Illinois is mulling similar legislation, which seems like a trend destined to reach federal levels. Once again, panels of humans decide what is and what isn’t harassment or detrimental bullying.  

The forecast for Net Neutrality, then, looks somewhat bleak. If the actual First Amendment is ignored in the form of content regulation, then the proposed and controversial First Amendment of the Internet seems doomed under the weight of overlapping government, organizational, and corporate agendas. Corporations either abuse or capitulate, organizations suffer from myopia and runaway zeal, and government tends to overcorrect for everything.

It seems inevitable, though, that this vastly imperfect and drawback-compounding troika will run the Internet future, much like in the history of other media. And there’s the rub: the chaos of free media is accepted as the powerful boon to overall freedom, warts and all, or usurpers reign in that power for themselves and true freedom (and knowledge) is either obliterated or shelved for the elite. 

What you have instead is not the myriad multitudes of individual problems and abuses present within single humans, but the compounded and potentially devastating problems and abuses of groups of allied humans. The former is democracy, the latter is oligarchy.

That is to say, if humans can’t be trusted, then groups of humans even less so. This isn’t new. Nietzsche said, to paraphrase, madness is rare in individuals but in groups it is the norm.

With that in mind, we human Americans, as a group, should adhere to the madness of those braniac revolutionaries who felt media and speech should remain chaotically, individually lawless.

Free broadband is a good idea. Free broadband with groups of humans arbitrarily deciding what is decent or acceptable is not a good idea. Net Neutrality is a good idea as it mirrors the original philosophy that government exists solely to protect the people, not from content, but from tyranny. But we can’t have the government (or other groups) undermining that principle by setting up its own content-regulated network, or allowing other groups of humans to do so.

In the end, we are left with the need to introduce Net Neutrality laws to protect the people’s unfettered access to the Internet, but leave the freedom to filter to those humans lacking in general self-regulation to begin with. It’s the American way.   

Who should control the Internet, then? Nobody.

Alas, certain groups may find this too dangerous…
 

Any device capable of running on Verizon’s CDMA network will soon be able to attach those devices to the network, run any software, or install any application they choose. The only catch: Sprint Nextel is the only competitor using CDMA. The rest, like AT&T and T-Mobile, use GSM systems.

Sprint Nextel subscribers, of course, will have to wait until their two-year contracts are up, and then shouldn’t expect tech support from Verizon for non-Verizon phones.

Regardless, some are heralding the move as a crack in the traditional walls erected by wireless carriers to hem customers in. Om Malik goes as far as to compare it to the destruction of the Berlin Wall.

Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on your point of view, there’s always a pooper around. Dan Frommer at Silicon Alley Insider provides a rather sobering assessment of what open devices will mean in the future:

"A phone manufacturer could theoretically decide to start selling its CDMA phones directly to consumers. But people are used to paying artificially low prices for their phones, since carriers currently subsidize their handsets. An unlocked Palm Treo 680 costs $300 more if you buy it directly from Palm without a contract. And big phone makers will still be better off selling their gadgets through carriers, since the carriers will promote and sell them via their extensive marketing channels."

But it’s still nice to have options, don’t you think? Options haven’t historically been forthcoming.

Many have noted, as they should, Google’s recent pressure on the wireless industry, especially via Android and the launch of the Open Handset Alliance, of which Verizon is still not a member.

But the more cynical note the timing of the announcement, coming just months shy of the upcoming 700 MHz auction, as well as mounting support for stricter government regulations. By voluntarily opening up its network, Verizon may be seeking to deflate that support by removing evidence that would support government intervention.

While Om may have gotten carried away with his Berlin Wall reference, he smells something fishy coming out of the FCC chairman’s office. And DSLReports also questions Verizon’s sincerity:

"We see a lot of people getting very excited, but implementation is key, and Verizon’s track record on this front is poor. How sincere Verizon really is about an open network will depend on the price of the service, platform specifics and the fine print (caps, etc.). Whether a genuine paradigm shift or a public relations ploy aimed at beating back open-access critics, it’s clear that Verizon is feeling the heat because of Google."

FCC Gets Monkey’s Paw From Telco Front Group

It appears as good news. An anti-Net-Neutrality, pro-telecom organization calls for Net Neutrality enforcement. And if the telecoms demand something of FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, you know it will be done.

Must be all the birthday singing they do for him.

After Comcast was busted blocking BitTorrent downloads, HOTI sent a letter to Martin asking the FCC to launch a full investigation to see if the four principles of Net Neutrality had been violated.

Just for review, those four principles are the same ones AT&T had to accept in order for their merger with Bell South to be approved, the same ones Martin himself said had no teeth. They are as follows:

1.    Consumers are entitled to access the lawful Internet content of their choice;
2.    Consumers are entitled to run applications and services of their choice, subject to the needs of law enforcement;
3.    Consumers are entitled to connect their choice of legal devices that do not harm the network; and
4.    Consumers are entitled to competition among network providers, application and service providers, and content             providers

The authors of the letter, Mike McCurry and Christopher Wolf, disagree with Martin’s initial assertion that the principles are unenforceable and believe the FCC "has clear authority" to do so.

What’s interesting about the letter is not just what is between the lines, but also how it plays on Martin’s philosophical inconsistencies. They use his own words to the Senate Commerce Committee against him to drive home just how extensive the FCC’s authority over Internet service providers is (or vice versa).

Another inconsistency to leverage: Martin’s reluctance to regulate or interfere with telecom giants, but full willingness to get his hands dirtied with cable providers. Before the keys were cold again on HOTI’s keyboard, Martin was dead set on stiffening regulations on the cable industry – most likely driven by his conscience, a la carte programming that provides true family friendly programming the trump to his deregulation mindset.

But what is most elegant about the HOTI letter is that it subtly mirrors a couple of very pro-telecom objectives: It puts additional heat on a very large competitor in the Internet and television space (the telecoms are beginning to offer TV); and it appears pro-Net Neutrality in an increasingly pro-Net Neutrality time without actually being so.

Smell that? It’s opportunism.

An FCC that appears to enforce the principles helps build a case that there is no legislation needed. In a perfect free market world, the FCC can hold its own, enforcing its own principles without Congress, even principles its own chairman said were unenforceable.

Just to save you following a link, let’s relive Martin’s words here:

Importantly, however, while the Democrat Commissioners may have extracted concessions from AT&T, they in no way bind future Commission action. Specifically, a minority of Commissioners cannot alter Commission precedent or bind future Commission decisions, policies, actions, or rules. 

The "concessions" are the same principles as listed above. Though a minority of Commissioners cannot bind Commission actions, perhaps AT&T-backed grass roots groups can. They’ve been pretty good at pulling Martin’s strings in the past.

If they can hurt a competitor while ensuring Net Neutrality remains unenforceable (while making others think that it is), then that fits squarely into a win-win corporate strategy.

" AT&T’s front group calling out Comcast is like Exxon calling out Texaco — they’re all bad faith actors with business models built on attacking competition in the marketplace and hurting consumers," says MoveOn.org’s Adam Green.

But what is equally disturbing, is the extent to which AT&T is involved in the workings of our federal government. Recently it was revealed that the secret room at AT&T HQ reserved for NSA personnel was used not only to snoop on phone calls, but all Internet traffic coming across the backbone as well.

If worded right, Net Neutrality legislation could put a stop to that, too. You know, if certain legislators don’t grant immunity to them in the meantime.

The dark conclusion, as usual lately: The government, including the FCC, the DOJ, the Administration, and a good portion of Congress don’t work for the people anymore. They work for shareholders and contributors.

And Kevin Martin? He’s made it very clear over the years whom he serves.   

Nothing strikes more fear into the heart of a businessperson, in any industry, than the specter of bureaucratic paperwork generated by government mandates. It’s just as true for Google and the online ad industry as it is for anyone else.

Fortunately, the FTC seems eager to avoid inconveniencing anyone for the sake of protecting the privacy of Internet users.

FTC commissioner Jon Leibowitz expressed concern about current practices, saying it should "really trouble all of us that seemingly anonymous searching and surfing can be traced back to specific individuals."

But as far as putting the all-seeing eye of a federal agency over these practices, Leibowitz isn’t in a huge hurry:

Consider changing the widespread opt-out default for ad-serving cookies – why not make it opt in? At this point, I’m not sure that government should mandate an opt-in model but, in my view, it is a far more preferable result.

Leibowitz called the issue of behavioral marketing "complicated." He wants the current don’t ask, don’t tell, policy to end. But he wants it to happen voluntarily.

Who Has ‘Metaphysical Jurisdiction’ In Second Life?

See, I warned you.

This conversation comes courtesy of the Association of Internet Researchers‘ annual conference, which happened recently. Virtual worlds were a focal point at the meeting, as people are investing real time, energy, and money in creating and maintaining virtual worlds and virtual economies.

Thus, it begs the question as to whether virtual worlds need real-world regulation, or if they are capable of self-regulating via a type of free market economy and existence. But to answer that question, other questions about the nature of virtual worlds and the people who have an existence in them must be answered.

It’s not too late to get out, by the way, before we get into some really mind-bending stuff.

The gods of these worlds are by no means collectively imagined, nor are they anthropomorphic or democratic. Lawyers don’t deal in world-gods, so they label them differently: the virtual world providers. An example would be Linden Labs, which runs Second Life.

So, before we can get into the nature of the virtual world and the virtual people within it, we first must understand the nature of the creator/provider. The provider has the power to delete anything and everything that exists in the virtual world. As it is not in the interest of the provider to delete everything that exists, the provider holds a power it will not yield.

However, the provider can and has motivation to pick and choose on a singular basis what does exist, including avatars, currencies, and other objects. It is debatable as to whether the provider is held in check or self-regulated by a democratic process – i.e., too much tyranny unmakes existence as avatars choose not to exist in such an environment – or if the provider exists as a sort of benevolent dictator, maintaining an equilibrium that keeps avatars happy and motivated enough that existence proves fruitful.

A reasonable person might think it was a combination of both, but the model only applies to proprietary software-driven virtual worlds where all is controlled and maintained by mono- or even polytheistic entities. Some argue, though, that even if virtual existence were governed by open source – i.e., the avatars creating in concert their reality – " it still wouldn’t solve the normative determination of what’s fair to do to players."

Still with me? Good.

But what if a third party, an evil within, a devilish presence, runs amok as a hacker with the power to strip away virtual assets that could be ascribed value in the real world. Who is accountable? The hacker thief, of course, is primarily responsible, and punishment rests with the provider, who, ironically, created a world where the hacker thief could exist in the first place.

And if so, what responsibility does the provider bear for the allowable existence of the hacker-thief? Some might say the provider is absolved of all responsibility via the end-user license agreement, a document all within the virtual world have access to, but less than one percent have read. The avatars should have known better than to make risky investments in a mostly perception-based world.

Shouldn’t there be, then, some other arbitrator in this equation – a power higher than the virtual world provider to resolve how much responsibility, if any, the provider has to its avatar subjects? And if there is a higher power, who regulates him?

Ahem.

Eric Goldman, who bears direct responsibility for the above virtually metaphysical exploration, says (paraphrased) "that’s just life." His take on whether virtual worlds should be regulated:

• no evidence of market failure. Investments still growing rapidly
• We can rely on existing consumer protection laws (such as false advertising) [to] provide substantial protection for any [virtual world] provider deception

If only it were that simple in the real world.        

Regardless, according a poll conducted by Zogby International and 463 Communications, 29 percent of respondents said Internet content should be regulated just like television content, and 24 percent said the government should institute a ratings system like the one used for movies.

Luckily (depending on how you look at it), the overwhelming majority of regulation supporters were over 70. Just 33 percent of 18-24 year-olds thought it was a good idea, while 72 percent of septuagenarians thought so.

“Some view the Internet as their new best friend, others as an increasingly powerful tool that can infect our youth with harmful images and thoughts and therefore must be controlled,” said 463 partner Tom Galvin.

“Our challenge as a society is to let the Internet flourish as a dynamic force in our economy and communities while not chipping away at the fundamental freedoms that created the Internet in the first place.”

But only 36 percent thought government blocking of content would be unconstitutional, so don’t think there might not be support for chipping.

I have an opinion and here it is: Government blocking of any content brings up Constitutional issues as it is, at its fundamental level, making a law abridging freedom of speech.

But also, from a media theory standpoint, there is a big difference between the Internet and television. Television, like radio, is a one-way medium with content transmitted over the airwaves to a passive consumer without regard to the consumer’s ability to filter the messages and/or visual exposure.

The Internet is a two-way medium with active users both consuming and producing content. Consumers have a choice of what to view, and have a choice of what to produce, making the Internet the most democratic medium ever devised on this planet.

And we don’t want the FCC (or AT&T and Verizon and Comcast for that matter) stepping in to discuss whether using the phrase "hamsterbating" is in violation of some arbitrary, culturally and perceptually defined standard.