Major technology fights in Washington will continue in 2012

Online piracy. Online privacy. Open Internet. Consolidation. All of these were hotly debated in Washington this past year, and not one of them was laid to rest. Pundits expect the fights to resume in 2012 – in every branch of government.

For instance, Hillicon Valley, The Hill’s technology blog predicts:

The Stop Online Piracy Act, SOPA, quietly died in Congress this year, but the titanic battle between content creators and the Internet industry will pick up again. The stakes for the billions of dollars worth of written, photographic and video content are too high. The fight pits strange bedfellows such as the arts unions, the Chamber of Commerce and television against giants like Google and Facebook.

Although the Democrats in Congress managed to forestall a Republican attempt to overturn Open Internet protections, which, “approved by the FCC in 2010, prohibit Internet service providers from slowing down or blocking access to legitimate websites.” But a Verizon federal lawsuit might succeed where legislative pressure failed. This is the same Supreme Court that ruled against Open Internet when the FCC tried to apply it to Comcast.

And LightSquared, a multi-billion dollar startup which is trying to build from scratch an open wireless broadband network, has run into political trouble. Although principal investor Philip Falcone Chairman is a registered Republican, congressional Republicans have targeted the company as the recipient of White House favoritism, and Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA) is blocking FCC nominees unless the White House releases all its documents on the company. Expect this fight to continue unabated next year.

One particular controversy that seems over is, of course, the AT&T/T-Mobile merger. But with T-Mobile on the ropes and other companies looking to buy it and other properties, expect a lively 2012 at the Federal Trade Commission and in Congress.

Tech policy preview of 2012 (The Hill, Dec. 18, 2011)
http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/200101-tech-policy-preview-of-2012