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What do they see on the internet?
A Barack Obama presidency would bode well for Google. A John McCain victory would be good for AT&T.
- By Christopher Stern
- Published: 00:04 July 21, 2008
A Barack Obama presidency would bode well for Google. A John McCain victory would be good for AT&T.
That's because the two senators approach regulation in the information age from fundamentally different perspectives.
Obama, who clinched the Democratic nomination with an internet-savvy campaign, wants the government to take an active role in wielding the web as a weapon against poverty and rural isolation, an approach that could benefit Google.
McCain sees the internet mainly as a business and trusts market forces to foster innovation for society's benefit. It's the same tack he has taken in Congress, advocating a hands-off approach to telephone-industry mergers that created the new AT&T.
"McCain is a traditional, market-oriented conservative, and Obama is more comfortable with government intervention in the marketplace to promote competition," says Andrew Jay Schwartzman, president of the Media Access Project, a public-interest law firm in Washington.
That same philosophical divide - Obama favouring rules aimed at curing society's ills, McCain seeing government as more hindrance than help - is borne out on other Information Age fronts, ranging from media mergers to the digitisation of medical records.
Their differences also are reflected in their personal use of technology: Obama, 46, is often seen pecking away at his Blackberry. McCain, 71, jokingly describes himself as computer "illiterate."
Merger problems
Obama last year criticised the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for smoothing the process for media companies to combine. He said the FCC's ruling would make it harder for blacks and Hispanics to become owners and co-sponsored Senate legislation seeking to block the decision.
McCain often has complained that the commission slows down proposed mergers. In 2003, he voted against a bill that would have tightened media-ownership rules. He also introduced a measure to limit the commission's authority to review telecommunications takeovers.
Before he was a presidential candidate, Obama co-sponsored legislation that would bar cable and telephone companies, including AT&T, from using ownership of internet connections to sell owners of sites such as Yahoo premium service on their network.
Without such 'network-neutrality rules' - which ensure that networks can't be used to give preferential treatment to one company over another - Obama says the free flow of information on the internet is threatened.
The companies argue that they should be able to charge different customers differently to justify their investments to build and maintain their networks. McCain, has criticised government intervention as premature and potential micromanagement.
Obama has proposed a new position of chief technology officer for the federal government. The Illinois Democrat outlined other items on what he called his 'Innovation Agenda' during a talk with Google employees in November.
One plan would use about $5 billion in subsidies to provide rural and low-income households with high-speed internet access. He says the money would come from a decades-old program that now pays for regular voice service for those same homes.
Broadband access
Every American should have broadband access, "no matter where you live or how much money you have," Obama said at Google's Mountain View, California, headquarters. Such a shift in subsidies would directly boost Google and other internet-service companies by increasing their potential pool of customers.
McCain is a longtime critic of the telephone subsidy, which he has called a "breeding ground for waste, corruption and grossly inefficient spending." The candidates' different views are a reflection of the people who surround them.
McCain's campaign manager, Rick Davis, is a former lobbyist whose clients included BellSouth and SBC Communications before they became part of AT&T, as well as Verizon Communications. Charlie Black, a senior McCain adviser, is another former lobbyist and had AT&T as a client.
McCain also is being counselled on policy issues by Michael Powell, a former FCC chairman who led the agency's efforts to deregulate local telephone companies.
"He is by no means easily labelled pro-corporate, having taken strong positions in favour of protecting consumers," Powell says. He points to McCain's support of the 'Do Not Call' registry, which allows consumers to block telemarketing calls, and tax incentives that help minorities and women buy TV and radio stations.
One of Obama's advisers is Andrew McLaughlin, Google's director of public policy and government affairs. In 2007, McLaughlin was a registered lobbyist for Google. Obama also gets advice from two former FCC chairmen, Reed Hundt and William Kennard.
After almost eight years of a generally favourable regulatory environment, the telecom industry would face significant change with an Obama administration, says Schwartzman. "They are right to be anxious," he says.
- Bloomberg
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