Text Message Petition Blog Entries

Today’s NYT has this op ed on Obama’s use of text messaging to announce his VP pick. It provides a nice reminder about the importance of the pending Petition by PK and others on text messaging. Not that Verizon or any other provider would be so foolish as to deny the Obama or McCain campaigns short codes or block their messages. I’m not even worried about independent candidates like Barr and Nader. No, I’m worried about us ordinary schlubs or unpopular folks who can’t count on getting a front page story on the NYT if something happens.

To quickly review the NARAL flap that prompted the filing of the Petition.

Girl Talk a.k.a. Pittsburgh-based mashup artist Greg Gillis, has been making waves in both the electronic/dance and indie rock communities for a few years now. Specializing in sample-based DJ mixes, Gillis creates music that is dense, tirelessly referential and thoroughly postmodern. His breakthrough album, 2006's Night Ripper, proved that a well-executed mashup can have a life beyond the Internet and his latest release, the pay-what-you-want, Creative Commons licensed Feed the Animals, seems poised to push even further into the mainstream. Gillis has become quite the hot topic as of late and his name often pops up in the virtual pages of publications like Pitchfork and Stereogum, as DJs in clubs around the country shamelessly try to imitate his style. One place where you might not expect to hear Gillis mentioned, however, is in the corridors of power on Capitol Hill. Despite this fact, not only did Gillis' name pop up twice this week during Congressional and FCC hearings but on both occasions he was held up as exemplifying a new breed of creative professional. Welcome to yet another week in the increasingly scattershot world of D.C. tech policy.

Following the lead taken in Alex’s blog post yesterday, I’m going to address some FUD which is making the rounds about text messaging and spam. This weekend, the New York Times ran an article talking about cell phone spam. Spam – or rather, the threat of spam – is a key argument used by the carriers who oppose our petition asking the FCC to clarify that carriers may not discriminate in providing text messaging services. But don’t be fooled – the FUD thrown around in this article is irrelevant to the issues raised in the petition.

Maybe the FCC can handle the truth.

A couple of days ago, we asked the question whether the Federal Communications Commission was up for confronting the reality of Comcast’s blocking and throttling of peer-to-peer traffic and, if so, what the Commission would do about it.

Just as Jack Nicholson’s character, Col. Nathan Jessep, was arrested at the end of the movie, “A Few Good Men” after telling Tom Cruise’s character Lt. Daniel Kaffee the truth, it looks as if the Commission is preparing to take some action against Comcast.

FCC Chairman Kevin Martin made his announcement in dramatic fashion at a Senate Commerce Committee hearing. He wasn’t on the original agenda to testify. Martin’s staff contacted the Committee the afternoon before the April 22 hearing and asked if he could testify. Martin wanted to a big forum for a big announcement, and he made the most of it.

I have a nifty little service I buy from my telephone provider called “teleblock.” It blocks calls originiating from certain types of phone calls unless I affirmatively allow them. Thanks to this nifty service, I am once again able to sleep late on Sundays.

I bring this up because if there is a common carriage service left in the telecom world, it’s plain old telephone service (POTS). My POTS landline is absolutely regulated as a “Title II” common carrier telephone service. But despite being a common carrier Title II telecom service, my POTS provider can offer me a very useful tool for limiting annoying calls.

You may recall that last month we filed comments in the FCC’s proceeding on our text messaging petition. We were joined by numerous other parties, including the American Civil Liberties Union, Rebtel, Congressmen, and over 200 concerned individuals. On the other side of the debate, a number of the carriers weighed in as well. The carriers’ main arguments? That the problem is solved, and that consumers are actually better off when the carriers get to decide who speaks and who doesn’t over text messages. Yesterday, we filed reply comments addressing these arguments, and making it clear to the FCC that the problem has not been solved, and that it is unacceptable to have mobile carriers act as editors passing judgment on the content of text messages.

This Monday, April 14, is the deadline for submitting reply comments to the FCC on the issue of whether wireless phone companies should be able to block text messages based on their source or content. Several months ago, Public Knowledge, Free Press and a number of other organizations filed a petition asking the FCC to declare such practices to be illegal. The petition arose out of two incidents involving wireless companies: 1) Verizon refused to give a “short code” to the National Abortion Rights Action League to disseminate an action alert text message its members asked to receive, but which Verizon determined to be too controversial; and 2) Verizon, T-Mobile and Alltell refused to carry the text messages of competitive Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) providers.

The fight to keep speech free in text messaging continued last week, when Public Knowledge and all of the original parties filed comments with the FCC, repeating our message to the Commission that text messaging must be protected. In those comments, we drove home the point that because text messaging and short codes are offered to the public at large, they are common carrier services subject to nondiscrimination, and further developed the policy reasons that text messaging needs to remain a free communications medium.

Next up in our campaign for open phones and an open Internet is the Public Knowledge-Free Press petition that seeks to ensure that wireless phone companies do not block your text messages. Here are the facts: Verizon wireless blocked its customers from receiving NARAL Pro-Choice America action alert text messages – messages that Verizon customers had asked to receive - because it deemed those messages to be too controversial. While Verizon reversed its decision in the NARAL case, the company still maintains that it can decide who their customers can communicate with. And although Verizon promised Congress that it would develop a new text message policy some five months ago, we have yet to see it.

Congress came back to town this week from its winter holiday break, and even though the economy, the war, the environment and the election will take center stage over the next year, Public Knowledge will have its hands full with a variety of technology, communications, copyright and patent matters. Here is a rundown of the specific issues that are likely to be addressed in 2008, in Congress and at the agencies with which PK works: