Public websites public utilities?


The FTC has determined that it can control content on public web sites.

I say Keep Your Freakin' Hands Off, you damn dirty FedGovs.
Damn.

Isn't this a kick in the head.

Arlington, Virginia—The Federal Trade Commission today said that a popular real estate website was de facto public property, and that Commission lawyers could suppress the First Amendment rights of the site’s owners and dictate future content. Under a proposed order against the Austin Board of Realtors (ABOR), the group’s Austinhomesearch.com website will be subject to FTC controls for at least ten years.

The FTC said that ABOR violated the antitrust laws by disallowing “Exclusive Agency Listings” from the group’s website. Under an Exclusive Agency Listing, a property owner pays a broker an upfront fee to serve as his exclusive agent, but the owner may also sell his property without the agent’s assistance, in which case the agent receives a reduced or no commission. ABOR’s policy only allowed Exclusive Right to Sell listings on its website. These listings give an agent the exclusive right to sell a property and receive a commission within a specified period.

“ABOR’s Web site rules create significant roadblocks for real estate brokers to offer consumers alternatives to full-service brokerage agreements,” said Jeffrey Schmidt, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Competition. “By its law enforcement action today, the Commission is not saying that one form of brokerage agreement is better than another. We are saying that the consumer should be able to decide.”

But in fact, the FTC’s action was predicated on the view that operators of a “public web site” have no right to control the content of their sites. Exclusive agency listings could still be published on non-ABOR websites, but the FTC said that ABOR has a legal duty to publish all listings.

For the record, a public website is not a public utility.

For example, for this site I paid for the domain name, I pay the hosting fees, and I control the editorial content.

Imagine the consequences here. Under this rule, the FTC can take over the content of CNN and other news sites. It can require rewriting of history websites for political correctness. The copyright system could very well collapse.

And I am going to use this opportunity to say that the Federal Trade Commission is overreaching it's authority, and if it tries to implement this little power grab, two things will happen. First, the FTC will be totally snowed under trying to control and approve content.

And second, they will create an underground black market in web information and countermeasures. That is not a threat, that is an expert opinion.

The second is far more dangerous to the government than the first. The FedGovs can't afford groups of loosely allied and highly motivated computer experts dedicated to ripping the government computer infrastructure to shreds. Give them a big enough target and they will reduce it to random electrons.

KYFHO.

Hat tip to Sunni Marvillosa.

— NeoWayland

Posted: Tue - July 18, 2006 at 08:54 AM  Tag


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