IP Democracy: FCC to Probe P2P Complaint. What Does This Mean?

FCC Chairman Kevin Martin made a bit of news at CES today by saying the Commission will investigate a complaint filed at the agency last fall regarding Comcast's policies to interfere with its customers' ability to upload files via P2P technology. Here's what Martin said when asked by the Consumer Electronics Association's CEO Gary Shapiro if the agency plans to investigate the complaint: "Sure, we're going to investigate and make sure that no consumer is going to be blocked."

He also added: "The question is going to arise: Are they reasonable network practices?" When they have reasonable network practices, they should disclose those and make those public."

I ask you: what else could the chief regulator of the U.S. communications industry say when asked if his agency would investigate a complaint on this hot potato issue? Martin couldn't very well have said that the FCC wouldn't investigate the allegations. Particularly if he were sitting on stage at one of the world's biggest trade shows, with thousands of reporters physically or electronically present.

So, it's hard to get too worked about this "probe" because Martin had no choice but to say the Commission would investigate. The whole investigation might end up a charade, or a half-hearted effort, but not because Kevin Martin wants to cater to a big corporate interest.

The FCC chief's enmity toward the cable industry is widely known and I suspect that if he could, Martin would torch Comcast on any issue he could...except this one. A legitimate, resource-intensive examination of how Comcast manages P2P could suck the FCC into a thicket of thorny issues, including whether the Internet should be regulated, whether broadband providers -- not just cable operators -- should face sanctions for complex network management practices and to what extent unhampered use of the Internet outweighs operators' rights to exploit their networks as they see fit.

That kind of messy investigation would be a headache for the FCC, which, under free market Republican Martin, isn't ideologically inclined to intervene on much of anything anyway (except on pet projects such as indecency and cable a la carte). Further fueling skepticism that the Commission will engage in a tough investigation is the fact that Hollywood wants broadband providers to interfere with P2P applications.

Still, Martin's public commitment to investigating the complaint is an opening for consumer advocates to garner more attention for the issue. Public Knowledge, one of the public interest groups behind the complaint against Comcast, said in a statement that it

is pleased to see that the Chairman and the Commission are willing to stand by their principles to protect American consumers. We look forward to FCC proceedings that will set determine what are legitimate uses of power by telecom companies, and which are not.

Media advocacy group Free Press, which also participated in the complaint, echoed this sentiment.

We are encouraged by the Chairman's statements today about investigating Comcast's blocking of peer-to-peer traffic. We hope the Chairman's statements, made two months after we filed our complaint, will lead to immediate and accelerated action at the FCC on the critical issue of whether Comcast, AT&T and other Internet service providers can block the services people want to use. The FCC must stop these would-be gatekeepers and fine companies that censor the free flow of information.

Posted by Cynthia Brumfield on January 8, 2008 10:46 PM to IP Democracy