Communication Systems as Public Utilities

COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS AS PUBLIC UTILITIES
Tues. 8-30-2022

 

To a surprising degree, telemarketers have ruined the usefulness of the telephone as a communic­ation system.  The purpose of this essay is to ask if a legal line of reasoning can be developed which will protect citizens from the threat of advertisers overwhelming and ruining the useful­ness of other communication systems.

The telephone system is legally classified as a public utility, but that has not prevented adver­tisers from becoming massive users of the telephone system.

At the end of August, 2022, the Wikipedia article on "Public utility" began:

"A public utility company (usually just utility) is an organization that maintains the infrastructure for a public service (often also providing a service using that infrastructure). Public utilities are subject to forms of public control and regul­ation ranging from local community-based groups to statewide government monopolies."

The article goes on to explain that the legal justification for partial government control of utility companies is based in part on the following reasoning: utilities have been defined as businesses which provide vital services to citizens such as water, transportation, and electricity which require a heavy investment in infrastructure on the part of the seller of the service: infrastructure such as railroad tracks, pipelines, and telephone lines: infrastructure that is so expensive to build and maintain, that there is a natural tendency for successful companies doing business in these fields to become monopolies.  The law regulating utilities is written so that society can tolerate monopolies and near-monopolies in these areas of business, while limiting the ordinary but undesirable effects of monopolies, such as overpricing.

What this essay is proposing is that utilities should be subject to public regulation -- another name for government regulation -- on other grounds besides the ground of limiting the unde­sirable effects of monopolies.  The specific justification for government regulation which we suggest is regulation to avoid the clogging of channels.

The idea of regulation to avoid the clogging of channels naturally embraces the idea of regulation to avoid the overwhelming of communication channels by advertisers.

We already have in place a concept intended to provide this benefit.  It is called the "Do Not Call list."  (At least, that is its name in the United States of America.)

But the Do Not Call list is a legal remedy which has failed.  It has failed because of lack of enforcement.

What we propose is creating an organization to administer and enforce Do Not Call lists.  And we propose that this organization be a part of the government.  We propose that a government agency should keep records of whether advertisers comply with Do Not Call lists, and penalize advertisers who do not comply.

We are proposing this not only as a model for detoxifying telephone communications, but also as a model for regulating the use of E-mail by advertisers, for preempting the future use of Face­book Messenger by advertisers, and likewise for protecting future communication systems not yet invented from being overwhelmed by advertisers.

The availability of electric and electronic means of communication to be used by people who need to communicate is a public good.  It should be protected as such: protected by law and by government.

In the past, telephone books contained a notice that failure to relinquish a party line on the telephone to another party to the line in an emergency was against the law and punishable by law.  The justification for this old law -- perhaps fallen into abeyance in the United States by reason of the obsolescence of different households sharing the same telephone line in our country -- needs to serve as a model for the writing of future laws to make the clogging of communic­ation channels by advertisers illegal and punishable.

Do Not Call lists provide a model for how this can be done.

Clogging channels is bad in canals; bad on railroad tracks which are in use; bad on radio frequencies; bad on the telephone; and bad on E-mail.

Many citizens are opposed to government regulation of anything.  But we would argue that government regulation of undesirable practices is still a good thing, and will always be so.

Frank Newton