Intellectual Property Law

Eric Schmidt: Open Broadband to Competition

By Cynthia Brumfield

(Washington, DC) Riding high on his visible role as an adviser to the Obama campaign, Google CEO Eric Schmidt spoke to a packed auditorium in the Ronald Reagan Center here today at an event sponsored by the New America Foundation. During his talk, Schmidt addressed two core topics -- energy policy and technology development -- but his basic theme was that the government needs to inject innovation into both crucial areas.

"You never know where innovation will come from," he said, as he stressed the need to open up decision-making to the wisdom of the crowd. "A community makes a better decision than an individual," Schmidt said, adding that "open systems have this very clear promise of constant innovation and choice."

Schmidt repeatedly stressed that the government needs to take a bigger role in fostering innovation, particularly through increased spending on R & D. Decrying the decline in federal budget R & D expenditures during the Bush administration ("as if we don't care"), Schmidt said that "most of the interesting innovation...has taken place in universities" operating under federal grants. Obama's proposal to double R & D is therefore "long overdue," he said.

Extending visas for visiting scientists is another policy goal that should boost America's innovation, Schmidt said. "I've not had someone explain to me in a rational way why we don't want the best and brightest coming to this country. It's bizarre, it's disgusting."

Energy policy was the unexpected dominant theme of Schmidt's talk. "We're at one of those points where we have to get this right," he said. He ran through a variety of proposals, from mounting new wind and solar energy initiatives to giving utilities matching funds for clean energy projects they've already mounted to holding constant the per capita consumption of energy for twenty years. Not only do these programs promise to solve our energy problems, but they're also jobs programs that could ameliorate our unemployment issues.

In terms of Internet and communications technology, Schmidt highlighted lack of competition in broadband service as a key problem the government should solve. "We have no competition in these markets. We have one or two [providers in a given area] when we should have four or five."

He applauded the FCC's recent decision to open up the unused TV broadcast spectrum known as white spaces for new communications development, an outcome largely driven by Google itself, but suggested that the government could do even more. We can make "even more effective use of the spectrum" in spurring broadband competition.

Schmidt touched upon the presidential campaign, saying that the "Internet was the big winner in 2008." The wisdom of the crowd played a big role in changing the campaigns because bloggers and other "people who have a lot of time on their hands" kept candidates honest, nipping falsehoods in the bud. Going forward, candidates will have a hard time fostering inaccurate perceptions because "that kind of engagement is a permanent thing in our political system."

Google continues to play a key role in helping the upcoming Obama administration. President-elect Obama's decision to make his weekly addresses available in video via Google-owned YouTube was revolutionary. But, Schmidt said, the real impact of this development is that people are now debating what Obama said in the comments section of YouTube, enhancing even further the notion of engagement in the political process.

During Q and A, Schmidt was confronted by a representative of Consumer Watchdog, who chastised the CEO for failing to answer a letter that the group had sent seeking privacy protections from the online giant and for failing to set up a meeting to discuss the group's concern ("this is not the way to schedule a meeting with me," Schmidt said, stirring laughter in the audience.) Consumer Watchdog has apparently proposed a number of technical safeguards to guarantee user privacy, some of which Google won't adopt because it "makes things slower" Schmidt said.

Full post as published by IP Democracy on November 18, 2008 (boomark / email).