While the "think tank" may indeed exists, the claim that it is non-partisan is hogwash. Of course so is your, "please don't throw me in that briar patch" argument.
Why aren't the telcos lobbying congress for regulation? How about airlines? The easiest way to screw the consumer and make the stockholders money, by your argument, is to get a regulatory regime imposed on the industry. Why are they failing in their fiduciary duty to the stockholders?
"This is just disgraceful. A guy named Timothy B. Lee published an Op-Ed on net neutrality reiterating the telecom positioning, and claiming that the market for broadband services is competitive. It is not. Timothy B. Lee sounds an awful lot like Tim Berners Lee, the creator of the World Wide Web and strong net neutrality proponent."
Dirty politics, Tim. Libertarians are supposed to be against fraud.
Tim Lee
· 3 years ago
Seth,
I'm not sure what your point is. Am I supposed to change my name? Not write about any Internet-related subjects?
Mike
· 3 years ago
The other TBL would be tech literate enough to link to the article he's arguing about. Thanks for fixing it, Seth.
Should we really take advice about technology from someone who doesn't understand a href ?
lippard
· 3 years ago
The telcos lobby for particular FCC regulations all the time, which they make excellent use of to shield themselves from competition. The FCC dispute resolution process greatly favors the incumbents by allowing them to delay while their challengers run out of money.
BTW, Tim, it's disappointing that you didn't link to Stoller's piece--I found the thread through the link in Seth Finkelstein's comment.
Seth, what fraud are you accusing Tim of?
Tim Lee
· 3 years ago
Mike,
Why is our claim to non-partisanship hogwash?
My claim isn't necessarily that regulations will benefit telecom companies overall. Rather, my claim is that political processes are negative-sum games, because they encourage rent-seeking in the form of hiring lawyers and lobbyists and because they restrict the pace of innovation by making more decisions subject to bureaucratic oversight. So my guess is that the regulatory process will hurt both the telcos and consumers, but that most of the harm will fall on consumers, who don't have effective representation in Washington.
Like I said in the op-ed, it's not like this hasn't happened before. The ICC was never an effective check on the monopoly power of railroads, but after about 1920, it did provide the railroads with protection against competition. You can see the same story in the airline industry, the cable industry, the telephone industry, the electricity industry, and many other regulatory processes. Why would network neutrality regulations be any different?
Kevin B. O'Reilly
· 3 years ago
Tim, all this time you've been a corporate shill and you never even let me know. At least you could have bought me some stuff off my Amazon wish list. Cheap bastard!
Seth Finkelstein
· 3 years ago
C'MON GUYS! That's one of the oldest dirty tricks in the political playbook. If you don't know what's going on, then my name is Jesse L. Jackson.
Doug Lay
· 3 years ago
What a disappointing hatchet job by Stoller. I've read some of his stuff on mydd.com in the past and I've been impressed that he understands somewhat that the increased worship of "IP" by our legal system is likely to do serious harm to the Internet and to the nation. I've harbored wishful thoughts that lefties like Stoller and righties like Tim could work together on issues of IP reform, much like Zoe Lofgren offered to try and find common ground with the Cato folks a few months back. I guess no such luck.
Tim Schneider
· 3 years ago
FWIW, I often don't agree with your stance Tim, but I always enjoy reading your posts. They are intelligent, thoughtful, and honest. It's too bad Stoller hasn't read any of your DMCA stuff . . . hardly doctrinaire corporate shill stuff. Anyway, keep up the great stuff.
Tim Schneider
· 3 years ago
FWIW, I often don't agree with your stance Tim, but I always enjoy reading your posts. They are intelligent, thoughtful, and honest. It's too bad Stoller hasn't read any of your DMCA stuff . . . hardly doctrinaire corporate shill stuff. Anyway, keep up the great stuff.
metapundit
· 3 years ago
Re mike:My guess is that the Times picks the bio tagline for the columns it runs. I've written a column or two for my local paper and they don't allow me to supply titles or bios. The Show Me institute is non-partisan (I'm guessing) in the sense that it isn't a PAC or explicit subsidiary of the Republican party or a particular corporation. Obviously anybody whose self description includes
The work of the Institute is rooted in the American tradition of free markets and individual liberty. The Institute's scholars seek to move beyond the 20th-century mindset that every problem has a government solution. Instead, they develop policies that respect the rights of the individual, encourage creativity and hard work, and nurture independence and social cooperation.
is going to be reliably more congenial to some partisan points of view than others. You do errect a nice straw man though: I haven't seen Tim assert that "The easiest way to screw the consumer and make the stockholders money ... is to get a regulatory regime imposed on the industry". I have seen him assert that regulations imposed on industry, allegedly for consumer benefit, frequently end up being tools that serve the corporations they were meant to constrain. Perhaps you are asserting that regulatory capture does not exist?
Oh, and Finkelstein makes the sort of ridiculous statement I would expect from the man who wrote Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict. Oh, wait, you're Seth, not Norman Finkelstein. Why don't you make that clear when you post? Fraud...
(For those of you not getting the humour: it isn't Tim Berners Lee, it is actually Tim Berners-Lee. Sir Tim has a hyphenated last name, so they actually have different last names! A clear case of fraud indeed...)
Jim Harper
· 3 years ago
I didn't know who Matt Stoller was but went and looked at his site http://mattstoller.com/ .
My experience is that people who are deeply involved in partisan politics have difficulty seeing things through anything other than a partisan lens. I would guess that's part of the reason for his assumption that you and your organization are partisan, Tim. I know you to be ideological, as am I, but not partisan.
It might be exhilarating to get such harsh criticism, but I don't see that it's particularly imporant. This is giving undue "air"-time to a person who isn't putting forward a serious, careful argument. Most importantly, this all may be a waste of TLF readers' extremely valuable eyeball-time.
Tim Lee
· 3 years ago
Doug: I think Mr. Stoller is an outlier here. I had cordial discussions with Democratic Hill staffers about the DMCA back in March, as well as a very friendly meeting with the good folks at Public Knowledge, with whom I agree on the vast majority of the other issues they work on.
I think the grown-ups on the left are willing to work together on issues of common agreement while respectfully disagreeing on other issues. Unfortunately, for others (on the left and the right) partisan rancor seems to trump all other considerations. I'm particularly disappointed at Seth's hostility, given that we agree on a lot of other technology issues.
Also, I have to disagree with your characterization of me as a "righty." While I certainly have some "righty" opinions, you'll see on my other blog that I have a considerable number of "lefty" opinions as well.
Seth Finkelstein
· 3 years ago
Tim, *maybe* I'm being too hard on you personally. To spell it out: It is an old and longstanding sleazy campaign tactic to find someone with a similar name to a real candidate, and put them on the ballot to cause confusion. These people then say things like "Oh, my name is Georgie Bush? What a coincidence! Well, it is my real name. Surely you don't expect me to avoid politics ...".
Someone along the line did that with you, and that's the reason there's an Op-Ed in the New York Times on Net Neutrality today "By TIMOTHY B. LEE".
At best, taking you at your word, you were used.
Note I'm not involved in Net Neutrality, I've stayed far away from it, for my own reasons. It just annoyed me to see Berners-Lee being sandbagged like that.
Tim Lee
· 3 years ago
Seth, would you care to clarify as to who "put me up to" being interested in this topic? I wrote about this topic because I'm interested in it. You might have noticed that I write extensively about a wide variety of technology-related subjects--including a number of issues on which we agree. Are you seriously suggesting that someone tricked me into being interested in tech policy so they could confuse the public about Tim B-L's position on network neutrality?
Kevin B. O'Reilly
· 3 years ago
How idiotic is the suggestion that Timothy B. Lee is part of an attempt to confuse readers into thinking that he is Tim Berners-Lee? Let us count the ways.
(1) Google it! By my count, 42 of the first 50 results refer to *this* Timothy B. Lee, not Tim Berners-Lee. Guess what? None of the other eight refers to Berners-Lee either.
(2) Anyone who knows enough to know who Tim Berners-Lee is knows he doesn't work for the Show-Me Institute.
(3) Tim Berners-Lee's name isn't -- and *couldn't* be -- abbreviated as Timothy B. Lee. Berners is not his middle name. Berners-Lee is a hyphenated last name. His middle name is John (per Wikipedia entry above). So the closest you could get is Tim J. Berners-Lee. How confusing!
(4) *This* Tim Lee isn't a knight!
I'll predict right now that the Times won't run any kind of clarification because absolutely none is necessary. His actual name and affiliation were enough to identify him accurately.
Speaking of Tim's picture, he does appear to have white skin ... just like Tim Berners-Lee. What's he trying to pull? Oh, Timmy, where will the deception end?!
Seth Finkelstein
· 3 years ago
I'm suggesting that somewhere along the path to the piece's appearance on the New York Times Op-Ed page, whatever politics is involved got a dose of sleaze. You're very naive if you don't see there's at least the appearance of bad dealings, especially given the contentiousness of the Net Neutrality debate.
Kevin B. O'Reilly
· 3 years ago
Seth, your statement is based on a complete lack of familiarity with the actual working process of journalism, let alone the New York Times editorial page. Would it make a difference to know that Tim's been published by the NYT page before on the unrelated issue of piggybacking on wireless network connections? Of course not. I won't bother you with the facts, you've got your mind made up.
Kevin B. O'Reilly
· 3 years ago
Some relevant facts:
* Tim's previous NYT editorial, which rebuts the claims that this editorial's running is part of some kind of ruse.
* Google results for "Timothy B. Lee" -- 9 of the first 10 refer to the writer of today's NYT editorial. The other refers to a different Timothy B. Lee altogether.
* Tim Berners-Lee's name could not correctly be abbreviated as Timothy B. Lee. Berners is not his middle name, it's part of a hyphenated last name. His middle name is John.
* Timothy B. Lee hasn't been knighted! (Yet?)
* Tim's picture is goofy looking. But so what?
MikeT
· 3 years ago
Mike,
And if you were technically literate enough, you would have known the escape characters to put the < and > symbols around the snarky comment you made...
Seth Finkelstein
· 3 years ago
I repeat: If someone can't at least see why this has an appearance of impropriety, that is deeply problematic. Which is one reason I'm less charitable. The silliness is very grating. It's one thing to maintain there was no fraudulent intent involved. It's quite another to be shocked, shocked, that someone would ever suggest such a thing could happen in this fine establishment.
Janet Daly
· 3 years ago
Regardless of intention, Mike and Kevin, people are misattributing Mr. Lee's article to Tim Berners-Lee. I am the W3C spokesperson, and handle all of Tim's press work. Believe me, there is confusion out there about who wrote the article.
The problem is further complicated by the fact that Tim's previous comments in NYT on the topic are only available to paid subscribers, and the majority of readers of the OpEd pages don't spend time looking for TimBL's latest blog posts.
I'm grateful to Mr. Lee for writing to the NYT to ask for a clarification on his identity v. TimBL, though it probably won't be enough for paper readers.
There are some people who don't agree with TimBL's position who have no problem with that confusion. I'm glad Tim Lee isn't one of them.
Kevin B. O'Reilly
· 3 years ago
I tried posting twice with links to explain why no reasonable person (which obviously excludes Matt Stoller) would mistake Timothy B. Lee for Tim Berners-Lee, but they need to be approved by a human editor -- probably because with all the links they look too much like spam. So here we go again.
Some relevant facts:
(1) Even Matt Stoller wasn't confused. His post wasn't about expressing shock that Tim Berners-Lee was reversing his previous position on Net neutrality. In fact, he did the little work it takes to Google "Timothy B. Lee" (9 out of the first 10 results) to ID who he is.
(2) Tim Berners-Lee doesn't go by Timothy B. Lee. It would be profoundly odd if he did so, considering that his middle name is John, not Berners. Berners-Lee is a hyphenated last name. Timothy J. Berners-Lee is the closest we could get. No reasonable reader would confuse the two.
(3) Timothy B. Lee isn't a knight.
(4) Anyone who knows enough to care about Tim Berners-Lee's opinion knows he doesn't work at the Show-Me Institute.
(5) Nothing in Timothy B. Lee's bio at the Show-Me Institute site identifies him as the founder of the World Wide Web. Nothing in his tag line for the NYT editorial suggested as much.
(6) There was no impropriety. There was no appearance of impropriety. Tim was appropriately identified, and there is no need for a clarification. Period. I would be very surprised if the Times runs one.
Kevin B. O'Reilly
· 3 years ago
Sorry for the repeat posts. They were being held.
Kevin B. O'Reilly
· 3 years ago
Ms. Daly, it is a shame that reporters didn't pay enough attention to realize it was the wrong Tim Lee. And if there has been widespread misattribution (not evidenced by a Technorati search, incidentally), perhaps a clarification is in order. I'm curious, though, about how you think the Times could have better handled the situation. Is Timothy B. Lee now obliged to clarify any time that he writes about the Web that he's not Tim Berners-Lee? Just think for a moment about the implications.
Dave
· 3 years ago
Fwiw, I came here from Stoller's link. I had the article forwarded to me by a few tech types who were shocked to see Berners Lee switch positions.
Kevin B. O'Reilly
· 3 years ago
Contra Ms. Daly's earlier comment, Tim Berners-Lee's previous NYT ed page comments are publicly available here.
It's true that a search at the NYT site gives you a protected link, though most reporters have access to Lexis and can access the article that way.
How did I get the link above? By Googling the words below:
sir tim-berners lee new york times
It scares me to think that the reporters covering Net neutrality don't even know how to use Google.
Kevin B. O'Reilly
· 3 years ago
Contra Ms. Daly's earlier comment, Tim Berners-Lee's previous NYT ed page comments are publicly available here.
It's true that a search at the NYT site gives you a protected link, though most reporters have access to Lexis and can access the article that way.
How did I get the link above? By Googling the words below:
sir tim-berners lee new york times
It scares me to think that the reporters covering Net neutrality don't even know how to use Google.
The fact that Tim is considerate enough to request that NYT run a totally unnecessary clarification just shows what a class act he is considering the idiotic, unfair abuse (excluding Ms. Daly's polite comments, of course) he's received just for writing under his own name.
Janet Daly
· 3 years ago
You can call me Janet. :)
Technorati searches track tags applied to blog posts. As I understand from Tantek, they don't track phone traffic or emails (yet).
I agree that it is a shame that people aren't paying closer attention and confuse Tim B. Lee with Tim Berners-Lee.
Frankly, I was surprised that NYT didn't provide a pre-emptive clarification, given the topic and the significant potential for name confusion. I think (and have suggested) that they include in the small bio that "Mr. Lee is not to be confused with Tim Berners-Lee, Web inventor and director of the W3C."
I think that there are actually lightweight and simple solutions for minimizing confusion, and they have a lot to do with the content and context of a situation. In some cases, they can even be dealt with humorously. And even if this experience doesn't make the folks who call me more mindful, it will help Mr. Lee prevent similar problems from recurring.
Seth Finkelstein
· 3 years ago
"no reasonable person ... would mistake ..."
"(not evidenced by a Technorati search, incidentally) ..."
Well, many people don't consider Nick Douglas, who writes Valleywag, to be a reasonable person, but he is reasonably read:
"That's so old media Photo of NickDouglas 4 hours ago in Valleywag, Silicon Valley's Tech Gossip Rag by NickDouglas �÷ 2,156 blogs link here
That's so old media [ Railroad illo - Valleywag] Who commissions an op/ed about Net Neutrality from the inventor of the web from a man who ... metaphor? The New York Times, which today published a piece by Tim Berners-Lee doing just that. " (I alerted him to the ringerness in a comment, and he's corrected it now)
"Rank: 211 (8,483 links from 2,161 blogs)"
Honor would indicate a retraction, Kevin.
Kevin B. O'Reilly
· 3 years ago
Janet -- Your fix seems reasonable, which is why I'm sure Tim went ahead and asked for the clarification. Amazing what a little civility will do.
Kevin B. O'Reilly
· 3 years ago
I have no idea if Douglas is reasonable or not. His story didn't show up on the Technorati search I did. Perhaps I could rephrase it this way: "No reasonably careful reader ..."
And again, his comment betrays a misunderstanding of how the editorial submission process works. I'm quite sure NYT didn't *make* or even *suggest* Tim write his editorial a certain way and that the idea -- whatever its merits or demerits -- was all his own.
Doug Lay
· 3 years ago
s/rightie/libertarian/g;
Is that better? It's lazy to use the terms interchangeably. Sorry about that.
I suspect Stoller is realizing how much of an ass he's been. Hopefully he'll be man enough to apologize.
My own opinion on Net Neutrality is somewhat closer to Tim's than to Stoller's. (The best thinking I've seen on the subject comes, not surprisingly, from Ed Felten - http://itpolicy.princeton.edu/pub/neutrality.pdf). HOWEVER, in somewhat cynical fashion, I've been calling my Senators over the past couple of days asking them to vote against cloture on the Stevens bill, and I've mentioned the lack of a New Neutrality provision as a reason. Why am I doing this, when I don't really support codifying Net Neutrality into law? Because I don't want the Stevens bill, with its loathsome Broadcast Flag and Audio Flag provisions, to pass, and I think Senators (especially Democratic Senators, which mine are) are more likely to sit up and listen to constituent arguments about Net Neutrality than arguments about Fair Use and the freedom to tinker. Sad, but true.
Tim
· 3 years ago
Doug:
Much better! And I won't begrudge you for using the momentum of a misguided populist movement to accomplish a worthwhile goal.
Ned Ulbricht
· 3 years ago
Ms. Daly, imho, you are an exceedingly polite bully.
Seth, I'm ashamed of you.
Kevin, I think it's absolutely unreasonable to expect Tim Lee to go around explaining that he is not Berners-Lee everytime he writes on network subjects. If Mr. Berners-Lee is worried about confusion—he can afford to purchase a paid advertisement in the New York Times explaining that he isn't Tim B. Lee.
P.S. Tim, this doesn't mean I agree with you on net neutrality.
JayAckroyd
· 3 years ago
It doesn't matter to me that you share initials with Berners-Lee. Anyone who knows who Berners-Lee is knows that the op-ed was poppycock.
But, like Matt, I was pretty damned shocked to see it run. (I live in NYC and read the NYT daily.) It was just so completely at odds with the facts, especially with the base premise that the internet has ever been unregulated or that there is any suggestion from anybody that it be unregulated, that I was upset that it ran. It just shows how abstruse this issue is, I guess. But, sheesh, couldn't Gail have asked someone who knows about this stuff about the piece? I mean, other than Mike McCurry.
Tim Lee
· 3 years ago
Jay, do you have any specific evidence that the Internet has been regulated in the past? I know the telcos' "last mile" was regulated under common carrier regulations, but AFAIK, the rest of the Internet has never been subject to regulations of any sort. I'd love to be set straight if you've got evidence to the contrary.
MikeT
· 3 years ago
Come on, Jay, take your facts out of the box you put them in for safe keeping and show them to everyone. Educate us peons.
Janet Daly
· 3 years ago
Ned-
I'm neither exceptionally polite, nor a bully. But perhaps I can be more clear.
I asked Tim Lee for his help, given the queries I was receiving from the general public, from developers, and reporters. When I explained the misattribution problem, he not only understood, he agreed to help with a letter to the editor he worked with, as well as the ones I know.
Part of my goal was to curb the misattribution of authorship. But another part - especially my decision to post here - was to contribute to stopping misattribution of motive. It's been rampant and unfair. I hoped that the public recognition of his voluntary action might stop the accusations.
You've got my email address and my phone numbers as a result of the private email you sent. I'm happy to continue the conversation with you via email or by phone.
Ned Ulbricht
· 3 years ago
Ms. Daly:
You are protecting the Timothy Berners-Lee brand name. "Sir Tim" is a valuable property. I can sympathize with your endeavor.
I sincerely appreciate that you have not yet abused the courts with some baseless and frivolous lawsuit—like so many other rights-holders have over the past several years. Thank you for explaining your position.
If Tim B. Lee wishes, out of kindness and graciousness, to burden his political speech by attaching some disclaimer to his own name, then that is his affair. And I apologize to him if I may have abused the hospitality of his forum by exchanging harsh words with you here.
But it is manifestly unfair to oblige him to speak or write in furtherance of your goals under these circumstances. You have no right to compell him to carry your speech at his cost.
Mike
· 3 years ago
Matt Stoller needs to grow up. It's seriously unprofessional to make comments about Tim Lee's appearance, but it's especially inappropriate in the context of a response to someone's opinion. If Matt Stoller made similar remarks in an office environment, he would almost certainly face disciplinary action. Matt Stoller obviously has some personal/professional problems if he feels the need to include derogatory remarks about Tim Lee's appearance in his response an op/ed column in the New York Times. I wonder if he would make the same comments if Tim Lee were more prominent? I bet Matt Stoller would have kept his mouth shut if someone like Paul Krugman or Thomas Friedman had written the piece.
eee_eff
· 3 years ago
I repeat: If someone can't at least see why this has an appearance of impropriety, that is deeply problematic...
Yes it is clearly problematic, and at the very least the NYT should have made it clear that the Tim B. Lee who was writing the articles was not the Tim Berners-Lee, who advocates the maintenance of net neutrality.
Incidentally, any clear thinking individual must acknowledge that TLF is a major source of noise and confusion on this Net Nuetrality debate, maintaining that they are for the status quo, for example when in fact the net is neutral right now as we speak. The TLF would like to change that, and that's fine but please stop the mis-information.
The TLF is clearly an instrument of the corporate fascists who seek to control all speech and all dissent against the system which they are promoting. Well, some of us like our First Amendment, and the rest of them too for that matter, and do not appreciate the line being pushed here, which threatens my rights.
Large Corporations are much more of a danger to our Freedoms right now in 2006 than Big government is. Many feel this way, and we will not go away, no matter how much noise and misinformation TLF continues to spout.
eee_eff
· 3 years ago
Why is our claim to non-partisanship hogwash?
Let's look at the first two names on the board of directors of the Show-Me Institute:
1. Rex Sinquefield funds the RNC to the tune of about $230,000. Not very non-partisan to me. He also channels money to right wingers disguised as Democrats here in Saint Louis, for example in Rex's war against Jeff Smith:
"It would have been another mediocre quarter without the help of Rex Sinquefield who sent $20,700 Gamarbo's direction. $600 Rex Sinquefield $600 Jeanne Sinquefield $6,500 via 13th District Legislative Committee $6,500 via 14th District Legislative Committee $6,500 via 15th District Legislative Committee Sinquefield gives lots of money to Republicans. We wrote about him back in April as one of the major funders of the Show Me Institute. According to our research, he has contributed over $230,000 to the Republican National Committee since 2002." So in a technicalsense, he is bi-partisan, in the sense that he donates to both Republican and Democratic right wing extremists.
2. R. Crosby Kemper, III,
President, United Missouri Bank is listed on the Business Advisory Council of Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies. While in a narrow technical sense it is a non-partisan organization, with members like: Hon. Robert H. Bork, Orrin G. Hatch and Kenneth Starr, it clearly is a conservative group, aligned with the extreme right causes.
And also I noticed this:
Stephen Brauer
Stephen Brauer is the Chairman and CEO of Hunter Engineering Company, which sells computer-based automotive service equipment and employs more than a thousand people. From 2001 to 2003, he served as U.S. Ambassador to Belgium...
Well, if he was Ambassador to Belgium 2001 to 2003, I'll bet he is not a Democrat.
So the Show Me Institute is clearly a conservative think tank, spouting the fake news that the corporate paymasters demand.
Tim Lee
· 3 years ago
enigma_foundry: I'm also for network neutrality. I'm just not convinced that government regulations are a good way of accomplishing that goal. So I'm for the status quo from *both* a technical perspective *and* a regulatory perspective.
As for your second comment, I think the word you're looking for is "libertarian." We've never hid the fact that this is a libertarian blog, nor has the Show-Me Institute tried to hide its libertarian leanings. And yeah, some of our board members, in their personal capacity, give money to Republican candidates. So what?
eee_eff
· 3 years ago
enigma_foundry: I'm also for network neutrality. I'm just not convinced that government regulations are a good way of accomplishing that goal. So I'm for the status quo from *both* a technical perspective *and* a regulatory perspective.,
Of course, you realize that regulation will be required to maintain net neutrality.
And let's get some facts straight: net neutrality by telephone data carriers (as opposed to cable companies) was required under the Telcomm Act of 1996, so the normal state of the internet has been to have net neutrality regulated. You say you want no regulation, but also that you'd like to maintain net neutrality. Here's stuff that has happened without net neutrality, and I would task you to explain how you would prevent this type of abuse from occurring without regulation.:
- In 2004, North Carolina ISP Madison River blocked their DSL customers from using any rival Web-based phone service.
- In 2005, Canada's telephone giant Telus blocked customers from visiting a Web site sympathetic to the Telecommunications Workers Union during a labor dispute. (Welcome to the world of CORPORATE FASCISM),
- Shaw, a big Canadian cable TV company, is charging an extra $10 a month to subscribers in order to "enhance" competing Internet telephone services.
- In April, Time Warner's AOL blocked all emails that mentioned www.dearaol.com - an advocacy campaign opposing the company's pay-to-send e-mail scheme.
This type of censorship and repression of individual liberties by large corporations will become the norm unless we act now. Given the chance, these gatekeepers will consistently put their own interests before the public good.
So there is a clear reason to preserve net neutrality, summed up by Tim Berners-Lee most eloquently:
The neutral communications medium is essential to our society. It is the basis of a fair competitive market economy. It is the basis of democracy, by which a community should decide what to do. It is the basis of science, by which humankind should decide what is true. Let us protect the neutrality of the net."
eee_eff
· 3 years ago
.... And yeah, some of our board members, in their personal capacity, give money to Republican candidates. So what?
Well, Timothy Lee it was you who had asked the question: Why is our claim to non-partisanship hogwash?
And I provided the explanation that documented the Republican leanings of those who form the board of the "Show-Me Institute."
And as to so-called Libertarianism, it is a morally defunct doctrine that would lead, were its advocates actually to attain the halls of power, to a society in which all power would be concentrated in the hands of a few large corporations. That society would be indistinguishable from the fascism by the man on the street, whose rights would be suppressed, his communities destroyed, and his environment destroyed by agents of these corporations. (But not--gasp--by Big Government that would be Evil!)
The reason for this is that present day libertarianism has backslide, and now only favors those freedoms that improve the ability of large corporations to concentrate wealth. Any other freedoms, that could, for example, lead to deconcentration of wealth, such as FOSS, are vilified (see IP Central for that) Thus their positions on tort reform limiting the rights of individuals to obtain judgments against large corporations. So present day Libertarians are just about tilting the economy, so that everything falls (surprise, surprise) into one large plate, after only those freedom which allow wealth to be concentrated are systematically expanded. I really don't want my children to live in a world where that society exists, let alone live in it.
Ned Ulbricht
· 3 years ago
Ms. Daly:
Tim Lee sent me a very nice email Saturday night. I'm afraid I only just read it a few minutes ago—that delay is my fault.
I'm sorry I got mad at you and I apologize for calling you a bully.
Tim Lee
· 3 years ago
I don't think the fact that we have some rich Republicans on our board makes us a Republican organization any more than the presence of Democrats on PK's board makes them a Democratic organization.
eee_eff
· 3 years ago
Well, since they also gave money to Gambaro, I suppose they are Democrats?
Unsure of what PK stands for.
In anycase, I happily voted for Jeff Smith...
But Tim, I am much more interested in the substance here and I don't think you've adressed the issue which is: How can I maintain individual liberty, including right to freely asscoiate, when corporations who control the interent (and we are talking about monopolies in many locations) have clearly shown, through the examples I have listed above, that they will filter or censor content ????
What's striking, I think, is that on a continent with hundreds of millions of people, those are the best examples the advocates of regulation can come up with. Maybe the larger companies will do bad things in the future, but there's no sign of them doing anything so far.
All Comments
Why aren't the telcos lobbying congress for regulation? How about airlines? The easiest way to screw the consumer and make the stockholders money, by your argument, is to get a regulatory regime imposed on the industry. Why are they failing in their fiduciary duty to the stockholders?
"This is just disgraceful. A guy named Timothy B. Lee published an Op-Ed on net neutrality reiterating the telecom positioning, and claiming that the market for broadband services is competitive. It is not. Timothy B. Lee sounds an awful lot like Tim Berners Lee, the creator of the World Wide Web and strong net neutrality proponent."
Dirty politics, Tim. Libertarians are supposed to be against fraud.
I'm not sure what your point is. Am I supposed to change my name? Not write about any Internet-related subjects?
Should we really take advice about technology from someone who doesn't understand a href ?
BTW, Tim, it's disappointing that you didn't link to Stoller's piece--I found the thread through the link in Seth Finkelstein's comment.
Seth, what fraud are you accusing Tim of?
Why is our claim to non-partisanship hogwash?
My claim isn't necessarily that regulations will benefit telecom companies overall. Rather, my claim is that political processes are negative-sum games, because they encourage rent-seeking in the form of hiring lawyers and lobbyists and because they restrict the pace of innovation by making more decisions subject to bureaucratic oversight. So my guess is that the regulatory process will hurt both the telcos and consumers, but that most of the harm will fall on consumers, who don't have effective representation in Washington.
Like I said in the op-ed, it's not like this hasn't happened before. The ICC was never an effective check on the monopoly power of railroads, but after about 1920, it did provide the railroads with protection against competition. You can see the same story in the airline industry, the cable industry, the telephone industry, the electricity industry, and many other regulatory processes. Why would network neutrality regulations be any different?
Re mike:My guess is that the Times picks the bio tagline for the columns it runs. I've written a column or two for my local paper and they don't allow me to supply titles or bios. The Show Me institute is non-partisan (I'm guessing) in the sense that it isn't a PAC or explicit subsidiary of the Republican party or a particular corporation. Obviously anybody whose self description includes
is going to be reliably more congenial to some partisan points of view than others. You do errect a nice straw man though: I haven't seen Tim assert that "The easiest way to screw the consumer and make the stockholders money ... is to get a regulatory regime imposed on the industry". I have seen him assert that regulations imposed on industry, allegedly for consumer benefit, frequently end up being tools that serve the corporations they were meant to constrain. Perhaps you are asserting that regulatory capture does not exist?
Oh, and Finkelstein makes the sort of ridiculous statement I would expect from the man who wrote Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict. Oh, wait, you're Seth, not Norman Finkelstein. Why don't you make that clear when you post? Fraud...
(For those of you not getting the humour: it isn't Tim Berners Lee, it is actually Tim Berners-Lee. Sir Tim has a hyphenated last name, so they actually have different last names! A clear case of fraud indeed...)
My experience is that people who are deeply involved in partisan politics have difficulty seeing things through anything other than a partisan lens. I would guess that's part of the reason for his assumption that you and your organization are partisan, Tim. I know you to be ideological, as am I, but not partisan.
It might be exhilarating to get such harsh criticism, but I don't see that it's particularly imporant. This is giving undue "air"-time to a person who isn't putting forward a serious, careful argument. Most importantly, this all may be a waste of TLF readers' extremely valuable eyeball-time.
I think the grown-ups on the left are willing to work together on issues of common agreement while respectfully disagreeing on other issues. Unfortunately, for others (on the left and the right) partisan rancor seems to trump all other considerations. I'm particularly disappointed at Seth's hostility, given that we agree on a lot of other technology issues.
Also, I have to disagree with your characterization of me as a "righty." While I certainly have some "righty" opinions, you'll see on my other blog that I have a considerable number of "lefty" opinions as well.
Someone along the line did that with you, and that's the reason there's an Op-Ed in the New York Times on Net Neutrality today "By TIMOTHY B. LEE".
At best, taking you at your word, you were used.
Note I'm not involved in Net Neutrality, I've stayed far away from it, for my own reasons. It just annoyed me to see Berners-Lee being sandbagged like that.
(1) Google it! By my count, 42 of the first 50 results refer to *this* Timothy B. Lee, not Tim Berners-Lee. Guess what? None of the other eight refers to Berners-Lee either.
(2) Anyone who knows enough to know who Tim Berners-Lee is knows he doesn't work for the Show-Me Institute.
(3) Tim Berners-Lee's name isn't -- and *couldn't* be -- abbreviated as Timothy B. Lee. Berners is not his middle name. Berners-Lee is a hyphenated last name. His middle name is John (per Wikipedia entry above). So the closest you could get is Tim J. Berners-Lee. How confusing!
(4) *This* Tim Lee isn't a knight!
I'll predict right now that the Times won't run any kind of clarification because absolutely none is necessary. His actual name and affiliation were enough to identify him accurately.
Speaking of Tim's picture, he does appear to have white skin ... just like Tim Berners-Lee. What's he trying to pull? Oh, Timmy, where will the deception end?!
* Tim's previous NYT editorial, which rebuts the claims that this editorial's running is part of some kind of ruse.
* Google results for "Timothy B. Lee" -- 9 of the first 10 refer to the writer of today's NYT editorial. The other refers to a different Timothy B. Lee altogether.
* Tim Berners-Lee's name could not correctly be abbreviated as Timothy B. Lee. Berners is not his middle name, it's part of a hyphenated last name. His middle name is John.
* Timothy B. Lee hasn't been knighted! (Yet?)
* Tim's picture is goofy looking. But so what?
Mike,
And if you were technically literate enough, you would have known the escape characters to put the < and > symbols around the snarky comment you made...
The problem is further complicated by the fact that Tim's previous comments in NYT on the topic are only available to paid subscribers, and the majority of readers of the OpEd pages don't spend time looking for TimBL's latest blog posts.
I'm grateful to Mr. Lee for writing to the NYT to ask for a clarification on his identity v. TimBL, though it probably won't be enough for paper readers.
There are some people who don't agree with TimBL's position who have no problem with that confusion. I'm glad Tim Lee isn't one of them.
Some relevant facts:
(1) Even Matt Stoller wasn't confused. His post wasn't about expressing shock that Tim Berners-Lee was reversing his previous position on Net neutrality. In fact, he did the little work it takes to Google "Timothy B. Lee" (9 out of the first 10 results) to ID who he is.
(2) Tim Berners-Lee doesn't go by Timothy B. Lee. It would be profoundly odd if he did so, considering that his middle name is John, not Berners. Berners-Lee is a hyphenated last name. Timothy J. Berners-Lee is the closest we could get. No reasonable reader would confuse the two.
(3) Timothy B. Lee isn't a knight.
(4) Anyone who knows enough to care about Tim Berners-Lee's opinion knows he doesn't work at the Show-Me Institute.
(5) Nothing in Timothy B. Lee's bio at the Show-Me Institute site identifies him as the founder of the World Wide Web. Nothing in his tag line for the NYT editorial suggested as much.
(6) There was no impropriety. There was no appearance of impropriety. Tim was appropriately identified, and there is no need for a clarification. Period. I would be very surprised if the Times runs one.
It's true that a search at the NYT site gives you a protected link, though most reporters have access to Lexis and can access the article that way.
How did I get the link above? By Googling the words below:
sir tim-berners lee new york times
It scares me to think that the reporters covering Net neutrality don't even know how to use Google.
It's true that a search at the NYT site gives you a protected link, though most reporters have access to Lexis and can access the article that way.
How did I get the link above? By Googling the words below:
sir tim-berners lee new york times
It scares me to think that the reporters covering Net neutrality don't even know how to use Google.
The fact that Tim is considerate enough to request that NYT run a totally unnecessary clarification just shows what a class act he is considering the idiotic, unfair abuse (excluding Ms. Daly's polite comments, of course) he's received just for writing under his own name.
Technorati searches track tags applied to blog posts. As I understand from Tantek, they don't track phone traffic or emails (yet).
I agree that it is a shame that people aren't paying closer attention and confuse Tim B. Lee with Tim Berners-Lee.
Frankly, I was surprised that NYT didn't provide a pre-emptive clarification, given the topic and the significant potential for name confusion. I think (and have suggested) that they include in the small bio that "Mr. Lee is not to be confused with Tim Berners-Lee, Web inventor and director of the W3C."
I think that there are actually lightweight and simple solutions for minimizing confusion, and they have a lot to do with the content and context of a situation. In some cases, they can even be dealt with humorously. And even if this experience doesn't make the folks who call me more mindful, it will help Mr. Lee prevent similar problems from recurring.
"(not evidenced by a Technorati search, incidentally) ..."
Well, many people don't consider Nick Douglas, who writes Valleywag, to be a reasonable person, but he is reasonably read:
"That's so old media
Photo of NickDouglas 4 hours ago in Valleywag, Silicon Valley's Tech Gossip Rag by NickDouglas �÷ 2,156 blogs link here
That's so old media [ Railroad illo - Valleywag] Who commissions an op/ed about Net Neutrality from the inventor of the web from a man who ... metaphor? The New York Times, which today published a piece by Tim Berners-Lee doing just that. "
(I alerted him to the ringerness in a comment, and he's corrected it now)
"Rank: 211 (8,483 links from 2,161 blogs)"
Honor would indicate a retraction, Kevin.
And again, his comment betrays a misunderstanding of how the editorial submission process works. I'm quite sure NYT didn't *make* or even *suggest* Tim write his editorial a certain way and that the idea -- whatever its merits or demerits -- was all his own.
Is that better? It's lazy to use the terms interchangeably. Sorry about that.
I suspect Stoller is realizing how much of an ass he's been. Hopefully he'll be man enough to apologize.
My own opinion on Net Neutrality is somewhat closer to Tim's than to Stoller's. (The best thinking I've seen on the subject comes, not surprisingly, from Ed Felten - http://itpolicy.princeton.edu/pub/neutrality.pdf). HOWEVER, in somewhat cynical fashion, I've been calling my Senators over the past couple of days asking them to vote against cloture on the Stevens bill, and I've mentioned the lack of a New Neutrality provision as a reason. Why am I doing this, when I don't really support codifying Net Neutrality into law? Because I don't want the Stevens bill, with its loathsome Broadcast Flag and Audio Flag provisions, to pass, and I think Senators (especially Democratic Senators, which mine are) are more likely to sit up and listen to constituent arguments about Net Neutrality than arguments about Fair Use and the freedom to tinker. Sad, but true.
Much better! And I won't begrudge you for using the momentum of a misguided populist movement to accomplish a worthwhile goal.
Ms. Daly, imho, you are an exceedingly polite bully.
Seth, I'm ashamed of you.
Kevin, I think it's absolutely unreasonable to expect Tim Lee to go around explaining that he is not Berners-Lee everytime he writes on network subjects. If Mr. Berners-Lee is worried about confusion—he can afford to purchase a paid advertisement in the New York Times explaining that he isn't Tim B. Lee.
P.S. Tim, this doesn't mean I agree with you on net neutrality.
But, like Matt, I was pretty damned shocked to see it run. (I live in NYC and read the NYT daily.) It was just so completely at odds with the facts, especially with the base premise that the internet has ever been unregulated or that there is any suggestion from anybody that it be unregulated, that I was upset that it ran. It just shows how abstruse this issue is, I guess. But, sheesh, couldn't Gail have asked someone who knows about this stuff about the piece? I mean, other than Mike McCurry.
I'm neither exceptionally polite, nor a bully. But perhaps I can be more clear.
I asked Tim Lee for his help, given the queries I was receiving from the general public, from developers, and reporters. When I explained the misattribution problem, he not only understood, he agreed to help with a letter to the editor he worked with, as well as the ones I know.
Part of my goal was to curb the misattribution of authorship. But another part - especially my decision to post here - was to contribute to stopping misattribution of motive. It's been rampant and unfair. I hoped that the public recognition of his voluntary action might stop the accusations.
You've got my email address and my phone numbers as a result of the private email you sent. I'm happy to continue the conversation with you via email or by phone.
Ms. Daly:
You are protecting the Timothy Berners-Lee brand name. "Sir Tim" is a valuable property. I can sympathize with your endeavor.
I sincerely appreciate that you have not yet abused the courts with some baseless and frivolous lawsuit—like so many other rights-holders have over the past several years. Thank you for
explaining your position.
If Tim B. Lee wishes, out of kindness and graciousness, to burden his political speech by attaching some disclaimer to his own name, then
that is his affair. And I apologize to him if I may have abused the hospitality of his forum by exchanging harsh words with you here.
But it is manifestly unfair to oblige him to speak or write in furtherance of your goals under
these circumstances. You have no right to compell him to carry your speech at his cost.
Matt Stoller needs to grow up. It's seriously unprofessional to make comments about Tim Lee's appearance, but it's especially inappropriate in the context of a response to someone's opinion. If Matt Stoller made similar remarks in an office environment, he would almost certainly face disciplinary action. Matt Stoller obviously has some personal/professional problems if he feels the need to include derogatory remarks about Tim Lee's appearance in his response an op/ed column in the New York Times. I wonder if he would make the same comments if Tim Lee were more prominent? I bet Matt Stoller would have kept his mouth shut if someone like Paul Krugman or Thomas Friedman had written the piece.
Yes it is clearly problematic, and at the very least the NYT should have made it clear that the Tim B. Lee who was writing the articles was not the Tim Berners-Lee, who advocates the maintenance of net neutrality.
Incidentally, any clear thinking individual must acknowledge that TLF is a major source of noise and confusion on this Net Nuetrality debate, maintaining that they are for the status quo, for example when in fact the net is neutral right now as we speak. The TLF would like to change that, and that's fine but please stop the mis-information.
The TLF is clearly an instrument of the corporate fascists who seek to control all speech and all dissent against the system which they are promoting. Well, some of us like our First Amendment, and the rest of them too for that matter, and do not appreciate the line being pushed here, which threatens my rights.
Large Corporations are much more of a danger to our Freedoms right now in 2006 than Big government is. Many feel this way, and we will not go away, no matter how much noise and misinformation TLF continues to spout.
Let's look at the first two names on the board of directors of the Show-Me Institute:
1. Rex Sinquefield funds the RNC to the tune of about $230,000. Not very non-partisan to me. He also channels money to right wingers disguised as Democrats here in Saint Louis, for example in Rex's war against Jeff Smith:
http://www.archcitychronicle.com/archives/00178...
"It would have been another mediocre quarter without the help of Rex Sinquefield who sent $20,700 Gamarbo's direction.
$600 Rex Sinquefield
$600 Jeanne Sinquefield
$6,500 via 13th District Legislative Committee
$6,500 via 14th District Legislative Committee
$6,500 via 15th District Legislative Committee
Sinquefield gives lots of money to Republicans.
We wrote about him back in April as one of the major funders of the Show Me Institute. According to our research, he has contributed over $230,000 to the Republican National Committee since 2002." So in a technicalsense, he is bi-partisan, in the sense that he donates to both Republican and Democratic right wing extremists.
2. R. Crosby Kemper, III,
President, United Missouri Bank is listed on the Business Advisory Council of Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies. While in a narrow technical sense it is a non-partisan organization, with members like: Hon. Robert H. Bork, Orrin G. Hatch and Kenneth Starr, it clearly is a conservative group, aligned with the extreme right causes.
And also I noticed this:
Stephen Brauer
Stephen Brauer is the Chairman and CEO of Hunter Engineering Company, which sells computer-based automotive service equipment and employs more than a thousand people. From 2001 to 2003, he served as U.S. Ambassador to Belgium...
Well, if he was Ambassador to Belgium 2001 to 2003, I'll bet he is not a Democrat.
So the Show Me Institute is clearly a conservative think tank, spouting the fake news that the corporate paymasters demand.
As for your second comment, I think the word you're looking for is "libertarian." We've never hid the fact that this is a libertarian blog, nor has the Show-Me Institute tried to hide its libertarian leanings. And yeah, some of our board members, in their personal capacity, give money to Republican candidates. So what?
Of course, you realize that regulation will be required to maintain net neutrality.
And let's get some facts straight: net neutrality by telephone data carriers (as opposed to cable companies) was required under the Telcomm Act of 1996, so the normal state of the internet has been to have net neutrality regulated. You say you want no regulation, but also that you'd like to maintain net neutrality. Here's stuff that has happened without net neutrality, and I would task you to explain how you would prevent this type of abuse from occurring without regulation.:
- In 2004, North Carolina ISP Madison River blocked their DSL customers from using any rival Web-based phone service.
- In 2005, Canada's telephone giant Telus blocked customers from visiting a Web site sympathetic to the Telecommunications Workers Union during a labor dispute. (Welcome to the world of CORPORATE FASCISM),
- Shaw, a big Canadian cable TV company, is charging an extra $10 a month to subscribers in order to "enhance" competing Internet telephone services.
- In April, Time Warner's AOL blocked all emails that mentioned www.dearaol.com - an advocacy campaign opposing the company's pay-to-send e-mail scheme.
This type of censorship and repression of individual liberties by large corporations will become the norm unless we act now. Given the chance, these gatekeepers will consistently put their own interests before the public good.
So there is a clear reason to preserve net neutrality, summed up by Tim Berners-Lee most eloquently:
The neutral communications medium is essential to our society. It is the basis of a fair competitive market economy. It is the basis of democracy, by which a community should decide what to do. It is the basis of science, by which humankind should decide what is true. Let us protect the neutrality of the net."
Well, Timothy Lee it was you who had asked the question: Why is our claim to non-partisanship hogwash?
And I provided the explanation that documented the Republican leanings of those who form the board of the "Show-Me Institute."
And as to so-called Libertarianism, it is a morally defunct doctrine that would lead, were its advocates actually to attain the halls of power, to a society in which all power would be concentrated in the hands of a few large corporations. That society would be indistinguishable from the fascism by the man on the street, whose rights would be suppressed, his communities destroyed, and his environment destroyed by agents of these corporations. (But not--gasp--by Big Government that would be Evil!)
The reason for this is that present day libertarianism has backslide, and now only favors those freedoms that improve the ability of large corporations to concentrate wealth. Any other freedoms, that could, for example, lead to deconcentration of wealth, such as FOSS, are vilified (see IP Central for that) Thus their positions on tort reform limiting the rights of individuals to obtain judgments against large corporations. So present day Libertarians are just about tilting the economy, so that everything falls (surprise, surprise) into one large plate, after only those freedom which allow wealth to be concentrated are systematically expanded. I really don't want my children to live in a world where that society exists, let alone live in it.
Ms. Daly:
Tim Lee sent me a very nice email Saturday night. I'm afraid I only just read it a few minutes ago—that delay is my fault.
I'm sorry I got mad at you and I apologize for calling you a bully.
Unsure of what PK stands for.
In anycase, I happily voted for Jeff Smith...
But Tim, I am much more interested in the substance here and I don't think you've adressed the issue which is: How can I maintain individual liberty, including right to freely asscoiate, when corporations who control the interent (and we are talking about monopolies in many locations) have clearly shown, through the examples I have listed above, that they will filter or censor content ????
Answer???
http://www.techliberation.com/archives/036617.php
What's striking, I think, is that on a continent with hundreds of millions of people, those are the best examples the advocates of regulation can come up with. Maybe the larger companies will do bad things in the future, but there's no sign of them doing anything so far.