

Silicon Valley Has an Unfair Advantage, Deutsche Telekom CEO Says - rmoriz
http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2015/01/18/silicon-valley-has-an-unfair-advantage-deutsche-telekom-ceo-says/

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briandear
This is nonsense. Facebook is effectively a website, not an infrastructure in
the same vein as telecoms. Why should they be regulated like telecoms? They
aren't providing bandwidth or pipes. The DT guy has his business confused.
Facebook isn't a utility. It's like the electric company complaining that
microwaves funny have to be regulated the same way as power plants. Facebook
is ultimately a consumer of telecom infrastructure, not a provider of it.

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cmurf
I mostly agree, although Zuckerberg has compared Facebook to public utilities
water and electricity. [http://abcnews.go.com/Business/mark-zuckerberg-thinks-
cool-w...](http://abcnews.go.com/Business/mark-zuckerberg-thinks-cool-wears-
shirt/story?id=26738638) The other thing is that telecoms are inclined to
become monopolies due to physical their infrastructure, and then they piss off
their users who then petition governments for regulation. The point at which
Facebook has sufficiently little competition while also annoying its users, it
too will be regulated. But I don't see how you just haphazardly regulate X the
same way as Y, just because both seem to do Z.

