The FTC wants to control and limit the internet

We read:

"Since the early days of the Bush regime, the FTC has been ratcheting up its attacks on the Internet and technology sectors. I spent years documenting the FTC’s litigation against Rambus — a case that, despite its superficial ties to intellectual property, was really about allowing the FTC to control industry standards — and while that case ended in a defeat, it only proved to be a temporary setback for the Commission.

More recently, the FTC scored a major victory when the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the Commission’s decision to seize a privately owned real estate listings database. The FTC said it was “unfair” that database access was restricted to the brokers who paid for its development and maintenance. This set an important precedent: The FTC can declare any “popular” online service a public utility, and thus alter the rules by which the company — and ultimately the public — can access that service

Antitrust cases are first and foremost about enriching the antitrust community. But we shouldn’t ignore the ideological component of all this. Since taking over the FTC, Jon Leibowitz has made it clear that his biggest policy objective is ending the “free” Internet.

There are a variety of reasons for this: Free websites are supported by advertising, the FTC’s historical archenemy; online news and commentary has destroyed the market for traditional, government-centered media (including the Washington Post, which employs Leibowitz’s wife); the decentralized exchange of information makes it harder for government agencies to monitor and control the public’s behavior; and, of course, the general paranoia that somehow children are being harmed.

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