I think the point that his rousing hand-waving passes conveniently (and at great length) over is that the internet is a novel medium and legal ideas about what is and is not ethical business practice are very poorly defined if they are defined at all.
For instance at what point can we argue that the rights of Facebook users and the "stickyness" of the service should limit the autonomy of Facebook as an independent company?
E.g. perhaps at some point, if Facebook becomes nigh-on-ineradicable from the fabric of our lives, should we nationalise (globalise) it? The argument would be that it's not just "another service" and it's too important to leave in the hands of private individuals interested primarily in profit, and thus the rihts of its many users outweigh the prerogatives of its "owners".
I am a big proponant of nationalising the services that should be - see the total farce over UK rail networks for example.
I strongly suspect most countries will put in place some forms of regulation or nationalisation over IP connectivity
to the house - but once connected the very DNA of the Internet means that such monopolies are as trivially bypassable as any service provider has ever been.
Myspace is probably the best counter example to this threat there can be. And it also cost Rupert Murdoch 1/2 billion so there was a silver lining.
For instance at what point can we argue that the rights of Facebook users and the "stickyness" of the service should limit the autonomy of Facebook as an independent company?
E.g. perhaps at some point, if Facebook becomes nigh-on-ineradicable from the fabric of our lives, should we nationalise (globalise) it? The argument would be that it's not just "another service" and it's too important to leave in the hands of private individuals interested primarily in profit, and thus the rihts of its many users outweigh the prerogatives of its "owners".