My post below on the impact of Chairman Markey's draft Internet disability access legislation quickly struck a cord with a few readers. They agree on the video part that I focused on, but are focusing their worries on possible near-term impact on instant messaging. The essence of their collective perspectives is that the potential mandates placed on IM could have the ironic impact of hindering an extremely popular tool of the disabled community.
A few of their points:
--The legislation would require the FCC to regulate IM and make it interoperate across all services and platforms, including old-school telephones on old-school networks.
--The bill creates massive annual reporting obligations on IM providers and forces them to contribute to the FCC's Telecommunications Relay Fund.
--It would force IM applications to transmit real-time text. This means that my IM contacts will see me write a word one letter at a time and then watch as I delete, re-enter a word, change my thought and then ultimately quit trying to come up with a pithy thought. Does the FCC really need to mandate this window into my soul?
It's so nice to have you do all of the research for us. It makes our decision making so much easier!! Thanks.
Posted by: MBT Shoes | July 15, 2011 at 01:48 AM
Good stuff you have here, I was going to mention this to a good friend of mine.
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Posted by: Divine | October 16, 2012 at 03:48 AM
I think some sort of independent facsil policy is a fundamentally anti-democratic idea. Mmm, but note that the economists are not calling for that. They propose that an independent expert panel should be established to provide regular public advice to the Government on its facsil policy stance So it would only be advisory in nature.One caveat I would suggest is that such a body should be fully transparent, with its advice made public. Technocratic worthies have hardly distinguished themselves over the last little while As distinct from the politicians? I find it interesting that on some issues, such as climate change, people at LP would be more than happy to do exactly whatever the technocrats say (climate scientists in this case). But then why the different attitude to other species of technocrat?
Posted by: Azis | October 19, 2012 at 03:28 AM