Kara came out swinging this week over Meg Whitman’s insistence that the Skype acquisition by eBay should be put in her “win” column. Whitman, former CEO of eBay (EBAY), is running for governor of California, and Kara had her spin detector set to maximum. Speaking of dystopia, Kara covered the release of Ken Auletta’s new book, “Googled: The End of the World as We Know It.” Auletta posits that Google (GOOG) is more Spock than Kirk and lacks important emotional intelligence. He made similar accusations about another subject of his recent works: Microsoft (MSFT). Insert sarcastic gasp here. Kara rounded out the week with a flight aboard the airship “Broadband,” aka Virgin America. It seems as though Facebook is everywhere these days, and on this day in particular, Facebook was just a few rows behind her in the person of a PR guy from the company. The moral is that maybe the greatest thing about that speedy in-flight Internet is farming out the awkward seatmate talk to your email inbox. Kara did get an invitation to Facebook’s Washington, D.C., offices out of the deal.

Digital Daily opened the week with an invasion of droids. No, John wasn’t stuck in front of an Xbox playing Terminator; he was covering the release of the first 100,000 units of Motorola’s (MOT) newest iPhone competitor. John also covered Apple’s (AAPL) opening of a “significant store” in New York this week, which may shed light on the company’s future retail strategy. John sees potential for the newest store to serve as jai-alai palace, should the whole iPhone thing not work out. And just in case Kara’s story about Google’s lack of feeling wasn’t frightening enough, John brought us a look into the search giant’s designs on the software space occupied by Microsoft Office. While Google claims to have no plans for domination of office productivity, it sure seems like it would like to paint the whole cloud Chrome.

Peter gave us the cold hard facts about the projected costs of the coming AOL spinoff, as he began the week in somber tone. In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, AOL estimates losses will run to nearly $200 million and end employment for up to 1,000 people. Nothing gets Peter up from that kind of low quite like a good session with “The Office,” and this week’s episode was just too good to pass up. The team at Dunder Mifflin did a little Wall Street Journal paywall pole-vault right on screen. Commentary on recent “Murdochian” events or not, Peter thinks it’s just good TV. MediaMemo covered the pending AOL spinoff from the other end this week and addressed the biggest problem in the room head on: AOL is going to enter a space it hasn’t filled since the days when the sound of “you’ve got mail” meant you were high tech. Google runs the yard now, which will make it harder for AOL’s old dog to play with the comparatively young pups.

Most people think bigger is better, but in the strange world of tech columnists, small reigns supreme. Walt’s Personal Technology column this week covered three new laptops with some very sleek features to please the holiday consumer. New offerings from Toshiba, HP (HPQ) and Lenovo came under the Mossberg microscope, and all were pronounced impressive, if a bit pricy. Walt’s semifavorite is the Lenovo, but his preference for the slim, light design admittedly came at the heavy expense of limited battery life. The trip to Mossberg’s Mailbox this week yielded answers on pressing questions from potential Motorola Droid owners, a person hoping to make the move from a Palm (PALM) PDA to an iPhone, and from an older computer user thinking about making the switch to Apple’s new bigger-screened iMac. Over at The Mossberg Solution, Katie reviewed the new BlackBerry Bold from Research in Motion (RIM), which seemed to have 10 percent more features and a similar reduction in size. The newest model wasn’t quite as Bold as its predecessors, Katie found. Many features originally reserved for this higher-end model have been passed down to the rest of the product range. Her advice: have a look at the Tour or Curve 8900 before going Bold.

Tune in next week to get the 30,000-foot view on the wide world of tech from the road-ready AllThingsD team. Let’s hope we can get Wi-Fi on that flight too.

Digital Daily never disappoints in the headline department and OMFG, this week was no exception. John pulled some juicy nuggets out of CTIA’s semiannual wireless survey, including the staggering figure of 4.1 billion— the number of text messages Americans exchange each day. Google Voice was among the top stories again, thanks to a group of House members who asked the Federal Communications Commission to investigate the service. Digital Daily rounded out he week with comments from Qualcomm (QCOM) CEO Paul Jacobs and the cacophony that is the net neutrality debate. With a dazzling turn of phrase, Jacobs supported the idea of “traffic shaping”, or giving network managers the keys to their net-neutrality handcuffs.

Three time zones away at MediaMemo, Peter didn’t seem sure whether it was a sadder week for music sales or for music in general. Music sales are still in a slump. What may be worse, however, is that the slump was only slowed by Michael Jackson and The Beatles, neither of whom seems like a pillar for viable growth. Amid music’s slump, there may be a ray of hope in videoland. MediaMemo reported that Network TV-buster YouTube seems to be learning how to play nice with the other kids, offering certain content producers a way to channel some revenue back into their own coffers. The momentary bright spot for media quickly evaporated when it came time to talk about print. Peter followed the story of Condé Nast’s multiple magazine closings. It’s always a sad day when there are fewer beautifully composed pictures of cookies in the world.

Rounding out the week, Walt released his anticipated review of Windows 7, and proclaimed it good enough to help you get rid of that lingering Vista hangover. With installation times averaging about 45 minutes and lots of neat new features, Windows 7 may just be good enough to make you feel like having a party. Mossberg’s Mailbox was peppered with several Windows 7 RSVPs. Walt issued his usual sage advice about switching to Windows 7, as well as a quickie about personal finance software. The Mossberg Solution covered a set of new point-and-shoot cameras, each with a striking party piece. Katie reviewed the Samsung Dualview TL225, which features a second screen on the front of the camera for convenient self portraits, and the Nikon Coolpix S1000pj, which features an actual projector right inside the camera. Both cameras earned praise for ingenuity, with the caveat that those new features come with an extra price tag.

Check back early and often. There’s always room for AllThingsD.

“Recent reports indicate that Google’s Google Voice service restricts calling from consumers to certain rural communities,” the FCC wrote. “We are interested in gathering facts that can provide a more complete understanding of this situation.”

Though Google (GOOG) has until Oct. 28 to file a formal response, the search giant was quick to thump the tub in its defense on its Public Policy Blog. There, Rick Whitt, the company’s telecom and media counsel, argued again that Google Voice is not a traditional phone service and should not be regulated like one.

“Google Voice is not intended to be a replacement for traditional phone service–in fact, you need an existing land or wireless line in order to use it. Importantly, users are still able to make outbound calls on any other phone device,” Whitt wrote. “…AT&T apparently now wants web applications–from Skype to Google Voice–to be treated the same way as traditional phone services. Their approach is what a former FCC chairman has called ‘regulatory capitalism,’ the practice of using regulation to block or slow down innovation. And despite AT&T’s lobbying efforts, this issue has nothing to do with network neutrality or rural America. This is about outdated carrier compensation rules that are fundamentally broken and in need of repair by the FCC.”

“It’s very obvious that we are pushing the limits of the amount of capacity we have,” Jacobs said, adding that network neutrality regulations should not restrict operators’ ability to manage their networks.

“Operators should have the ability to say: ‘let’s be fair, this person’s moved a lot of data, this person’s used a little’, if they’re paying the same amount, then the person who’s used less will get more access….We are on the side of, yes, you have to be able to do something to manage your network, but it’s not the right thing to go in and say one service or another is OK.”

In other words, Qualcomm (QCOM) favors usage-based throttling. In theory, this should ensure that all customers get their fair share of bandwidth every hour of the day. In practice, however, it has meant something else entirely. So the question remains: If data traffic is to be shaped (and I am not saying that it should be), who will determine how it will be shaped and, more importantly, who can be trusted to make that determination fairly?

Jacobs’s remarks come a day after Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski reiterated the Obama administration’s call for network neutrality.

Yesterday, A group of House members from rural districts called on the Federal Communications Commission to investigate Google’s practice of blocking calls to numbers that use rural exchanges to charge inflated prices–something regulation prevents traditional telecom carriers from doing.

In their letter to the FCC, the lawmakers–among them Reps. Steve Buyer (R., Ind.), Charlie Melancon (D., La.), Michele Bachmann (R., Minn.) and John Barrow (D., Ga.)–claim that rural consumers will be harmed if Google is allowed to “evade compliance with important principles of access and competition.”

“We understand Google has asserted Google Voice is not a ‘traditional’ telephone service–despite its use of 10-digit telephone numbers and its ability to connect calls between telephones through a local exchange carrier,” the lawmakers wrote in the letter. “Instead, Google maintains it ought to be allowed to block calls to rural telephone exchanges–a position we find ill conceived and unfair to our rural constituents.”

This, of course, is pretty much what AT&T (T) said in September when it slagged Google (GOOG) as “one of the most noisome trumpeters of so-called net-neutrality” and asked the FCC to order it to “play by the same rules as its competitors.” Google, however, insists those rules don’t apply in its case.

“The FCC’s open Internet principles apply only to the behavior of broadband carriers–not the creators of Web-based software applications,” Google telecom counsel Richard Whitt wrote in response to AT&T’s complaint. “Even though the FCC does not have jurisdiction over how software applications function, AT&T apparently wants to use the regulatory process to undermine Web-based competition and innovation.”

Kara was half James Bond, half Indiana Jones in the cities and jungles of BoomTown this week. She jet-setted, jet-lagged and still managed to report on a genuine cougar fight.

BoomTown waved goodbye to merry old England and racked up some more frequent flier miles early in the week heading back to the techie embrace of Silicon Valley. Before her tray table was locked, though, Kara made a quick stop at music darling-of-the-moment Spotify. Daniel Ek, founder and CEO, hopes to bring its pay-per-month music service to millions of American mobile devices, to add to its hefty presence in the U.K. and Europe.

As D-Force One touched down at AllThingsD headquarters, one of the valley’s original major players shook things up with a $100 million branding move. Yahoo (YHOO), possibly now spelled Y!hoo, changed its brand in support of an overall shakeup of its services. Kara hearkened back to the D conference and wondered if rebranding the company Y!#@&$oo might have been more appropriate, considering CEO Carol Bartz’s preference for “salty” language.

And not to be left out of a worthy chuckle, BoomTown brought readers the inside scoop on the cougar that came to town. Yes, a cougar–or mountain lion, if you’re from California–was seem roaming the hills above Microsoft’s Redmond, Wash., campus this week. The company circulated a fairly priceless memo that included tips on how to successfully fight a cougar. Any such advice against snow leopards, however, was omitted.

As Kara was jet lagging, John was running full-tilt over at Digital Daily. On Monday, the Federal Trade Commission released a new proposal to institutionalize Net neutrality. The proposal would ban Internet service providers and data deliverers from prohibiting or throttling content to promote their own services. John pointed out that it wasn’t too surprising that AT&T (T)–and Republicans–weren’t too happy with the move.

While politicians exercised their series of tubes, Microsoft (MSFT) was busy shadow-tablet boxing. John filed a report about the first Microsoft device designed exclusively to compete with a product Apple (AAPL) doesn’t make. The “Courier,” as the two-page “tablet-book” is called, features some decidedly un-Apple-like interfaces, unless of course you look a little farther back to the days of the Newton.

To finish out the week, Digital Daily took the AllThingsD time machine back to 2003, when Apple was rolling out its revolutionary MMS service. Sometime Friday, iPhone users were suddenly able to share pictures with friends over the air. Unless they already use Flickr, Facebook, or about a zillion other apps that basically do the same thing.

MediaMemo explored its inner, or maybe outer, geek this week, beginning with the Gizmodo annual gallery show. The charity event featured musical Tesla coils, Star Trek props and a “Microsoft Surface”-like computer with a mud-based (not joking) user interface.

Peter continued the browsing theme, reporting that Yahoo and Google were both back in the market for acquisitions. Google (GOOG) CEO Eric Schmidt said he had his checkbook open again, now that “the worst is behind us.”

Even if Yahoo and Google are in a buying mood, one particular VC firm isn’t feeling so flush. New York’s Union Square Ventures opted out of the latest round of Twitter fund-raising. Peter hazarded a guess that the now-famous $1 billion valuation may have had something to do with it.

Across town at the Mossberg Solution, Katie gave readers a complete rundown on the Microsoft Zune HD. The iPod-hunting media player is now in its fourth generation. The player got high marks in the style and widgets categories, but still needs a solution to the confusing “points system” purchase interface. The problem with Zune isn’t the player, it seems, but the stuff Zune isn’t connected to.

It’s going to be another week of electro-awesomeness here at AllThingsD. Until then, always remember that you should never turn your back on a cougar. The safest way to escape is to buy it a pomegranate martini and squeeze out the window of the men’s bathroom.

BoomTown was abuzz with Pixis, Plums and power this week as Kara focused on tech that wasn’t Apple, and reminded us that lady geeks hold the power in Silicon Valley.

While Apple was gathering clouds for its Rock and Roll storm, Palm (PALM) released the teeny Pixi, designed, Palm hopes, to steal some of that Apple (AAPL) thunder. The Pixi smart phone, while smaller and thinner, reported Kara, has fewer features and less power than the already available Pre.

Small can be good in the world of tech, and BoomTown reported that a certain Nordic tech behemoth thinks so too. Nokia (NOK) announced that it had acquired “microsocial networking” start-up Plum, whose signature offering allows users to build smaller, more intimate electronic social networks.

Kara did it “like a boss” this week and highlighted the tech sector mavens from Fortune magazine’s annual list of most powerful women. Ursula Burns of Xerox (XRX), IBM-er (IBM) Ginni Rometty and Oracle (ORCL) President Safra Catz were among those at the top. BoomTown will be at the upcoming conference associated with the Fortune list, so look for Kara’s Flip video interviews with these Titanias of tech.

It was nice of Apple to release new iPods just in time for John’s birthday this week, and Digital Daily returned the favor with high-bandwidth, hard-rockin’ coverage of Apple’s music-themed event, complete with live photos and blogging. John liked the video feature of the new iPod nano, but focused on the biggest news of the week–Apple’s upgraded CEO.

Digital Daily’s Apple coverage didn’t stop at The Steve. Ever since announcement of the exclusive Apple-AT&T (T) partnership, current and would-be iPhone freaks have speculated as to what kind of deal will be struck when that contract expires. John reported that iSuppli prognosticators think the agreement may be extended when it runs out in 2010.

John closed out the week with Twitter leaks about the newest incarnation of Microsoft’s (MSFT) Google-toppler (GOOG), Bing. Microsoft showcased Bing 2.0 at the annual company meeting, which some employees took as a green light to tweet away about the unreleased product. Microsoft HQ was more tight-lipped, telling John only that the rollout would happen over the next few months.

MediaMemo followed the money this week–specifically advertising dollars. A year after the Lehman collapse, Peter cited a MediaPost survey that showed some growth in ad spending. In a down market, Peter reminded, sometimes the only place to go, is up. Let’s hope so.

Not to be left out of Apple’s party, MediaMemo covered the release of an iPhone app from RealNetworks (RNWK) that brings all-you-can-eat music for a monthly fee. Wall Street barely blinked at the deal, but changes may come if the service catches on as competitor Spotify has in Europe.

And while the NFL won’t let players tweet from the end zone, it is upping its tech quotient by bringing blacked-out games to your Internet browser. MediaMemo reported that the lower-attendance games would be available to tech-savvy sports nuts–after midnight on game day. Get out the Fritos and espresso, guys, its game time.

True to form as the Lincoln of our very own Mt. Techmore, Walt’s address this week was aimed at helping the wayward get back on track with a bevy of new iPhone navigation apps. This new breed of high dollar apps harnesses the power of the iPhone 3GS to replace those ever present dash top GPS navigation units.

Walt extended his techno-presidential benevolence with another installment of Mossberg’s Mailbox. Networked storage, Quicken for Mac and the ominously impending switch to Windows 7 were all up for discussion.

At the Mossberg Solution, Katie tested Postbox, software designed to bring novel management solutions to your inbox. Developed by some of the guys from Mozilla, Postbox does offer lots of great features, Katie said, even if the switch to the new tools might not be easy for all.

Lots more shiny new tech talk next week. Stay tuned.

That might seem an inane question, coming from the FCC, but when you think about it, it has never really been answered, not even by broadband carriers, which would undoubtedly prefer that the term be ambiguous enough to allow for all manner of throughput/delivered speeds, usage caps, and latency. So it’s a good time to ask it. As senior adviser Carlos Kirjner explains in a post to the FCC blog today:

• If we want to decide who has and who does not have broadband, we actually need to agree on what we mean by broadband.
• If we want to decide who can take advantage of one type of application or another, we need to know what they are actually getting today, and what is the gap between that and what they actually need to get.
• If we need to know how much it would cost the country to enable all or a subset of its households and businesses to take advantage of one application or another, we need to know what the gap is between where we are and where we want to be.
• If we want to ensure that consumers have a clear and accurate view of what they are getting for their money, we need to decide what are the important metrics, and how to measure them.

Good points, all. But allow me to suggest one more:

• If we’re going to start handing out $7.4 billion in federal grants for broadband improvements, we should make damn sure that broadband is improved.

Because the last time we invested in our broadband future, we didn’t see much return on that investment.

In the run-up to the Telecommunications Act of 1996, the incumbent telecoms promised to provide fiber-optic connections to millions of households across the country. In exchange, they were given some $200 billion in tax cuts and higher service rates to pay for it. But the telecoms didn’t spend that money on fiber upgrades; they spent it on long distance, wireless and inferior DSL services.

“By 2005, if the Bell companies had actually delivered on their broadband promises, approximately 86 million households would have had fiber-optic-based services,” Bruce Kushnick, executive director of New Networks Institute, explains in “The $300 Billion Broadband Scandal.” “These state commitments also would have rewired schools and libraries, hospitals and government offices. And in most states, the plan called for ALL customers to be rewired equally, whether they were in rural or urban areas, rich or poor. Universal broadband was to be accomplished state-by-state because customers were, in essence, de facto investors funding these network upgrades.”

But that’s not what happened (click on image below to enlarge). Know anyone in California who had Pac Bell fiber in 1996? How about 2000? Yeah, didn’t think so. And that’s something worth mulling today.

The reasons for the decline? Seasonality, the econalypse and the maturation of the market. “The second quarter has proven to be traditionally weak for broadband growth, but with the market becoming more mature, broadband adds further waned,” Bruce Leichtman, LRG’s president and principal analyst, said in a statement.

Poor broadband infrastructure and limited access to it in rural areas clearly also played a role. In rural America, just 31 percent of residents have a broadband connection, as opposed to more than two-thirds in the rest of the country, according to the Pew Internet and American Life Project. No wonder America now ranks 15th in the world on broadband access, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

So that $7.2 billion in broadband investments the Obama administration recently pledged stands to do a lot of good–assuming it’s put to use by the right folks. It’s not yet clear that will happen, however, because the large network operators best positioned to roll out access to underserved areas are afraid of taking stimulus money for fear of net-neutrality conditions that might be attached to it, as well as of unwanted government scrutiny.

And as Robert Atkinson, president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, notes, that’s really too bad. “If you want to get broadband out, you have to do it with [those] who brought you to the dance in the first place, and in this case it is the incumbent cable and telephone carriers who have 85 percent of lines in the country,” he told the Washington Post. “This is not basket weaving. This is really complex and intensive technical stuff that takes a fair amount of sophistication and scale to be able to do right and to continue to upgrade.”

[Image Credit: Flickr/alan i am]

An odd turn of events, considering Hathaway led the administration’s 60-day review of governmentwide cybersecurity preparedness and seemed its likely choice to head up the new cybersecurity office. With the post now vacant and the list of candidates who’ve been considered for the job rumored to have reached at least 30, the administration may have a tough time finding the right person for this difficult job–and convincing him or her to accept it.

“As it stands right now, the cyber czar would have two bosses, the National Security Council and National Economic Council, as well as a chief information officer and chief technology officer,” Greg Garcia, former assistant secretary for cybersecurity and communications at the Department of Homeland Security, told Dark Reading. “In addition, that individual would have to herd all of the cats at DHS and other agencies. Those are big shoes to fill–in fact, I’m skeptical that anyone could succeed in the [cyber czar] job.”

And Garcia’s not the only one. Among other potential candidates who’ve reportedly told the White House they’re not interested: former Republican U.S. Representative Tom Davis of northern Virginia, Microsoft (MSFT) executive Scott Charney, Symantec (SYMC) Chairman John Thompson and retired Air Force General Harry Raduege Jr., the former Defense Information Systems Agency director and co-chair of the Commission on Cybersecurity for the 44th Presidency.

“If you can’t text, then you Twitter. And, you know, my guess is in some of these countries that–that the leadership is kind of like me. They don’t have a clue what it’s about.”

– Defense Secretary Robert Gates

This web- and Twitter-savvy move (he uses the word “retweet”!) is the most immediate piece of a digital campaign strategy that also includes a YouTube channel, a Facebook presence, a Flickr account and a Digg profile, all lined up in the footer of every page on his Web site. Visitors are also urged to sign up for an email newsletter.

Campaign 2.0 was ushered into existence by Barack Obama’s brilliant campaign manager, David Plouffe, who really set the gold standard, even though Twitter wasn’t a part of his strategy. The microblogging powerhouse wasn’t at quite the same level of omnipresence a year and a half ago as it is today.

One of Twitter’s most persistent qualities is its malleability, lending it to any number of creative applications users can invent and implement. Of course, Twitter is the tool, not the strategy–next election cycle, there will no doubt be a new shiny new app to play with. But for now, It will be interesting to see if Newsom’s camp does something creative with this one.

For instance, BoomTown was in Rome earlier this week attending a conference on business, brand and innovation that happens only once every seven years–and one of the biggest takeaways? Hardly any Italians have heard of Twitter, and those who have don’t really use it. Well, that, and conversations with Arianna Huffington, Reid Hoffman, and several Italian business leaders. Mark Zuckerberg, though, is most definitely plugged into the white-hot microblogging service. This week, he used his Twitter account, plus an appearance on “Oprah,” as a platform to herald the launch of Facebook’s own Twitteresque homepage redesign. In other news, Time Warner (TWX) CEO Jeff Bewkes laid off AOL President and COO Ron Grant and Chairman and CEO Randy Falco. BoomTown interviewed Falco’s replacement, Google (GOOG) ad sales exec Tim Armstrong, who’ll start at AOL as Chairman and CEO on April 7.

MediaMemo had the full memo from Time Warner on the Falco/Grant-Armstrong transition and also spoke with Boxee CEO Avner Ronen this week. Boxee is the start-up that lets you watch Web video on your TV, basically bypassing your cable box. Which is probably why it’s caught up in a cat-and-mouse game with Hulu, the joint venture between GE’s (GE) NBC and News Corp.’s (NWS) Fox that would much rather have you watch TV on the Internet instead. Guess who’s the mouse? Still, Hulu is down two networks, ABC and CBS (CBS)–though presumably, the aim is to offer all three. (News Corp. is the owner of Dow Jones, which owns this Web site.) MediaMemo also noted that Google rolled out its behavioral targeting functionality this week and points out that we all might be hearing a lot more from a man named Rick Boucher in the near future as a result.

Behavioral targeting wasn’t the only thing that Google rolled out this week–it also launched Google Voice, the initiative based on the company’s acquisition of voice communications start-up GrandCentral. Digital Daily covered the story. Elsewhere in the telecom world, major Palm (PALM) investor Roger McNamee made some bold (read: crazy) assertions about iPhone users switching en masse to the Pre, which later needed to be clarified (read: backed away from) by Palm itself. RBC analyst Mike Abramsky is also bullish on the Pre and its WebOS, but in a less crazy way. He gave it a glowing write-up on Friday. For a product that hasn’t yet been given a price or a launch date, it’s certainly building itself some high expectations. Of course, it’ll need to fulfill them to compete with the ever-evolving iPhone, which for which Apple (AAPL) is having a press event Tuesday to announce version 3.0 of the device’s OS.

Walt Mossberg reviewed the new version of Apple’s ever-evolving iPod Shuffle this week, which has the distinction of being the first mp3 player to “speak.” His verdict was in Wednesday’s Personal Technology column. In Mossberg’s Mailbox, Walt answered questions about using a stylus with the iPhone and offered an explanation on how to change Apple’s Safari 4 beta so that it looks and works more like the previous version. And in this week’s Mossberg Solution, Katie Boehret took a look at iSkoot’s Notifier, an app designed to endow basic cellphones with smartphone-like capabilities.

More next week. And beware the Ides of March. Or not.

Obama made the now obligatory pilgrimage yesterday to Google headquarters, where he unveiled a high-tech agenda that might just as easily have been written by Google’s director of public policy and government affairs as by Obama’s campaign office.

Promising to use technology to bring openness and transparency to American democracy after seven years of “one of the most secretive administrations in our history,” Obama laid out a detailed package of technology policies designed to provide more Web accessibility to government records, strengthen online privacy, free up wireless spectrum, put high-speed broadband within reach of all Americans, reform the patent system and maintain network neutrality. “I will take a backseat to no one in my commitment to network neutrality,” Obama said in prepared remarks. “Because once providers start to privilege some applications or Web sites over others, then the smaller voices get squeezed out, and we all lose. The Internet is perhaps the most open network in history. We have to keep it that way.”

Impressive, yeah? But does Obama have the sort of experience needed to implement that sort of broad-reaching Silicon Valley policy wish list? Asked just this question by a Google employee, Obama replied: “Sergey and Larry didn’t have a lot of experience starting this Fortune 100 company. I suppose when they came in and started talking to [Google General Counsel] Dave Drummond about starting a company, he could have said, ‘They don’t know what they’re doing.’”

Of course, the irony, the hysterical irony, of this is that back in 2000, Yahoo policy on international legal matters like these was quite a bit different–diametrically opposed, to be exact. Defending the company against a French court’s order to remove Nazi memorabilia from its auction pages, Yahoo’s top French executive, Philippe Guillanton, said that such a ruling ran against the international nature of the World Wide Web. “Yahoo.com is not doing anything unlawful. It is completely complying with the law of the country in which it operates and where its target audience is,” Guillanton said. “Yahoo auctions in the U.S. are ruled by the legal, moral and cultural principles of that country.”

Nice, eh? As Rough Type’s Nick Carr notes, “Times change, and so do companies. This time, Yahoo executives are making no mention of ‘the legal, moral and cultural principles’ of the U.S.”