Evidence and economic theory suggests that control of the Internet by the phone and cable companies would lead to blocking of competing technologies.

In 1984, the Federal Trade Commission released a report that explained why taxis could charge customers exorbitant prices for dismal service. The simple reason, according to the 176-page study: lack of competition in the market. The culprit: local governments.

Almost 85 percent of the Latin American market is subject to net neutrality rules, and the European Parliament already favors strong ones.

The iPhone will forever be associated with the inventive genius of Steve Jobs and Silicon Valley. But the roots of innovation can be traced back - from one genius to another, at least - back to the genius who put the phone in iPhone: Alexander Graham Bell.

The first devices to record and play back music were the phonograph and the gramophone. The gramophone's inventor: Alexander Graham Bell.

I'm all in favor of the FTC investigating companies when it believes there is proper cause to do so. An investigation, however, can lead to political pressure to bring a case, even if such a case is unwarranted.

If a company is not a monopoly, then the law assumes market competition can restrain the company's actions. No problem. If a monopoly exists, but the monopoly does not engage in acts designed to destroy competition, then we can assume that it earned and is keeping its monopoly the pro-consumer way: by out-innovating its competitors.

Google's competitors fail to demonstrate that Google's actions stifle competition rather than reflect pro-consumer innovations.

Google's competitors argue that Google designs its search display to promote Google 'products' like Google Maps, Google Places, and Google Shopping, ahead of competitors like MapQuest, Yelp, and product-search sites.

Anyone unhappy with Google can use other search engines - including DuckDuckGo and Blekko, along with Bing or Yahoo.

Google pays advertisers based not just on payment per click but also by number of clicks. The interplay between the two sets the prices, so a government-regulated price for 'equal access' might be difficult to set.

Companies like Pinterest and Twitter did not become sensations because of Google search but because of the many ways users find out about great sites.

Much of my work strikes me as pretty unified: as a lawyer, working in several areas, I have thought about how to promote freedom of speech broadly for everyone.

I find personalized search convenient - I read stories on my Facebook feed, my Twitter feed, daily email services, and my iPhone's Flipboard app, and would love to be able to focus my searches on just those particular services.

Facebook refuses to let Google index or display content from its site. Facebook has partnered with Bing to make its results more social. Is Facebook acting to leverage its dominance in social towards a dominance in search?

News seems to travel far more quickly on Twitter and Facebook than through search.

I discover real-time news far more often on Facebook than on Google News or a regular Google search.

By definition, the Singularity means that machines would be smarter than us, and, in their wisdom, they can innovate new technologies. The innovations would come so quickly, and increasingly quickly, that the innovation would make Moore's Law seem as antiquated as Hammurabi's Code.

'Negative liberty' is a political science term meaning a liberty from government action. It is not a liberty to anything - like the liberty to meaningfully contribute to public debate or to have ample spaces for speech.

Any 'network neutrality' rule should be designed to forbid phone or cable companies from controlling the Internet.

A network neutrality rule could result in mere 'slaps on the wrist' or involve such expensive and difficult litigation procedures that no small company or consumer could ever bring a case.

Net neutrality is the right thing for our democracy, economy, and global competitiveness. And Americans support an open Internet.

Liability limit has become a symbol of corporate greed in passing the risk of disaster to the U.S. government and U.S. citizens.

The FCC banned throttling for good reason, namely that Internet service providers should not bias their networks toward some applications or classes of applications. Biasing the network interferes with user choice, innovation, decisions of application makers, and the competitive marketplace.

The user, not the ISP, should be the kingmaker of apps.

Even though the Internet touches every part of our lives, one person is to blame for potentially destroying its potential for innovation and freedom of expression: former FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski.

'Network neutrality' is sometimes called 'Internet freedom' or 'Internet openness' and is a legal principle that would forbid cable and phone companies like AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast from blocking some websites or providing special priority to others.

The current FCC chairman, Tom Wheeler, is highly regarded, but some distrust him because he is the former head lobbyist of both the cable and wireless phone industries. He's also made some statements suggesting he doesn't understand or opposes network neutrality.

Charter hired me - which, to be honest, took some humility on its part, since I have helped lead public campaigns against cable companies like Charter - to advise it in crafting its commitment to network neutrality.

The CEO of AT&T told an interviewer back in 2005 that he wanted to introduce a new business model to the Internet: charging companies like Google and Yahoo! to reliably reach Internet users on the AT&T network.

Net neutrality is the principle forbidding huge telecommunications companies from treating users, websites, or apps differently - say, by letting some work better than others over their pipes.

Before the Internet, we were in a different sort of dark age. We had to wait to hear news on TV at night or in print the next day. We had to go to record stores to find new music. Cocktail party debates couldn't be settled on the spot.

Public participation helped create the Internet, and it helps protect it. That's worth celebrating and remembering.

'Politico Magazine' listed me among the top 50 'thinkers, doers and visionaries transforming American politics' for my work in coalitions advancing net neutrality.

Over the course of a year - from January 2014 to March 2015 - millions of Americans, hundreds of businesses, and dozens of policymakers weighed in at the Federal Communications Commission in favor of net neutrality.

Under the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act, Tumblr, YouTube, Reddit, WordPress, and Facebook aren't responsible for the copyright infringement of each of their millions of users, so long as they take down specific posts, videos, or images when notified by copyright holders. But copyright holders thought that wasn't good enough.

The FCC has made it clear it would punish a cable or phone company for deviating from providing 'neutral' access.

The FCC should obviously not propose bad rules that will be struck down; it should propose good rules that will be upheld.

Both Republicans and Democrats can agree that more choices and lower prices in transportation would benefit consumers. Democrats would consider it 'smart government' and Republicans 'limited government.'

In 2011, mobile data traffic in the United States was eight times the size of the entire global Internet in 2000. That's traffic.

The terms of copyright last far too long: either the life of the author plus 70 years after death for a personal work or 95 years for a corporate work. That length doesn't encourage more authorship - it merely limits the speakers who could share powerful speeches, books, and films.

The Startup Act should give all Americans, not just immigrants, a better shot at being tomorrow's engineers and entrepreneurs. And that opportunity could begin at a young age with education in computer programming.

If someone has copyright over some piece of your stuff, you can sell it without permission from the copyright holder because the copyright holder can only control the 'first-sale.' The Supreme Court has recognized this doctrine since 1908.

Courts are supposed to interpret laws to avoid 'absurd results' and to avoid constitutional problems - such as infringing on the free speech rights of Americans.

If the court is a political institution making important political decisions, then the public should debate the politics of Supreme Court decisions.

'Bush v. Gore' gave us a president who lost the popular vote, eventually appointed two more justices, and led us into a war of choice while failing to regulate a financial system dependent on toxic mortgage-backed derivatives.

In 'Bush v. Gore,' five justices had a partisan outcome in mind and then made up the judicial principle to justify it, while claiming that the decision would not be precedent for any future cases.